From Intention to Text: AI-Supported Goal Setting in Academic Writing

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Fan, Yueling, Davis, Richard Lee, Viberg, Olga
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Fan, Yueling
Davis, Richard Lee
Viberg, Olga
author_facet Fan, Yueling
Davis, Richard Lee
Viberg, Olga
contents This study presents WriteFlow, an AI voice-based writing assistant designed to support reflective academic writing through goal-oriented interaction. Academic writing involves iterative reflection and evolving goal regulation, yet prior research and a formative study with 17 participants show that writers often struggle to articulate and manage changing goals. While commonly used AI writing tools emphasize efficiency, they offer limited support for metacognition and writer agency. WriteFlow frames AI interaction as a dialogic space for ongoing goal articulation, monitoring, and negotiation grounded in writers' intentions. Findings from a Wizard-of-Oz study with 12 expert users show that WriteFlow scaffolds metacognitive regulation and reflection-in-action by supporting iterative goal refinement, maintaining goal-text alignment during drafting, and prompting evaluation of goal fulfillment. We discuss design implications for AI writing systems that prioritize reflective dialogue, flexible goal structures, and multi-perspective feedback to support intentional and agentic writing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_15800
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Intention to Text: AI-Supported Goal Setting in Academic Writing
Fan, Yueling
Davis, Richard Lee
Viberg, Olga
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
This study presents WriteFlow, an AI voice-based writing assistant designed to support reflective academic writing through goal-oriented interaction. Academic writing involves iterative reflection and evolving goal regulation, yet prior research and a formative study with 17 participants show that writers often struggle to articulate and manage changing goals. While commonly used AI writing tools emphasize efficiency, they offer limited support for metacognition and writer agency. WriteFlow frames AI interaction as a dialogic space for ongoing goal articulation, monitoring, and negotiation grounded in writers' intentions. Findings from a Wizard-of-Oz study with 12 expert users show that WriteFlow scaffolds metacognitive regulation and reflection-in-action by supporting iterative goal refinement, maintaining goal-text alignment during drafting, and prompting evaluation of goal fulfillment. We discuss design implications for AI writing systems that prioritize reflective dialogue, flexible goal structures, and multi-perspective feedback to support intentional and agentic writing.
title From Intention to Text: AI-Supported Goal Setting in Academic Writing
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.15800