# Beyond Summarization: Designing AI Support for Real-World Expository Writing Tasks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02623 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02623/

## Key facts

- Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Apr 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.10084/) (2019)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Fine-Tuning Language Models from Human Preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08593/) (2019)
- [Survey of Hallucination in Natural Language Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03629/) (2022)
- [Scaling Language Models: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Training Gopher](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11446/) (2021)
- [Using DeepSpeed and Megatron to Train Megatron-Turing NLG 530B, A Large-Scale Generative Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11990/) (2022)
- [Benchmarking Large Language Models for News Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.13848/) (2023)
- [SPECTER: Document-level Representation Learning using Citation-informed Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07180/) (2020)
- [CoAuthor: Designing a Human-AI Collaborative Writing Dataset for Exploring Language Model Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06796/) (2022)
- [Re3: Generating Longer Stories With Recursive Reprompting and Revision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06774/) (2022)
- [Co-Writing Screenplays and Theatre Scripts with Language Models: An Evaluation by Industry Professionals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14958/) (2022)
- [Sparks: Inspiration for Science Writing using Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07640/) (2021)
- [Multi-LexSum: Real-World Summaries of Civil Rights Lawsuits at Multiple Granularities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.10883/) (2022)
- [Augmenting Scientific Papers with Just-in-Time, Position-Sensitive Definitions of Terms and Symbols](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.14237/) (2020)
- [What's in a Summary? Laying the Groundwork for Advances in Hospital-Course Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.00816/) (2021)
- [Don't Say What You Don't Know: Improving the Consistency of Abstractive Summarization by Constraining Beam Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08436/) (2022)
- [Threddy: An Interactive System for Personalized Thread-based Exploration and Organization of Scientific Literature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.03455/) (2022)
- [CiteSee: Augmenting Citations in Scientific Papers with Persistent and Personalized Historical Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.07302/) (2023)
- [Relatedly: Scaffolding Literature Reviews with Existing Related Work Sections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06754/) (2023)
- [Mapping the Design Space of Human-AI Interaction in Text Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14863/) (2022)
- [SciCo: Hierarchical Cross-Document Coreference for Scientific Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08809/) (2021)
- [ComLittee: Literature Discovery with Personal Elected Author Committees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06780/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [Assisting in Writing Wikipedia-like Articles From Scratch with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14207/) (2024)
- [Pearl: Personalizing Large Language Model Writing Assistants with Generation-Calibrated Retrievers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.09180/) (2023)
- [Aligning LLM Agents by Learning Latent Preference from User Edits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.15269/) (2024)
- [Into the Unknown Unknowns: Engaged Human Learning through Participation in Language Model Agent Conversations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15232/) (2024)
- [Beyond the Chat: Executable and Verifiable Text-Editing with LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15337/) (2023)
- [ARIES: A Corpus of Scientific Paper Edits Made in Response to Peer Reviews](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12587/) (2023)
- [Prototypical Human-AI Collaboration Behaviors from LLM-Assisted Writing in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16023/) (2025)
- [RAPID: Efficient Retrieval-Augmented Long Text Generation with Writing Planning and Information Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00751/) (2025)
- [OmniThink: Expanding Knowledge Boundaries in Machine Writing through Thinking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.09751/) (2025)
- [LLMs with Industrial Lens: Deciphering the Challenges and Prospects -- A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14558/) (2024)
- [Large Language Models on Wikipedia-Style Survey Generation: an Evaluation in NLP Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10410/) (2023)
- [KIWI: A Dataset of Knowledge-Intensive Writing Instructions for Answering Research Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03866/) (2024)
- [Can LLMs Automate Fact-Checking Article Writing?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.17684/) (2025)
- [WikiAutoGen: Towards Multi-Modal Wikipedia-Style Article Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19065/) (2025)
- [Conceptualizing Machine Learning for Dynamic Information Retrieval of Electronic Health Record Notes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08494/) (2023)
- [No Size Fits All: The Perils and Pitfalls of Leveraging LLMs Vary with Company Size](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.01444/) (2024)
- [Language Models Don't Know What You Want: Evaluating Personalization in Deep Research Needs Real Users](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16120/) (2026)
- [Improving Attributed Long-form Question Answering with Intent Awareness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.27435/) (2026)
- [StepWrite: Adaptive Planning for Speech-Driven Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04011/) (2025)
- [LitPivot: Developing Well-Situated Research Ideas Through Dynamic Contextualization and Critique within the Literature Landscape](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02600/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models have introduced exciting new opportunities and challenges in designing and developing new AI-assisted writing support tools. Recent work has shown that leveraging this new technology can transform writing in many scenarios such as ideation during creative writing, editing support, and summarization. However, AI-supported expository writing--including real-world tasks like scholars writing literature reviews or doctors writing progress notes--is relatively understudied. In this position paper, we argue that developing AI supports for expository writing has unique and exciting research challenges and can lead to high real-world impacts. We characterize expository writing as evidence-based and knowledge-generating: it contains summaries of external documents as well as new information or knowledge. It can be seen as the product of authors' sensemaking process over a set of source documents, and the interplay between reading, reflection, and writing opens up new opportunities for designing AI support. We sketch three components for AI support design and discuss considerations for future research.