How Writing Coach is “opening new horizons” for one PhD researcher
Norhan Attia Ahmed has always found writing the most challenging aspect of research. In this article, she explains why that’s changing.
Like most researchers, Norhan Attia Ahmed’s schedule is a busy one. She’s not only studying for her PhD in clinical pharmacy at Egypt’s Assiut University, she’s also an assistant lecturer.
Yet, earlier this year, Norhan carved out time to beta test LeapSpaceTM Writing Coach, a secure conversational workspace launched in June 2026 to support the scholarly writing process.
What is Writing Coach?
Writing Coach is an AI workspace that blends LeapSpace’s trusted content with Claim Radar analysis and scientific writing expertise. Intentionally designed for academic workflows, it prioritizes text validation and critical thinking, not text generation.
For Norhan, the decision to participate was an easy one. “I find writing much harder than working with samples or generating statistics – in fact, I think it’s the most difficult part of research,” she admits. “You need to organize your ideas and present them very clearly and strongly if you want to get published in a good journal. English isn't my native language, so that was helpful. The idea of a tool specifically designed to help with that was very interesting to me.” Although Norhan has used consumer AI tools to support her writing in the past, she wasn’t always happy with the results. “The problem is the hallucinations. When you click on a reference, it’s often different from the source. And sometimes they act on their own. That just makes more work because you need to double check everything or even start again.” According to Norhan, the fact that Writing Coach is grounded in the same peer-reviewed literature as LeapSpace reduces her fear of hallucinations. “It gives me much more confidence in the results. And although I still check every reference, I haven’t found any errors yet!” Importantly, with Writing Coach, Norhan feels like she’s in control. “It doesn’t make any changes without my approval. And it doesn't mask my voice — it just helps me express myself more clearly."
Coaching that extends beyond your current project
For Norhan, another big benefit has been the improvement she’s seen in her own writing since she started using the tool. “I think that academic writing is something you can learn by trial and error,” she explains. “And Writing Coach is opening new horizons in my thinking. When it says, ‘you could improve this’, or ‘have you thought about adding this?’, I'm learning how to write, how to think, how to identify gaps and errors. It’s also training me to improve flow, grammar and structure.”
And for Norhan, honing these skills is important. Once she gains her PhD, she will be responsible for revising the manuscripts of other students. “So, when I use Writing Coach I don’t just take the answer and copy paste it or adjust it. I read it. I find what I missed and what the AI added. And step by step, I learn.”
What I loved about Writing Coach is that it helped me divide my research question into smaller subjects, surfaced papers I'd missed and identified where my arguments weren't conclusive… It felt like Writing Coach knew what I wanted it to do.
Norhan Attia Ahmed
Assiut University, Egypt, Assistant Lecturer Clinical Pharmacy (Oncology) and PhD student
Support across the writing workflow
Norhan used her beta access to Writing Coach to refine her PhD proposal, which has since been accepted. Here are some of the ways she leveraged the tool.
To get started: “Sometimes I felt blank. I had ideas, but I didn't know how to organize them. I entered the topic into Writing Coach and asked for advice. Its suggestions gave me a great starting point.”
For a second opinion: “I asked questions like ‘what do you think about this idea?’ or ‘should I add this paragraph?’ and the responses helped me move forward.”
To improve search: “Using keywords can be tricky; especially when a topic is new and unfamiliar. I just typed in a normal sentence into Writing Coach, and it gave me the papers that I needed. It was very easy.”
To identify literature gaps: “Writing Coach highlighted where I missed evidence and suggested relevant references.”
To source references: “I asked Writing Coach to look at my references and find more recent ones. It not only found them, it also gave me the option to add them after specific paragraphs. I loved that. It saved so much time.”
To improve flow and structure: “It suggested how I could present my ideas in a clearer way. And I liked its ideas to improve the structure of my proposal.”
To save time: “To write, revise and find the errors on my own would probably have taken me up to a day. With Writing Coach, it took a couple of hours.”
And with each of LeapSpace’s suggestions, Norhan had the option to reject or accept the change. “I really liked that. It gave me the option to say I don't need it right now, or it doesn't feel quite right here.”
Norhan plans to use Writing Coach for her next writing project and will also recommend it to colleagues: “I know some of us struggle with writing like me. This is a good tool to help them.”
Norhan Attia Ahmed participated in the Writing Coach beta program and received complimentary access to the tool.
Next steps
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