Fuck AI

That's not even bullshitting, that's just doing the assignment. And yeah I think a lot of people are conditioned early on to see writing an essay/paper as some herculean task that is only possible through shortcuts when the reality is you've got two formats that'll get you through any humanities essay (5-paragraph and its ilk vs thesis, antithesis, synthesis) and about one for science.

Once I got past the dread step 1 for me was always to pull out a template that I made for either the 5 paragraph style or the scientific paper style. It was just basic formatted, all caps and highlighted saying what goes there such as THESIS SENTENCE. It took what had been a scary process filled with writers block and made it into a simple means to convey my thoughts. If it wasn't long enough I could add another paragraph or more arguments.

I think a lot of people struggle with the enormity of the finished product, when the reality is that by thinking about the thing you should have a general idea of what you think, and all you need to do is go present legitimate and defensible arguments for why using the appropriate materials. Sure you may find yourself unable to do that upon further investigation, but that's ok, you've probably come to a different perspective that you can defend, it may even be the opposite position. That's good, that's what academia is for.