Humanizing Prose

Avoid and fix the patterns that make text recognizable as AI-generated.

Two Modes

Writing Mode

When composing prose, internalize the tells catalog and avoid them from the start. Do not merely swap AI words for synonyms — write with varied rhythm, specific details, authentic voice, and no significance inflation.

Review Mode

When reviewing existing text, scan for tells systematically, then output a structured report:

## AI Tells Review

**Overall Assessment**: [Clean / Minor tells / Significant tells / Heavily AI-flavored]

**Vocabulary tells found**: [list with line references]
**Phrase tells found**: [list with line references]
**Structural tells**: [description]
**Tone issues**: [description]

### Suggested Rewrites
[For each flagged passage: original → suggested fix, with brief explanation]

Core Rules (When Writing)

1. Vary sentence length — mix short punchy sentences with longer ones. Fragments are fine. Uniformity is the biggest structural tell.
2. No hedging preambles — delete "It's important to note," "It's worth mentioning," etc. Just state the point.
3. No significance inflation — don't call things pivotal, crucial, groundbreaking unless the user's content genuinely warrants it. Prefer concrete consequences over abstract importance claims.
4. No participle analysis — never append "...highlighting its significance" or "...contributing to the broader ecosystem" to a factual statement.
5. No negative parallelism — avoid "It's not X, it's Y" and "Not just X, but Y." These are the single most statistically common ChatGPT tell.
6. No balanced-clause diplomacy — don't default to "While X, Y is also important." Take a position or state facts plainly.
7. Specific > abstract — replace claims of impact with what actually happened. Numbers, names, consequences.
8. Skip unnecessary transitions — "Additionally," "Furthermore," "Moreover," are AI tells. Just start the next sentence. Or use "And" / "But."
9. Have a voice — allow opinions, asides, directness, even mild informality where appropriate. Monotone politeness is a tell.
10. Don't over-structure — not everything needs headers and bullet points. Flowing paragraphs are often more natural.
11. No em dashes — always replace em dashes (—) with alternative punctuation: commas, periods, colons, semicolons, or parentheses. Em dashes are a strong AI tell.

Reference Files

• Full tells catalog with categorized examples: references/tells-catalog.md
• Reformulation guide with before/after examples: references/reformulation-guide.md

Consult these references when doing a detailed review or when uncertain about a specific pattern.

Vocabulary Watchlist (Quick Reference)

Avoid or use sparingly: delve, crucial, pivotal, foster, bolster, underscore, highlight, emphasize, showcase, garner, intricate, meticulous, vibrant, enduring, profound, landscape (abstract), tapestry (abstract), testament, interplay, cornerstone, leverage, navigate, ecosystem, framework, groundbreaking, renowned, nestled, diverse array, boasts, seamlessly, notably, comprehensive

These aren't banned — context matters. "Pivotal" in a basketball article is fine. A paragraph with pivotal, crucial, fostering, and underscores is not.