Signs of AI writing, and how to fix each one

“It’s not X, it’s Y”

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Also “not just X, but Y”, “this isn’t about X, it’s about Y” and “less X, more Y”. The sentence sets up a view nobody stated so the next clause can knock it down and sound like an insight. It has spread. Pew Research Center counted “it’s not just X, it’s Y” at 0.87 per 10,000 words of web text in January 2023 and 2.36 in January 2026, and The Washington Post found versions of “not just X, but Y” in 6% of a sample of public ChatGPT conversations from July 2025.

Use it when the reader really holds the rejected view and saying so helps them, and then once per piece. Otherwise, state the positive claim and back it with a fact.

“No X. No Y. Just Z.”

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A row of absences and a payoff says what the product doesn’t do and leaves the reader to guess what it does. One plain absence next to a button is fine when it answers a real worry, such as “No card required”. Otherwise, say what does happen.

“…, ensuring a smooth experience”

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A participle clause bolted onto a fact to tell the reader what to think of it: “, highlighting our commitment to quality”, “, fostering collaboration”, “, making it easier than ever”. Reinhart and colleagues found instruction-tuned models using present participial clauses at two to five times the human rate, GPT-4o at 5.3 times. Cut the tail. If it held a real consequence, give that its own sentence with a concrete subject.

“The result? …”

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A question the reader didn’t ask, answered at once, to fake suspense. The colon version works the same way: “Here’s the secret: consistency.” FAQs are exempt, and so is a headline that asks the reader’s own question in their words. Elsewhere, give the answer as a statement, with the fact that makes it interesting. The checker rates colon reveals as cap, since a colon before a list or after a label is ordinary punctuation.

“Whether you’re X or Y” and “from X to Y”

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Both speak to every reader at once, so they commit to none: “whether you’re a seasoned pro or just getting started”, “everything from budgeting to big dreams”. Name the reader the text is for, or give each real group its own sentence and its own reason.

Stock openers, closers and filler

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Openers: “In today’s fast-paced world”, “In an era where”, “When it comes to”, “It’s no secret that”, “Let’s dive in”, “Here’s the thing”, “Imagine a world where”. Closers: “In conclusion”, “Ultimately,”, “At the end of the day”, “The bottom line”, “Ready to take it to the next level?”. Filler: “a testament to”, “plays a pivotal role”, “it’s worth noting that”. Each has been used so often that readers skip it. Delete it. The first sentence should carry content, and the last should be a fact or the next step.

“Serves as” and “boasts” instead of “is” and “has”

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Models dress up plain verbs to sound grander: serves as, stands as, acts as, boasts. “Is” and “has” go unnoticed, which is what you want from them.

Lists of three

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Adjectives in threes, slogans in threes, three bullets under every heading. Three items sound complete, so models reach for three whether or not there are three things to say. Pangram, which sells an AI detector, counts 19 lists of three per 10,000 words of AI text against 5 in human writing. The cap is for decorative lists, including three benefits that turn out to be one. A list of three different things is just a list: write it as one, and don’t break it into separate sentences to dodge the pattern.

Em dashes

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The tell people mention first, and the hardest to judge, because good writers have always used dashes. What gives a text away is density, and the dash as the default way into a punchline. When The Economist compared four chatbots with human journalism and fiction in July 2026, only Claude still used more em dashes than the human writers.

In body copy, aim for about one dash per 300 to 500 words, and none in short copy such as headlines, subject lines and buttons. Don’t strip them mechanically, because text with nothing but commas and periods is a newer pattern of its own. Pick the mark that fits: a comma for an aside, a colon for an explanation, a period for a real turn, parentheses for a true aside, and a dash where nothing else works. If your own writing uses dashes, keep roughly your own rate.

Fragments for drama

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“Faster. Smarter. Simpler.” One-line paragraphs for effect. A fragment can carry a fact, but three in a row are a rhythm trick. Keep one per section at most, and merge the rest into a sentence with content.

Moreover, furthermore, additionally

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One sentence that opens with “Moreover,” is fine. A paragraph where every sentence opens with Moreover, Furthermore, Additionally or Notably reads as a template. Delete them. If the paragraph stops making sense without them, reorder it instead of gluing it back together.

Long sentences chained with “and”

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As models drop the dash, other habits show more. The Economist’s 2026 comparison found that chatbot prose used fewer commas, semicolons and parentheses than human writing. Its sentences ran longer, and “and” was the word it overused most. Split those sentences by meaning, put a real aside in parentheses, and quote a person where you have one.

Every sentence the same length

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Sentence after sentence of 14 to 22 words, each with the same subject, verb and object. Read aloud, it drones. Asking a model for varied rhythm doesn’t fix this reliably. In a NeurIPS 2026 workshop paper, Lanzo and Angelo prompted nine model families in five ways, and showing a model examples of human rhythm gave the flattest text of all five in seven of the nine.

So measure after drafting. The checker reports the spread of sentence lengths, the standard deviation divided by the mean, for each paragraph and for the whole piece. Then restructure by meaning: give the key fact a short sentence, let the explanation run long, and merge two thin sentences into one.

Every paragraph the same size

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Every paragraph three or four sentences long, every feature card the same shape, pros and cons in perfect balance. Weight by what matters to the reader instead. The feature buyers ask about gets a full paragraph with proof, and the minor ones get a line each.

A punchline at the end of every paragraph

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“…because great work deserves great tools.” “…and that’s the power of simplicity.” One memorable line per piece is plenty, usually the headline or the close. End ordinary paragraphs on a fact: “…and the export is a plain CSV your accountant can open.”

The same opener again and again

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Three or more sentences that start with the same word read as a tic, and the tic is often the scar of another fix, such as every dash turned into a new sentence that starts with “Then”. Change how sentences begin by restructuring them. Synonyms only move the tic.

Words that stand in for facts

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These words are fine in the right sentence. They’re a problem when they replace a fact, or when several crowd one paragraph, which is when the checker flags them. Never fix one with a synonym: “harness” for “leverage” is the same sentence. Ask what the word claims, then write the claim or cut the word.

“Delve” is the famous case. Kobak and colleagues found “delves” 28 times more often than expected in 2024 PubMed abstracts, part of the excess vocabulary that let them estimate that at least 13.5% of that year’s abstracts were processed with a language model. Its use in arXiv abstracts then fell after early 2024.

Synonym cycling

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One product called “the app”, “the platform”, “the solution” and “this powerful tool” within four sentences. Pick one name and repeat it. Readers take repetition as care, and they notice a thesaurus.

Stock idioms and morals that say nothing

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“Slipping through the cracks”, “move the needle”, “low-hanging fruit”, “peace of mind”: one can be the writer’s own voice, and in a generated draft they’re filler. Name what happened instead, such as “emails sat unanswered for days”. Morals work the same way. “Communication is key” and “the right tool makes all the difference” sound like conclusions and say nothing, and rewording them keeps the padding. Cut them, or write the specific lesson if there is one.

Enthusiasm in every line

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Every feature amazing, exclamation marks throughout, no trade-off anywhere. Admit one real limitation, and the rest becomes easier to believe. The checker flags each exclamation mark after the first.

Hedges, vague sources and both sides

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“It’s important to note”, “results may vary”, “studies show”, “experts agree”, “it depends on your needs”. Say the thing, or make the hedge specific: “Battery lasts about 9 hours of video, or two days of light use.” Name the study and its date, or cut the claim. And take a position: “If you have fewer than five people, a spreadsheet is fine. We’re for teams that outgrew one.”

Flattery, inflated stakes and performed candor

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“Great question!”, “redefine what’s possible”, “the future of X is here”, “Let’s be honest”, “We’ve all been there”. Answer the question first, scale the claim to the actual change, and replace the intimacy with the concrete scenario it stands in for.

Claims any competitor could make

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Try the swap test: put a competitor’s name in the sentence, and if it’s still true, the sentence says nothing. “Enhances collaboration” and “drives efficiency” fail it. “Type @ and a name, and they get that paragraph, not the whole doc” passes. Every sentence that makes a claim needs a number, a name, a place, a date or a mechanism.

Invented proof

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“Boosts productivity by 47%.” “Trusted by thousands.” Testimonials from people who don’t exist, often with names like “Dr. Sarah Chen, Head of Innovation”. A model will produce plausible proof when asked, and sometimes when it isn’t. Use real numbers and real quotes with their source, or leave a visible gap such as [NEED: number of customers] and fill it before publishing.

Padding

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Restating the question, explaining why a benefit is good (“saving time matters because time is valuable”), making each point twice. Say it once, where it’s most useful. Cutting a fifth to a third of a generated draft usually loses nothing.

Bold-label bullets

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A list where every item opens with a bold label, and the label says what the item says. Write each item as one specific sentence, and keep bullets for content that is a list: steps, specs, comparisons. Arguments belong in paragraphs.

Emoji as bullets

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Lines and headings that start with ✅, 🚀, ✨ or 💡. People use emoji mid-sentence, where the channel calls for them.

Title Case Headings

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Capitalizing every word is a style choice. Sentence case is the safer default on the web; follow your house style if it says otherwise.

Markdown that won’t render

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Literal asterisks and pound signs pasted into an email, a text message or an app store listing, where they show up as characters. Format for the place the text will appear.

Invisible characters

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Zero-width spaces, soft hyphens and byte-order marks can’t be seen. They break search and copying, and they often arrive with pasted text. Nothing in a finished text needs them.

Notes to the person who asked

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“Here’s a revised version”, “Sure!”, “I hope this helps”, “Let me know if you’d like any changes”, “As an AI…”. Close relatives come with them: placeholders left unfilled ([Company Name], XX%, TBD, INSERT_URL), merge fields without a fallback, so Hi {first_name} reaches some readers as “Hi ,”, and the citation residue chat tools leave behind (oaicite, [cite: 3], utm_source=chatgpt.com in links). Each one shows exactly where the text came from, and none belongs in a finished text.