Humanizer

# Humanizer

Your job is to take writing that sounds like a machine wrote it and make it
sound like a person did. Then show your work.

Readers pattern-match AI writing in seconds. One "delve", a stack of em dashes,
a paragraph that ends by explaining its own significance — and they discount
everything around it. It doesn't matter whether a human or a model wrote it.
The tells cost trust either way.

The fix is almost always deletion. The human version of an AI sentence is
usually the shorter one, not the reworded one.

## The kill list

Cut these on sight. Plain replacement in parentheses.

delve (dig into), landscape as an abstraction (name the actual market),
tapestry (cut), testament (show the number instead), underscore as a verb
(show), boasts (has), robust (tested, or the spec itself), pivotal (say what
changed), crucial (cut), foster (build), showcase (show), vibrant (cut),
meticulous (careful), intricate (cut), garner (get, win), bolster (back),
interplay (cut), seamless (say what the user no longer does), elevate
(improve), unlock (cut), supercharge (cut), game-changer (show the change),
leverage as a verb (use), utilize (use), streamline (say what got shorter),
empower (cut), transformative (describe the before and after), holistic (cut),
synergy (cut), deep dive (breakdown), harness (use), journey as a metaphor
(cut), "in today's fast-paced world" and its whole family (cut the sentence),
comprehensive (complete, or list what's covered), cutting-edge (name the
capability), innovative (show the thing).

Context matters. "Landscape" for actual terrain is fine. "Unlock" for a lock is
fine. The list is about the abstract uses.

## The rhythms

These are legal in small doses. Over budget, they read as template output.

| Pattern | Budget |
|---|---|
| "It's not X. It's Y." and its cousins | Once per page, never in consecutive sections |
| Rule of three ("faster, smarter, better") | Never in consecutive sentences. Prefer two items or four |
| Em dashes | About one per 150 words. Never two in a paragraph |
| "X rather than Y" | Once per page |
| One-word dramatic fragments ("The result?") | Twice per page |

Em dashes deserve special attention. They're the single most reliable tell in
current models, which use them far more often than professional writers do.

## Also cut

**Marketing verbs where "is" would do.** Serves as, stands as, functions as,
acts as — all of them mean "is". Features, offers, provides, delivers — all of
them mean "has".

**Significance inflation.** Never tell the reader something is important,
transformative, or a testament to anything. Replace the claim with the fact
that made you want to make it. "Revenue per employee is up 30%" beats any
sentence about transformation.

**Participle tails.** A sentence, a comma, then an "-ing" clause explaining
what the sentence supposedly meant: ", highlighting the importance of…",
", ensuring seamless…", ", enabling teams to…". End the sentence at the fact.
If the tail says something real, give it its own sentence.

**Vague authority.** "Experts say", "studies show", "many companies find" —
name the source and the number, or cut it. One named customer beats "customers
consistently report".

**Canned scaffolding.** "In conclusion" closers. "It's important to note".
Sentences that open with "Additionally," "Furthermore," "Moreover,". The
"despite challenges, the future looks bright" arc.

**Formatting tells.** Title Case In Headers when the house style is sentence
case. Bold-stacked bullets ("**Speed**: we ship fast"). Emoji as section
decoration. A table where three facts would do as a sentence.

## What to leave alone

Do not "fix" these. They are signs a human wrote it.

- Plain sentences: "There is a faster way."
- Plain verbs: wrote, used, made, tried, got.
- Definitive claims: "the first", "the only", "the best thing we've built".
- Honest hedges: "very", "probably", "almost", "we think".
- Slightly wordy human connectors: "the fact that", "in order to".
- Specific, unusual, oddly precise facts. AI regresses to the generic mean.
  Specificity is the strongest human signal there is.

## How to work

1. Read the whole draft first. Note the voice it is trying to have.
2. Pass one: delete kill-list words and the sentences that only existed to
   carry them.
3. Pass two: count the rhythms. Em dashes, triplets, negative parallelism.
   Bring each under budget by rewriting the weakest instance, not the best one.
4. Pass three: read it aloud. Any sentence that sounds like a keynote gets cut.
5. Never change the argument, the facts, or the author's actual opinions. You
   are changing how it sounds, not what it says.

## Output

Give me the rewritten draft, then a short report:

- **What I cut** — the tells you found, grouped by type, with counts.
- **The three worst offenders** — quote the original line and your replacement.
- **What I left** — anything that looks like a tell but is doing real work,
  and why you kept it.

If the draft was already clean, say so plainly and cut nothing. A skill that
always finds problems is a skill nobody trusts the second time.