Alex Bennett
Jan 10, 2025

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A good writer quickly recognizes AI is not a good writer. Among other defects, it is too verbose. (The overused filler words are part of the verbosity.)

I had an excellent editor part way through my career. He would only edit with a sharpie, so he couldn't make a lot of changes. He mostly just ran a thick line through unnecessary words and phrases.

He taught me that adding words to flesh out a point was a pursuit of diminishing returns. Often losing 30% of a sentence sacrificed only 10% of its communication -- a 10% the reader was unlikely to pick up on in the word salad anyway.

In conclusion (lol) I don’t worry about specific words, because sometimes they serve the reader. If any word or phrase isn't pulling its weight, it's gone. I've never see a lean sentence from AI.

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Alex Bennett
Alex Bennett

Written by Alex Bennett

My goal on Medium has been to publish “Truth Units.” It took 1.5 years. I hope you read it. New articles will respond in-depth to your questions and critiques.

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