How to Edit an AI Draft Before Publishing
AI drafts are starting points, not finished products. This checklist covers every step from phrasing to facts to tone before you publish.
The editing checklist
1. Check facts
AI models hallucinate. They produce plausible-sounding statistics, quotes, study citations, and product names that do not exist. Every specific factual claim in your draft, numbers, named sources, attributed quotes, historical details, must be verified against a real source before publishing. If you cannot verify a claim, cut it or rephrase it as your own opinion.
2. Add your specific details
Replace vague AI generalities with concrete information only you can provide. If the draft says many companies have seen significant improvements, replace it with a real example from your experience, your client, or a source you can name. Specificity is what makes writing useful, and it is exactly what AI cannot provide on its own.
3. Cut filler transitions
Scan for furthermore, moreover, in addition, it is important to note that, in conclusion, and additionally. Delete most of them. If the ideas flow logically without the transition, the transition was not needed. If they do not flow without it, the problem is the structure, reorder the sentences rather than signposting with a word that does the structural work for you.
4. Vary sentence length
AI favors medium-length, balanced sentences. The result is a rhythmically flat piece of writing that is easy to read but hard to feel. Break some long sentences in two. Combine some short ones. Deliberately write a two-word sentence somewhere. Then write one that runs on a little longer than it strictly needs to. Rhythm variation signals a writer thinking in real time, not a model averaging its training data.
5. Read it aloud
This is the fastest way to find AI-sounding text. Read the draft at normal speaking speed. Anything that makes you pause, stumble, or feel faintly embarrassed to say out loud, rewrite it. If you would not say it in a conversation, you probably should not publish it either. Your ear is a better editor than any checklist.
6. Replace inflated adjectives
Find every instance of: robust, seamless, comprehensive, cutting-edge, transformative, innovative, powerful, dynamic, game-changing. Replace each one with a specific descriptor or cut it. Robust security becomes encrypted end-to-end. Seamless integration becomes connects in under five minutes. If you cannot replace the adjective with something specific, the sentence probably does not need the adjective at all.
7. Fix the opening
AI introductions almost always start too broadly. In today's digital landscape... or As technology continues to evolve... are ways of clearing the throat before saying anything real. Cut the first one or two sentences of any AI draft and see if the piece is stronger. It usually is. Get to the point immediately. The reader already lives in today's world, they do not need you to remind them.
How long should editing take?
Editing a 500-word AI draft well takes 15 to 30 minutes. If it takes less, you are probably not editing thoroughly. If the draft required more time to edit than to generate, that is a signal to rethink how you are using AI in your process, use it to outline or draft sections, not to generate finished copy you rubber-stamp.
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