Editing your own writing means finding the places where you were unclear. Editing a generated draft means finding the places where it was confidently, fluently wrong — and the places where it said nothing at all in a very polished way.
Those are different problems, so a general read-through catches neither reliably. Run these six passes separately. Each one hunts a single class of error, which is exactly why it works.
Pass 1: Facts
Do this first, because a claim that turns out to be false can take a whole section with it, and there is no point polishing a section you are about to delete.
Highlight every number, date, proper noun, statistic and citation, then verify each against a primary source. Models state invented figures in precisely the tone they use for real ones — fluency carries no information about accuracy.
Pass 2: Structure
Read the headings on their own. Do they build an argument, or list loosely related topics? Generated outlines tend toward the latter, because each section was produced without much regard for the one before it.
- Delete sections that restate an earlier section in different words.
- Merge two thin sections rather than padding both.
- Move the strongest section earlier — it is rarely where it should be.
- Cut any closing section that only summarises what the reader has just read.
Pass 3: Specificity
This is where the value gets added. Go line by line and ask of each claim: could this sentence appear unchanged in a competitor’s post? If it could, it is doing no work.
| Generic | Specific |
|---|---|
| GenericCan significantly improve engagement | SpecificTook average time on page from 40 seconds to 1:50 |
| GenericMany businesses struggle with this | SpecificThree of our last five onboarding calls opened with this exact complaint |
| GenericChoose the right tool for your needs | SpecificUnder ten posts a month, the free tier covers it |
| GenericBest practices suggest | SpecificWe tried it both ways over six weeks; the second version won |
You will not have a specific replacement for every generic sentence. That is fine — delete the ones you cannot make concrete. A shorter post that says something beats a longer one that hedges.
Pass 4: Rhythm
Read it aloud, or have your machine read it to you. Generated prose has a metronome quality: sentences of near-identical length, paragraphs of near-identical shape. It is grammatically fine and exhausting to read.
- Cut three long sentences in half. Leave one fragment. On purpose.
- Delete transitions that carry no information: “furthermore”, “in addition”, “moreover”.
- Remove “in today’s digital landscape” and every variant of it, wherever it appears.
- Vary how paragraphs open. Four in a row starting with “This” is a pattern readers feel.
Pass 5: Voice
Decide what you sound like, then enforce it. Do you use contractions? Say “we” or “you”? Make jokes? Generated text drifts to a neutral, mildly corporate register unless something pulls it somewhere specific.
The fastest check: open a post you wrote yourself and were happy with, and read the two side by side. The differences show up inside a paragraph.
Pass 6: Mechanics
- One spelling convention throughout — UK or US, not both.
- Numbers, dates and units formatted consistently.
- Headings in sentence case or title case, consistently.
- Every link goes where its anchor text says it goes.
- Readability in range for the audience — grade 7 to 9 for most web writing.
How long the whole thing takes
About thirty minutes for a 1,200-word post once the passes are habit. Facts take the longest, structure saves the most time downstream, and specificity is the pass that decides whether the post was worth publishing.
If thirty minutes of editing sounds like it defeats the purpose, weigh it against the three hours the draft would otherwise have taken — and against the cost of publishing something with an invented statistic in it.