AI chatbots were trained on novice writing, and it shows.
AI can be an incredible tool for writers
We use it in our agency to brainstorm ideas, enhance clarity, streamline formatting, and polish our writing. It’s also a sanity-saver when we can’t think of a particular word. (Pro-tip: Write your sentence, use an underscore as a placeholder, and ask ChatGPT to fill in the blank with the correct term.)
That said, there’s a huge difference between using AI as a supplement and abusing it to churn out content. The former boosts quality and efficiency. The latter insults the intelligence of your reader and causes your reputation to plummet.
Because AI wants to answer your prompt but may not have the necessary data to do so, chatbots often produce “hallucinations,” or information that’s nonsensical and inaccurate. They may pull quotes, stats, or ideas out of thin air, and unless you fact-check your work, you’ll never know it.
Misinformation was the first red flag, but AI-generated content also contains the same phrases over and over again.
These phrases make it extremely obvious that you used ChatGPT
- “Treasure trove”
- “Intricate tapestry”
- “It’s important to note that”
- “It’s essential to consider”
- “While navigating the complexities of”
- “A testament to”
- “Furthermore”
- “Consequently”
- “In the world of”
- “Let’s delve into”
- “Look no further than”
- “Whether you’re… or…”
- “A plethora of”
- “In conclusion”
What do most of these phrases have in common?
They’re low-effort transition phrases that don’t mean much of anything. They’re fluff. Place-holders. Wasted word-count. Bad writing.
But why would ChatGPT spit out bad writing if language is supposed to be its specialty?
Large language models like ChatGPT are primarily trained on publicly available text from the internet. Yes, that includes some good writing — but for every high-quality piece, you’ll find hundreds of generic listicles, crappy blog posts, spammy articles, keyword-stuffed nonsense, and amateur essays with no views.
In other words, ChatGPT learned how to write by studying content from novice writers.
Real writers do use the above phrases
But that doesn’t mean they make for good writing.
In fact, if you removed those phrases entirely, most of your sentences wouldn’t lose any meaning. But it would result in a clearer, more concise, and more confident article.
Beginners believe that fancy, wordy language impresses readers. Professionals know that writing is a form of communication, and communication should be as straightforward as possible.
A few of these phrases won’t make or break your work, but when most of them are present in the same article, it tells your smart reader two things: You used ChatGPT as a shortcut (not a springboard), and you have no interest in producing meaningful content.
