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Author bans em dash in AI voice to improve prose quality

By PulseAugur Editorial · [1 sources] ·

The author has implemented a strict ban on em dashes in their AI-generated content to ensure it sounds more human and less like machine prose. This ban is enforced through a custom tool called hyphos, which was updated to recognize and flag literal em dash characters. The system also includes checks to prevent the tool from incorrectly flagging content within code fences and ensures that any necessary em dashes in quoted material are preserved. This initiative has led to improved prose by forcing the AI to use more precise punctuation for different grammatical functions. AI

IMPACT This approach highlights methods for refining AI-generated text to sound more natural and less robotic, potentially influencing how AI writing tools are developed and used.

RANK_REASON The item describes a specific tool and its application for content filtering and refinement.

Read on dev.to — LLM tag →

AI-generated summary · Google Gemini · from 1 sources. How we write summaries →

Author bans em dash in AI voice to improve prose quality

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18 / 100
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The item describes a specific tool and its application for content filtering and refinement.
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product, other
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High
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Breaking (< 6h)
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COVERAGE [1]

  1. dev.to — LLM tag TIER_1 English(EN) · Alkis Yuv ·

    I banned the em dash from my AI's voice

    <p>At the end of August I was reviewing a weekly digest my pipeline had drafted, and there it was again: the em dash, thirteen times in one issue. I have never written one in my life, and I had been striking them out of the machine's drafts by hand for weeks. That evening I banne…

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