Reference · Data
AI Writing Tells
An AI writing tell is a pattern that shows up far more often in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini output than in human-edited prose. Examples include a stock phrase, a dense run of em dashes, an invisible character, or a decorated bullet. Edittxt tracks 74 phrase variants across 24 families and 15 formatting characters across five categories.
Updated · Machine-readable: /ai-writing-tells.json
How does edittxt set review priority?
The AI Text Cleaner assigns low, moderate, or high review priority. It combines distinct phrase families, repeated assistant-style structures, and unusually dense em dashes. Common phrases carry less weight, overlapping variants count once, and the 100-word floor prevents short text from jumping to high priority because of one punctuation mark. Curly quotes and invisible formatting characters do not affect priority.
Distinct phrase families contribute 3 points (strong), 2 (medium), or 1 (soft); repeated structural templates and em dashes above one per 125 words add limited evidence. Evidence is normalized with a 100-word floor. High requires at least 6 points and 5 points per 100 words; moderate requires at least 3 points and 2.5 per 100 words; otherwise priority is low. Curly quotes and invisible formatting characters never affect priority.
Every result comes from transparent rules that run in your browser. Patterns are curated from published research and repeated observation of unedited ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini output. Phrase variants are grouped to prevent double-counting, common words are treated as soft evidence, and short text uses a 100-word normalization floor. The result is an editing priority for AI-like patterns, not a probability or authorship verdict.
What patterns does edittxt track?
| Category | Tracked | Role | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock phrases | 74 | Confidence-weighted review signal | delve, tapestry, leverage, seamless, it's important to note, in conclusion |
| Em dashes | 2 | Review signal only when dense | —, ― |
| Invisible characters | 15 | Formatting cleanup only | Zero-width space (U+200B), Non-breaking space (U+00A0), Soft hyphen (U+00AD) |
| Curly quotes | 4 | Optional formatting cleanup | “, ”, ‘, ’ |
| Decorated bullets | 1 | Repeated structural review signal | **Bold lead:** ..., ✅ item |
The complete phrase and character lists are in /llms-full.txt and the JSON endpoint.
Fix these tells in one paste
The AI Text Cleaner highlights every tell above and fixes the mechanical ones in one click. Or target one at a time with the Em Dash Remover and Invisible Character Remover. Everything runs in your browser.