AI Writing Detection

Words, phrases, and punctuation patterns commonly associated with AI-generated text. Avoid these to ensure writing sounds natural and human.

Sources: Grammarly (2025), Microsoft 365 Life Hacks (2025), GPTHuman (2025), Walter Writes (2025), Textero (2025), Plagiarism Today (2025), Rolling Stone (2025), MDPI Blog (2025)

Contents

• Em Dashes: The Primary AI Tell
• Overused Verbs
• Overused Adjectives
• Overused Transitions and Connectors
• Phrases That Signal AI Writing (Opening Phrases, Transitional Phrases, Concluding Phrases, Structural Patterns)
• Filler Words and Empty Intensifiers
• Academic-Specific AI Tells
• How to Self-Check

Em Dashes: The Primary AI Tell

The em dash (—) has become one of the most reliable markers of AI-generated content.

Em dashes are longer than hyphens (-) and are used for emphasis, interruptions, or parenthetical information. While they have legitimate uses in writing, AI models drastically overuse them.

Why Em Dashes Signal AI Writing

• AI models were trained on edited books, academic papers, and style guides where em dashes appear frequently
• AI uses em dashes as a shortcut for sentence variety instead of commas, colons, or parentheses
• Most human writers rarely use em dashes because they don't exist as a standard keyboard key
• The overuse is so consistent that it has become the unofficial signature of ChatGPT writing

What To Do Instead

Guidelines

• Use commas for most parenthetical information
• Use colons to introduce explanations or lists
• Use parentheses for supplementary information
• Reserve em dashes for rare, deliberate emphasis only
• If you find yourself using more than one em dash per page, revise

Overused Verbs

Overused Adjectives

Overused Transitions and Connectors

Phrases That Signal AI Writing

Opening Phrases to Avoid

• "In today's fast-paced world..."
• "In today's digital age..."
• "In an era of..."
• "In the ever-evolving landscape of..."
• "In the realm of..."
• "It's important to note that..."
• "Let's delve into..."
• "Imagine a world where..."

Transitional Phrases to Avoid

• "That being said..."
• "With that in mind..."
• "It's worth mentioning that..."
• "At its core..."
• "To put it simply..."
• "In essence..."
• "This begs the question..."

Concluding Phrases to Avoid

• "In conclusion..."
• "To sum up..."
• "By [doing X], you can [achieve Y]..."
• "In the final analysis..."
• "All things considered..."
• "At the end of the day..."

Structural Patterns to Avoid

• "Whether you're a [X], [Y], or [Z]..." (listing three examples after "whether")
• "It's not just [X], it's also [Y]..."
• "Think of [X] as [elaborate metaphor]..."
• Starting sentences with "By" followed by a gerund: "By understanding X, you can Y..."

Filler Words and Empty Intensifiers

These words often add nothing to meaning. Remove them or find specific alternatives:

• absolutely
• actually
• basically
• certainly
• clearly
• definitely
• essentially
• extremely
• fundamentally
• incredibly
• interestingly
• naturally
• obviously
• quite
• really
• significantly
• simply
• surely
• truly
• ultimately
• undoubtedly
• very

Academic-Specific AI Tells

How to Self-Check

1. Read your text aloud. If phrases sound unnatural in speech, revise them
2. Ask: "Would I say this in a conversation with a colleague?"
3. Check for repetitive sentence structures
4. Look for clusters of the words listed above
5. Ensure varied sentence lengths (not all similar length)
6. Verify each intensifier adds genuine meaning