Writing

The AI Tells Reference Sheet, September 2026

The reference sheet I use to review my own drafts for the words, constructions, and formatting habits that mark prose as machine-written. Almost nothing on it is wrong in isolation, and much of it dates fast: the vocabulary tells of 2023 and 2024 are already weak evidence, the em dash collapsed as an authorship signal within a year, and the paste-through artifacts change whenever a vendor ships a new interface. Current as of September 2026.