AI & Authenticity - Lesson 1
The Authenticity Advantage
The twenty words that make writing read machine-made, and what to use instead
Twenty words appear far more often in formulaic, machine-assembled prose than in writing people actually say out loud. They are invisible to the writer and visible to the reader.
One honesty note first, because this lesson is about honesty. We do not have a measurement linking marker-word density to engagement in our corpus, so this lesson makes no performance promise. The case for cutting these words is that they read as borrowed, and a reader who feels the pattern stops trusting the byline.
This lesson teaches you to find marker words in your own writing, band your density, and replace generic language with specific alternatives.
The Marker-Word Problem
Twenty words show up far more often in formulaic prose than in speech: delve, tapestry, landscape, leverage, multifaceted, holistic, paradigm, synergy, robust, streamline, ecosystem, resonate, foster, harness, navigate, elevate, empower, seamless, pivotal, nuance.
None of them is banned by the language, and each has a sentence where it is the right word. The problem is that they arrive together.
When they cluster, the writing reads as generic and templated, which erodes the connection your audience needs in order to trust you.
The Self-Audit Process
Count marker words in your last 5 posts and work out your density per 100 words. The editor does this for you, and doing it by hand once is worth more than reading about it.
Above 0.5 per 100 words is the warning zone in our editor. Nobody is judging where the words came from, and no tool can tell. The reason to care is that the language patterns read as generic.
Check your first-person ratio in the same pass. Posts heavy in marker words tend to be light on I, me and my, and the combination is what makes a draft feel like it was assembled rather than written.
Reading Your Density Band
Band A, 0 to 0.2 markers per 100 words. Reads as writing rather than assembly.
Band B, 0.2 to 0.5. Occasional generic language, still recognisably a person.
Band C, 0.5 to 1.0. Noticeably generic patterns, and the point at which a regular reader starts to feel it.
Band D, above 1.0. Templated prose. Whatever produced it, it reads machine-made.
These bands describe how a draft reads, not what it will earn. We publish no engagement figure per band because we have not measured one, and inventing one would be the most machine-flavoured thing on this page.
Replacing Marker Words
For each marker word, use more specific alternatives. 'Leverage' → use / apply / build on. 'Navigate' → work through / handle / manage. 'Holistic' → complete / full / integrated.
'Delve' → explore / examine / dig into. 'Streamline' → simplify / cut / speed up. 'Ecosystem' → network / market / community.
Banning the words is the wrong goal. Catching the reflex is the right one. Say the sentence out loud to another person, and if you would not use the word to their face, it does not go in.