I was working with ChatGPT recently on an article about the future of writing when it offered me this sentence: “The future of writing belongs not to those who surrender their judgment to AI, but to those who learn to direct it.” Sounds quite impressive, doesn’t it? There’s a pleasing symmetry, a confident rhythm, and the suggestion of a rather profound insight. But the sentence has yet to answer a critical question. Has the contrast earned its place? Surrendering judgment to AI could describe a real behavior, a genuine danger, or a feared future. If the surrounding argument has established that context, the first half carries real weight. The problem is that AI often reaches for this construction too casually. It creates an opposition before showing that the opposition matters, giving the second half of the sentence something dramatic to triumph over. Without that context, the result is rhetorical theater: the appearance of force without the intellectual work needed to justify it. Once you notice this habit, you begin seeing it everywhere. Consider another example: “Great editing isn’t about moving words around. It’s about revealing the strongest version of an idea.” Again, the construction sounds wise. Yet moving words around is one of the ways an editor reveals the strongest version of an idea. The sentence presents a method and its purpose as though they were rivals. Unless it is correcting a real misconception about editing, the contrast creates more drama than meaning. The second half then sounds revelatory because the two ideas have been made to appear more opposed than they really are. For thought leaders and communications professionals, that is a serious risk. Once readers spot the artificial opposition, the sentence can instantly weaken the authority it was meant to project. Why AI Writing Tools Do This I think there are several reasons. First, they imitate the outward appearance of persuasive writing. Contrast is a powerful rhetorical technique. Good writers use it constantly. But a meaningful contrast must reveal a difference worth noticing.

My dear friends, I recently launched Intelligent Writing, a free weekly LinkedIn newsletter about writing in the age of AI. Thousands of people subscribed within its first few days, a response that confirmed what I've felt for some time, which is that writers and professionals alike are struggling to understand a landscape that’s shifting unbelievably fast. I know some of you are deeply interested in AI. Others are wary of it. I understand both positions. And that's why my purpose in the newsletter isn’t to push anyone into becoming a raving AI enthusiast. My responsibility as a teacher, however, is to make sure those of us who care about writing understand what is happening, are able to remain professionally relevant, and aren’t left behind while others decide how these new machines will shape the future of communication. AI output, while sometimes impressive, is already becoming easy to recognize. And not in a good way. Often, the words, tone, punctuation, rhythms, and metaphors feel too slick, too orchestrated, to be genuinely engaging. As a result, AI-generated writing is starting to be seen, by many, as less valuable than prose that is felt as being shaped by a human hand. Some people I know now even refuse to consume anything that smells like it was machine-written. Part of the reason for that repulsion is that AI is being used carelessly, or irresponsibly, by those who have little knowledge of the craft we in this community hold dear. Ironically, it's my belief that the best equipped to thrive in this new world will be the ones who understand equally well the capabilities of AI and the craft of writing. Indeed, those who reject AI completely face the risk of falling behind in important ways, while those who neglect deepening their understanding of craft risk losing their voice, style, and individuality to non-sentient, non-feeling machines.

During my years writing and editing for The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Bloomberg News, I tried to understand what the best editors I worked with were doing. Five habits of mind emerged from observing them and practicing the craft myself. They underpin what I teach in A Crash Course in Writing Well. Each habit begins with an aspiration. You may hear echoes of the following five aspirations in some of your favorite essays, speeches, op-eds, and nonfiction. 1. Comprehensible They strive to make the writing easy to understand. This means removing unnecessary complexity and making sure readers can follow the reasoning without having to work too hard. Simplicity and clarity are essential here. 2. Authentic They strive to make the writing sound honest. They remove jargon, pretentious language, and artificial posturing while preserving the writer’s personality and distinctive way of expressing ideas. 3. Beautiful They strive to make the writing flow well. They smooth out the rhythm and improve structure. This is the quality I call elegance. 4. Engaging They strive to make the writing hold attention and evoke a response. They use colorful details, vivid language, and well-chosen examples to help readers feel the significance of what they are reading. This is where evocativeness matters. 5. Effective They strive to make the writing achieve the purpose for which it was written. Whether the aim is to inform, persuade, teach, or inspire, every passage should contribute. Even a beautiful sentence may need to go if it distracts from that purpose. Through practice, these five aspirations — comprehensibility, authenticity, beauty, engagement, and effectiveness — become editorial habits. They are the gold standard I absorbed from exceptional editors who were unwilling to stop at prose that was merely serviceable.

For years, I’ve taught that good writing depends on four critical ingredients: Simplicity. Clarity. Elegance. Evocativeness. I presented this framework in my flagship course, Writing With Flair, long before generative AI arrived. My purpose, at the time, was to demystify writing and to show that prose that appears naturally accomplished is usually doing four quite distinct things well: - Removing what the reader does not need (simplicity). - Making its meaning unmistakable (clarity). - Arranging language with rhythm and grace (elegance). - And, when the occasion requires it, making the reader feel something (evocativeness). Lately, I’ve been applying the same framework to AI, and the results have reinforced something I increasingly believe: The better you understand writing, the better you become at prompting. The Thinking Behind the Prompt Many weak prompts lack literary or editorial direction. They say things like: “Make this better.” “Make it more professional.” “Make it engaging.” In other words, they ask AI to make decisions the writer hasn’t made. Better in what way? More professional according to whose idea of professionalism? Make it engaging through humor, tension, surprise, intimacy, or intellectual force? AI then fills that vacuum with writing that's competent on the surface, and perhaps even impressive, but which bears the airless quality of prose that hasn’t been guided by a sufficiently exacting mind. The four ingredients give us a better language for directing AI for style. Simplicity Simplicity removes needless difficulty or complication. It cuts clutter, repetition, inflated language and unnecessary detours. It respects the reader’s time without insulting their intelligence. If a report is bloated, asking AI merely to “improve” it could result in changes to the tone, a rearranged argument, and the replacement of perfectly good phrases. A more disciplined prompt would identify the actual problem: "Tighten this passage by removing repetition, inflated wording, and anything that doesn’t advance the central point. Preserve its meaning, qualifications, and professional tone."

Hello everyone! My name is Emily, and I am excited to join the group! I am writing from Colorado, where I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2022. I currently work in the legal sector, but I am looking to switch things up and pursue my passions through a writing career. I am here to enhance my writing and to chat with people who share my passion. Nice to meet you all!