We claim we prefer human writing, but in fact we prefer AI writing. From a research report published today. Key Quote "Participants rated the AI-generated story as higher quality and more absorbing [than the human-written story], but they rated the story better on both measures when they were told it was written by a human." Key Unknown When they ran the study. The quality of LLM output changes so frequently, even a few months can make a difference. BBC's take AI stories preferred to human-written ones - study https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kmpd6lr80o Link to study https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/bot-or-not-can-people-tell-the-difference-between-stories-written-by-a-human-or-by-an-ai-system/45E6DC0BB90AA648654D5AE243F6C667

"Writing is easier to comprehend and absorb when it has the minimum amount of complexity. It's usually better, therefore, to aim for maximum simplicity." —From Writing With Flair: How to Become An Exceptional Writer All editorial "rules" have exceptions. Can you think of a situation where maximum simplicity isn't the best choice?

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!

"Make sure every word is there because it is necessary." —From Writing With Flair: How to Become An Exceptional Writer Remember that words can serve different purposes. They may contribute to simplicity, clarity, elegance, or evocativeness in different ways. So just because a word isn't necessary for comprehension doesn't necessarily mean it's unnecessary. What's the hardest unnecessary word for you to delete from your own writing?

One of the biggest misconceptions about good writing is that clarity comes mainly from using simpler words. More often, it comes from organising your ideas so well that your reader never has to wonder why one thought follows another. Good writing, in other words, doesn't merely present ideas. It organises the movement of thought. Done well, every sentence feels like a natural consequence of the one before it. Every paragraph flows seamlessly into the next. Every conclusion feels inevitable rather than abrupt. When that happens, the writing begins to think visibly. Readers no longer have to work out your reasoning for themselves. They simply follow it. Now, to be clear, I'm not suggesting that every email, social media post, or hurried piece of business writing has to achieve this ideal. Most of us, myself included, sometimes write under time pressure and simply need to get our thoughts onto the page. But whenever you have the opportunity to slow down — to write something important, persuasive, or lasting — this is the standard worth aiming for. Unfortunately, much writing doesn't work this way. Writers often have perfectly good ideas, but they present them as isolated observations rather than parts of a coherent argument. The result is writing that feels disjointed, because the connections between ideas remain invisible. Sometimes the solution is to reorder the ideas. Sometimes it's to add a missing step in the reasoning. Sometimes it's simply to make the relationship explicit. (The lecture on "Missing Links" in Writing With Flair delves deeper into this subject.) Whatever the solution, your goal is always the same. It is to make the logic unfold so naturally that the reader barely notices it happening at all. Here's a short exercise. Take a paragraph you've written recently. Ignore the wording for the most part. Instead, look at the sequence of ideas. Consider whether each sentence feels connected to the one before and afterwards. If it doesn't, fix the thinking first, and the wording usually follows.