What makes writing sound human
Detectors describe what AI writing looks like in negative — the tells, the flags. This piece does the opposite. What actually makes prose read as a person made it?
sk a detector and you'll learn what AI writing sounds like. Ask an editor and you'll learn what human writing sounds like — which is the more useful question, because that's the target you're actually aiming at. Four properties keep coming up.
Voice, not just style
Voice is the sense, on the page, that a particular person — with a particular history, taste and temperament — chose these words. It shows up in tiny preferences: which metaphors you reach for, which jokes you'd never make, the words you use when you're tired. A language model has no voice of its own; it produces a smoothed average of every voice it has read. The fix isn't more vocabulary, it's more of you. What do you actually think? What would you never say?
Register that fits the room
Register is how formal or informal the prose is, and a good writer modulates it within a single piece — a careful technical sentence followed by a plain one, a precise word next to a colloquial one. Models tend to lock into a single register and hold it for paragraphs. The result reads competent and slightly inert, like a press release. Vary the register deliberately, and the prose comes alive.
AI writes like everyone in general and no one in particular. Your job, as the writer, is to be someone in particular.
Rhythm you can hear
Read your draft out loud. If you find yourself taking the same length of breath at every full stop, that's the problem to fix — not perplexity, not burstiness, the breath. Human writers vary sentence length because thoughts vary in size. A long, qualifying sentence that develops a careful position. Then a short one. A fragment, if it earns it.
Specificity over polish
The single biggest difference between AI prose and good human prose isn't grammar or rhythm — it's specificity. Models reach for the high-probability word and the generic noun: "a comprehensive solution", "a robust framework", "significant challenges". Editors reach for the specific fact. "Handles 14 currencies and offline mode" beats "comprehensive" every time. If a sentence could describe ten things, sharpen it until it describes one.
The detector is just one mirror. The other mirror is reading your own draft the way a careful editor would — looking for voice, register, rhythm and specificity. Do that and the score takes care of itself, because the writing is genuinely yours.
Up next in The Honest Editor's Desk: Why AI writing gets flagged — and how to fix it.
Can I sound more human by adding typos?+
No. Typos and broken grammar don't make prose read as human — they make it read as careless. The qualities a detector and a reader respond to are voice, register variation, varied rhythm and specificity.
Is hedging the same as being unsure?+
Hedging is calibrated confidence, not weakness. Good writers commit hard to claims they'll defend and hedge the ones they won't — that contrast is itself a human signal.
Does this only apply to essays?+
No. Memos, cover letters, marketing copy and even short emails all benefit from voice and specificity. The shorter the piece, the more each word has to do.