Your Writing Is Annoying People. Are You Going to Do Something About It?
Two events in the same week confirmed what readers have been sensing for months. Below is the evidence, followed by the four tests and nine patterns that fix it.
LinkedIn, 2026 — a reader-facing option to flag a post as AI slop, sitting next to Report and Hide.
The New York Times, Aug 4 2026 — an opinion columnist arguing against AI-assisted writing entirely.
A platform used by professionals to build their reputation now lets readers flag a post as machine-written. A national newspaper ran a column asking writers to stop using AI on principle rather than adjust their method. Neither event is a prediction. Both are readers acting on writing they have already decided not to trust.
The response to both is the same, and it is not to stop using AI tools. It is to stop submitting the tool's first draft as your own. The distance between those two positions is what this course teaches.
AI tools solved fluency. They did not solve whether your writing is good.
Writing produced with AI assistance fails in one of two distinct ways. The course names both in the first ten minutes, because every test and pattern that follows is a response to one or the other.
Empty Fluency
Text that passes every surface check, grammar, structure, vocabulary, while lacking any original encounter with the subject it describes. It reads correctly and says nothing that required the writer to have been there.
- No telling detail a domain expert would expect to see
- A predictable context, challenge, implication, recommendation sequence
- No position taken on any question where professionals actually disagree
Convergence
When many writers use the same tool, their output trends toward the statistical center of professional language. The sentence belongs to no one, because it was built to resemble everyone.
- Interchangeable with a competitor's proposal after a name swap
- Punished hardest in competitive domains, where sixteen submissions read as one
- Punished hardest alongside expert domains, where absent specifics stand out immediately
Four sentences, flagged and rewritten.
Every pattern in the course is taught against a real before and after, drawn from the manuscript's own worked examples. Scroll to watch each pair resolve.
The new system delivered significant efficiency gains and substantial reductions in processing time, resulting in considerable cost savings.
Throughput rose to 340 transactions per hour, up from 190. Average processing time fell from 4.2 minutes to 1.8 minutes. The annualised reduction in cost is £840,000.
Words like significant, substantial, and considerable sit in front of a measurable noun and supply no measurement. The reader is left to guess whether the writer does not know the number or knows it and is withholding it.
It's not that we don't want to be flexible, but we are unable to grant an extension. Our hands are somewhat tied.
The 30 November reporting deadline is set by the funding statute and cannot be moved. Section 7.2 of the grant agreement allows a partial submission, which would meet the statutory date while the remaining sections are completed.
The before version spends a full sentence describing a position no one asked about before revealing the actual constraint. The after version states the rule, then states the option, in that order.
This groundbreaking framework represents a seminal approach to sustainability governance.
Regulators in 31 jurisdictions have adopted the framework since its introduction.
Words such as groundbreaking and seminal are borrowed from retrospective assessment and applied to present-tense description, before any evidence has established the verdict.
The compliance failures were alarming, marking a devastating development that demands urgent attention.
Four compliance failures were recorded this quarter, against zero in the previous quarter. Two exceed the regulatory reporting threshold.
Alarming and devastating instruct the reader how to feel before any fact has been stated. Remove the word and the sentence must supply a number, a date, or a named consequence instead.
Nine patterns, each with an exact word list and a one-line test.
Forty-five minutes, one lesson per pattern. Each lesson follows the same structure: the mechanism, why the pattern appears, a trigger-word list, the test question, and a worked before and after.
Canonical Adjectives
Prestige claimed without comparative evidence.
groundbreaking · transformative · seminal · pioneering · revolutionary · state-of-the-artIntensity Words
Emotional register set before the fact arrives.
striking · remarkable · alarming · devastating · critical · urgentSuperlatives Without Evidence
Extreme rank claimed with no reference class named.
most important · fundamental · essential · the key driverRhetorical Characterisation
A moral label standing in for a description.
perverse incentive · race to the bottom · so-called · questionableAdvisory Voice
Analysis framed as instruction to a labelled audience.
for practitioners · key takeaway · best practice requiresEm-Dash Shortcut
A dash followed by a conclusion the sentence has not earned.
— reflecting · — revealing · — confirming · — suggestingRhetorical Negation
A rejected position described before the real one.
it's not X, it's Y · unlike other firms · not merelyAudience Address
The reader instructed rather than given evidence to weigh.
you need to understand · as a manager, you should · keep in mindVague Intensifiers
Words that sound measured while supplying no measurement.
significant · substantial · considerable · material · notableOne method, four questions, applied in one direction only.
Voice first, because it decides what survives. Defensibility second, to check the surviving claims. Necessity third, to trim what remains. Sound last, to judge the finished rhythm. Reversing the order wastes effort on text that gets rewritten anyway.
Voice Test
Could any competent professional in this field have written this sentence without direct knowledge of the specific situation?
Defensibility Test
What specific evidence would be required to support this claim, and is that evidence present?
Necessity Test
If this word were removed, what would the reader lose?
Sound Test
Read the sentence aloud. Does the rhythm, the repetition, or a register break give away where the thinking stopped?
Six modules. Twenty-four lessons. One hundred twenty minutes.
Every lesson runs five minutes and ends with a knowledge check. Expand a module to see each lesson title and what it teaches.
A certificate that states exactly what was demonstrated.
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- ✓ All 24 lessons completed
- ✓ Final Assessment passed at 80% or higher, unlimited retakes
- ✓ Certificate issued automatically on pass, with learner name, course title, and completion date
- ✓ Credential statement: "Demonstrated mastery of the four-test editorial system and all nine AI writing patterns."
One price. Full course. No subscription.
One-time payment · lifetime access
- 24 lessons across 6 modules, 120 minutes total
- All four tests and all nine AI writing patterns
- Final Assessment with unlimited retakes
- Certificate of Completion on passing
- Downloadable bonus references: Self-Editing Checklist, Pattern Quick-Scan card, 25 before/after examples, Recommended Reading list
Four questions, answered directly.
How is this different from reading the book
The book contains 25 worked examples in Appendix C, a full pattern reference in Appendix B, and a 31-item reading list. The course teaches every test and every pattern inside a fixed 120-minute path with a knowledge check after each lesson and a certificate on completion. The book's full example library ships with the course as a downloadable reference.
What happens if the Final Assessment is not passed on the first attempt
Retakes are unlimited. A failed attempt shows which modules the missed questions came from, with links back to the relevant lessons, before the learner retakes.
Is any narration or audio included
No. The course is text-only and self-paced, built for a five-minute read per lesson.
Who is this course built for
Anyone who drafts email, reports, proposals, or short-form professional content with AI assistance and wants the finished sentence to read as their own, checkable by a skeptical reader rather than merely fluent.
Twenty-four lessons stand between the draft a tool produces and the sentence only you could have written.
Read the source book, Own Your Words by A.J. Thornfield →