Transcripts
1. Introduction: Let's put a bit of creativity back into AI assisted writing. At the end of this class,
you'll have a piece of writing ready to publish
today. A social post, email, webpage, or blog article. You'll also have a
simple three edit workflow you can reuse every
time you draft with AI. Use it regularly, and it
quickly becomes a habit. Hello, I'm Ruth. I'm
a full time writer. I write persuasive
marketing copy for businesses and charities, and I use AI in my own
workflow every week. I was an early adopter, and I now teach AI writing
skills to people who want to write faster
without losing their voice. Chat GPT, Claude, and Gemini are great for getting a
draft on the page quickly. But even with a strong prompt, those drafts tend to
be vague and generic. And the longer the draft, the harder it is to fix. You're scrolling,
tweaking sentences, second guessing edits, and endlessly re-prompting. It can quickly turn into
an organisational mess. What I'm going to show you is a simple way to bring
that back under control. A clear three step edit you can run through quickly
without overthinking it. This class is perfect for you if you use AI to draft content, but struggle to make
it sound natural. Maybe you're a freelancer,
a small business owner, a marketer or a content creator who needs to write
regularly and quickly, but you don't want your
writing to sound robotic. What I'm about to show
you will help you turn an AI draft into something
human and usable, fast. Let's get started.
2. Class and Project Overview: In this lesson we'll get everything set up so you're ready to run your draft through the simple three step editing workflow: Make it specific, Make
it sound like you, and Make it punchy. Your project is straightforward. Generate an AI draft or
use one you already have. It could be a post, an email, a web page section, or a blog introduction. Work through the
edits in this class, then upload the before and
after text as your project. As a live example,
I'll be working on a short promotional email
for a fictional client, a small independent
skincare brand, so you can see the changes
happening in real time. I've uploaded this example, including the different
versions as a project. You can also download it from the class resources section. It may be useful to keep a
copy open while you watch. There's also a checklist
you can use to follow along and tick off each
edit as you make it. You'll see me apply the workflow to the skin
care example as we go. The checklist will
also be helpful later when you run the workflow
on future drafts. At this point, you should have
a draft ready to work with and the documents you need
open in front of you. Let's start with the first
edit, Make it specific.
3. Make it Specific: In this lesson, you'll turn a generic AI draft into
something relevant and specific. Most AI drafts fail at this. They sound polished, but
they're missing substance. The ideas are broad, the benefits are abstract, and the reader could be anyone. Your job in this edit is to
make your draft feel real by introducing details unique
to your brand and audience. Let's look at the AI
generated draft email for our fictional
skincare brand. Here's one line from
the AI version. Everyone deserves
healthy radiant skin. It sounds nice, but it doesn't really tell the reader
anything useful. Saying everyone doesn't connect
with the target reader, and what does healthy
radiant skin actually mean? Instead of rewriting
the whole sentence, let's keep the
structure and swap in details based on our target
audience and products. You deserve skin
that feels hydrated after a simple 30-second routine. The sentence does the
same job as before, but now we're speaking directly to a more targeted audience of busy people and using the word you to
create a connection. We've also drilled down into two specific benefits
of our products by using the word hydrated and specifying that the routine
is simple and fast. We're giving our reader
a much clearer idea of the type of brand we are. You can take this a step
further by checking whether your new detail can be
made even more detailed. Hydrated is better than
radiant, but it's still broad. If you can sharpen it into a more specific outcome,
in this example, that might be reducing
dryness after cleansing, it becomes even easier for
the reader to picture. Here's another sentence
from the draft. Our formulas are
carefully crafted using high quality ingredients that work in harmony with your skin. This is classic AI language. You'll start spotting it
everywhere once you notice it. Carefully crafted and work in harmony with your skin
are pointless fillers, and high quality ingredients
could mean anything. So we replace the vague phrase
with something concrete. Our formulas use simple
ingredients like oatmeal and green tea
to hydrate your skin. Again, notice what
we didn't do here. We didn't rewrite
the whole paragraph. We kept the structure
and flow and just swapped in more
specific details. Check that your specifics reflect how your
customer thinks, not how your brand describes
things internally. Oatmeal and green tea works because those ingredients
are familiar. If something sounds
technical or abstract, translate it into language your reader would actually use. One more weak phrase
we can tighten up is PureGlow skin care
has something for you. Let's return to the
brand's ethos of simple quick skincare and bring that out by tweaking
that phrase to say, there's a simple fix
waiting for you. It's more specific,
more on brand, and it sounds a
little friendlier and more customer focused. It also introduces just a
little bit of subtle urgency, which is very useful as this line leads into
the call to action. There's one more small
improvement that will help a lot, adding one proof element. The AI draft says customers
love the way our products leave their skin feeling soft,
smooth, and revitalised. That's not proof. That's fluff. We can strengthen it
with some detail. 95% of customers tell us their skin feels softer
after using our products. That's specific
percentage, and the focus on one clear benefit make
the claim sound credible, not just like marketing gumf. Other options for
adding proof are customer testimonials
or mentioning how long you've been in business
or any awards you've won or professional associations
you're a member of. They all have the effect of increasing credibility
by drawing on concrete information rather than your brand's own
opinion of itself. And, of course, information
like this needs to be honest. Don't make up stats or quotes or any other information
in your marketing copy. At this stage, much
of the draft still looks like the original AI
version, and that's fine. This edit is about replacing
vague language with real information while keeping most of the structure intact. That's how AI saves you time - by giving you
the overall flow and structure of the piece to build on. Now it's your turn. Take your own AI draft and run the edits we
covered in this lesson. Speak directly to
your target reader, replace vague phrases
with concrete details, clarify the offer, and
add a proof element. Save this as version two, like I have here with
the example draft. Keeping a record of
different versions is helpful when you use this
workflow for the first time. When you're more practiced,
you can edit the same piece of work without keeping
previous versions. In this lesson, you've turned a vague AI draft into
something more specific. In the next lesson, we'll make sure it actually
sounds like you.
4. Make it Sound Like You: In this lesson, you'll shape your draft so it
reflects your voice, not AI's default tone, by focusing on personality
and rhythm. AI tends to fall back on
a neutral corporate tone. It smooths everything out, and the result is technically correct but emotionally flat. The first thing to do is
set simple voice rules. If you already have brand
guidelines, use them. If not, create quick guardrails. Three things you do,
three things you avoid. For example, you might decide
you use everyday language, short sentences and
direct statements, and you avoid corporate jargon, filler and overblown claims. These rules act as a filter. Read your draft and
check it against them. Where does it drift? For
example, in our email, the AI sentence says, each formulation is devised to help you feel positive
and invigorated. That sounds polished, but the word choices are
a little elaborate, and talking about how the
product makes the customer feel in these grand terms comes
across as rather dramatic. A brand that prefers everyday
language might adjust it to each product is designed to help your skin feel
soft and comfortable. Notice how the revised draft
is also more specific. You'll find there's plenty of crossover like this between
the different edits. Infusing your writing with a bit more of your brand's personality doesn't necessarily mean changing whole phrases
like we did just there. Sometimes swapping a single word can make a big difference. Swapping the word simple
here for the synonym fuss- -free instantly
makes this sentence more natural and human sounding. It also avoids repeating
the word simple, which already appears
twice elsewhere. Next, let's tweak the rhythm. Because AI often writes in evenly sized, carefully
balanced sentences. Real writing is
messier than that. Some short sentences,
some long ones, and some fragments
where appropriate. Read your draft out loud. It's amazing how quickly
unnatural phrasing jumps out. Where does it feel stiff? Where would you naturally pause? Break up long sentences and combine choppy ones
and add contractions, if that fits your tone. For instance, the sentence, our formulas use
simple ingredients like oatmeal and green tea to hydrate your skin without the complicated routine could
be split for better rhythm. Our formulas use
simple ingredients like oatmeal and green tea. No complicated routine required. This rewritten draft also has the advantage of being
shorter and quicker to read. Next, add a genuine
point of view. AI tends to hover
above the subject. Your job is to ground
it in perspective. That might mean adding
a line that reflects your experience or
belief or stance. It doesn't need to be
dramatic or controversial. A single line with
a clear viewpoint can make the whole
piece feel more human. In our example, the phrase, our formulas use
simple ingredients, feels a little cold
and unemotional. If we replace that
line with we're borderline obsessive
about simple ingredients, it suddenly feels more
opinionated and gives the impression of a brand that cares deeply about its products. Next, remove stock phrases
and corporate filler. Look for phrases that
feel interchangeable. Words like leverage and empower, and replace them with
straightforward language. In our draft, the
phrase optimise your skincare strategy
sounds generic and corporate. A more natural sounding
version might say, simplify your current routine. There's something
else we want to check for and either
change or eliminate, and that's typical AI giveaways. Certain words and phrases
are strong AI tells, things like delve and leverage or stock phrases such
as in today's world. Even punctuation
habits like over using em dashes can
signal AI writing. Perhaps you've already spotted the sentence structure that's a real AI tell in our draft. It's this comparison line
here. This isn't just X. It's Y. I am so sick of seeing the sentence
structure everywhere. It's a huge AI giveaway, and it hardly ever
adds anything useful. If I see it in my
client's drafts, I just delete it, and that's exactly what I'm
going to do here. It's important to cut obvious
AI tales like this from your writing because they dilute your brand voice
and erode trust. It's another situation when
reading stuff out loud is a great way to identify
issues that need fixing. Ask yourself if you'd actually say this to a customer
face to face. If not, think about how you
would make the point instead and replace the AI version
with your human version. Now it's your turn.
Action the tips from this lesson in your draft. Apply your voice rules,
adjust sentence rhythm, add a clear point of view, and remove any corporate filler. Save this as Version three. You'll probably have found that after those
first two edits, your draft has become a bit
longer than when you started. We're going to fix that
in the next lesson where we'll tighten our
draft and make it punchy.
5. Make it Punchy: In this lesson, you'll tighten
and strengthen your draft, so it lands with
clarity and impact. At this stage, your
draft should be specific and aligned
with your voice. Now we focus on sharpness. AI drafts are often padded
out and repetitive. When it comes to marketing copy, that's a problem because
most readers skim. If your writing is bloated, the important points get lost. Let's start with the opening. Look at the first
line of your draft. Does it hook attention or
does it ease in too gently? Try to strengthen
the first line by making it clear who it's
for and what's at stake. Our email opens
with the question, are you ready to upgrade
your skincare routine? That's polite but a little soft, and it doesn't speak to our target reader or main benefit. We could tighten it
to short on time? Streamline your
skincare routine. The idea stays the same, but the phrasing creates
more momentum and speaks directly to the busy reader
we identified earlier. The next line opens with at PureGlow skincare, we believe. Let's delete that bit
of waffle and get straight into solving
our reader's problem. Now let's look at the end of
the draft. We have the line. You skin will thank you. Is that really adding anything? Not really. It comes after the call to action
and actually weakens it. It's much better to
end on the CTA and move the reader on to the next
step, so we'll delete it. This is something I
often check in AI draft. Look closely at the first
and last sentence of shorter pieces like this or the first and last
paragraph in longer ones. Quite often, they're
just filler. Cutting them helps
you get to the point faster and finish
cleanly after the CTA. Next, let's look at
cutting some repetition. AI often restates the same
idea in different wording. If two sentences do the same
job, keep the stronger one. Don't be afraid to cut things. Shorter is often stronger and especially appropriate
for emails, social, and websites where your reader's attention
span is likely to be short. In the draft, we currently
have this sentence. 95% of customers tell us their skin feels softer
after using our products. Immediately after
that, the draft adds Our customers consistently tell us they love how soft
their skin feels. Both sentences say
exactly the same thing. The statistic is stronger
and more credible, so we'll keep that and remove
the second line entirely. The result is tighter and easier to read without
losing any meaning. Now let's check the
call to action. A call to action is a direct instruction
that tells the reader exactly
what to do next. For this reason, the
main call to action in any marketing copy usually
appears at the end. In our example draft, the call to action is
explore our full collection. That's a typically vague and open AI generated instruction. Other examples might be visit our website
or find out more. Let's narrow it down a bit. Try our 30-second starter set today. The call to action is now
clearer and more specific. It's also more persuasive because we're
prompting our reader to try a particular product rather than just look at a list. And we're adding a little
urgency with the word today. Finally, format for skimming. Aim for short paragraphs,
clear line breaks, and strong standalone
sentences where appropriate, especially for social
posts and websites. Structure affects impact
as much as wording. For example, instead of ending
with one longer sentence, we can break the final section
into two short lines here. Try our 30-second starter set today. Natural skin care. No fuss. The second line acts almost
like a closing tagline, giving the email a cleaner
and more memorable finish. Now it's your turn. Run this edit on your draft,
strengthen the opening, cut repetition, clarify
calls to action, and adjust formatting
for readability. Save this as your final version. Compare the original AI draft to your finished human
editet piece. You should have more specific
writing with some of your personality in it
and with a punchy rhythm, especially where it matters most in the opening and
closing lines. The differences may be subtle, but running this quick
workflow on everything you write is all it takes to
transform your emails, posts, and web pages from generic AI slop to natural
character for writing. You'll probably find that your
final version is shorter, too, while still getting
the message across. That's a big deal
in itself because shorter marketing copy is more likely to be
read and acted on. I've shaved 25 words off PureGlow Skincare's
marketing email while also adding in a lot of specific
detail and personality. It's a win win. Next,
we'll look at how to reuse this process every
time you write with AI and some next steps.
6. Next Steps: Thank you for taking
this class with me. I hope it's given you a
practical way to use AI without sacrificing clarity or personality in your writing. You now have a simple three edit workflow you can
apply to any draft. You also have the checklist, which you can run through every time you edit an AI draft. Use it consistently
and you'll end up with stronger, more
human writing. To build speed and confidence, run this workflow on at
least one draft a week. The more often you run
drafts through it, the more instinctive
strong writing becomes. It also means you'll feel more confident writing
from scratch quickly, making you less reliant
on AI in the first place. Good news if ChatGPT goes down or you hit
your query limit. Upload your before and after versions as
your class project. I'd love to see what
you've created. If you found this class
helpful, please leave a review. It helps other students
find the class and helps me improve
future ones. Visit my profile page to explore my other copywriting
classes from core foundations to
more focused topics like social media
and brand voice. Follow me to hear about new
classes as they're released. Thanks again for joining me. I'm looking forward
to seeing your work.
Ruth Clowes, Professional Copywriter
