Some words are not wrong, they are just over-used by models and under-used by people. Cutting them is the fastest single edit available, and it costs you no meaning.
Every one of them is high-frequency in generated text and low-frequency in the writing people actually produce under deadline. That asymmetry is the whole test. It is why 'utilize' reads as generated even though it is a real English word, and why 'use' does not.
The list is not fixed forever. New models shift the vocabulary, so the habit to keep is: when a word feels slightly stiff, check whether you would say it out loud to a colleague. If not, it goes.
Swapping 'leverage' for 'use' is a start, but the sentence usually needs the actual action named. 'Leverage our platform to improve outcomes' becomes 'upload a draft, get an edit'. Specificity does the work that the thesaurus cannot.
Same for hedges. 'Significantly improves efficiency' has no content. 'Cuts the edit pass from 40 minutes to 8' does, and a number cannot be padded.
Search for: ly (adverbs), very, really, quite, rather, and then for each sentence starting with Additionally, Moreover, Furthermore, However. Delete about half of what you find. Do not replace it — deletion is almost always the right move, because the sentence was carrying the transition, not the idea.
| What people usually write | What it looks like after |
|---|---|
| We leverage robust, cutting-edge technology to facilitate seamless collaboration across teams. | Everyone edits the same file. No exports, no 'final_v3'. |
| It is important to note that, in today's rapidly evolving landscape, adaptability is pivotal. | Two of our four channels stopped working this year. We dropped them. |
| Our comprehensive, holistic solution streamlines workflows and delivers meaningful outcomes. | It removes one step from a job you do twenty times a week. |
If you want this done to your own draft: ShipCopy takes a piece of text you already wrote and rewrites it in one of three modes — rewrite it to read human, turn a product description into launch copy, or turn a plain-language request into a reusable prompt. Six output formats, 13 languages. 10 generations free, no card.
See what it does Pricing — US$15/monthThey are a weaker signal than word choice, but they are used heavily by models and rarely typed by hand, so readers notice clusters of them. See the em dash page on this site.
No. Precise technical vocabulary is fine. The tells are the vague long words, not the specific ones.
Rarely, and when it does, the meaning was padding. Read the sentence out loud after cutting.