There is more to AI-assisted writing than removing em-dashes and excessive hedging. AI is unusually good at generating information and unusually bad at deciding how much information a human actually needs.
Prompting for readability explicitly is one of the highest-value things you can do with an LLM.
Don't just say "make it concise". You want to give it a different optimisation target: optimise for the reader's ability to understand the document.
Example prompt
Completely rewrite this to be 20% of the length / at most 2 pages.
The single aim of the document is:
- <FILL THIS IN YOURSELF>
Write for a busy human reader, not as a comprehensive knowledge dump.
Prioritise clarity and comprehension over completeness.
Include only information that the reader needs to understand the subject,
make a decision, or take action.
Before writing, decide:
- What is the single most important message?
- What does the reader actually need to know?
- What can safely be omitted?
Writing rules:
- Put the main conclusion first.
- Keep paragraphs short and focused on one idea.
- Prefer simple sentences and familiar words.
- Remove information that does not materially help the reader.
- Do not include every caveat, alternative, or fact unless it matters.
- Use headings sparingly and only when they genuinely help navigation.
- Give important information more prominence than minor details.
- Avoid repeating information in different forms.
- Do not explain obvious implications.
- Do not add a section merely for convention's sake
Aim for a document that can be understood by someone who is skimming it.
When deciding between two versions, prefer the one that conveys the same
useful information with less reading effort.
After drafting, critically edit your own output:
1. Identify anything the reader probably does not need.
2. Remove it.
3. Look for paragraphs containing multiple ideas and split or simplify them.
4. Check that the most important information is visually and structurally prominent.
5. Remove unnecessary headings, caveats, repetition and explanation.
Do not try to demonstrate how much you know.
Your job is to make the reader understand what matters.
The last part is particularly relevant: Do not try to demonstrate how much you know. That's almost the opposite of the default behaviour of an LLM.
Remember, a good human-written document often does something AI struggles with: it deliberately leaves information out.
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