Seven reasons why AI is no match for human editorial expertise

UK businesses who put their faith in AI to create and manage professional writing projects do so at their peril, writes Realwords founder Lee Graham

This funny-looking critter is a three-toed sloth, also called an ai. Cute, furry and native to the tropical rainforests of South America, it bears no relation to the other kind of AI – artificial intelligence. Well, except for one thing: neither is much good at writing effective business comms.

Before I go any further, I ought to declare an interest here: my company, Realwords, provides copywriting, editing and proofreading services from real human professionals. We, like everyone else, have read the scare stories about how artificial intelligence will put us all out of work before long – that’s if it hasn’t done away with the human race entirely by the time you’ve finished reading this post.

It’s true that AI does pose some risks to business as we know it, but we’re no fuddy-duddies here at Realwords – we’re all for technological advancement if it means human beings (including ourselves) can improve, sustain and monitor their professional communications via less costly and more expeditious means. The problem is that artificial intelligence does not and is unlikely to ever achieve these aims.

In recent months, we’ve spoken to lots of UK business owners who tell what is now a familiar story: they and their employees began to use resources such as ChatGPT, believing they could throw together almost any kind of written comms in next to no time, only to discover AI wasn’t the silver bullet they’d hoped for. But why? Here are seven key reasons:

1. AI knows nothing about your unique business environment

   AI platforms such as ChatGPT rely on algorithms and data patterns to function, and consequently lack any deep understanding of context. What is your customer base? Who are your stakeholders? How are your competitors communicating with their employees and clients? Artificial intelligence can’t help you here, as the answers will vary according to your specific business environment.

2. AI doesn’t have creativity, originality or style

   Human writers and editors are skilled at crafting stories and offering unique perspectives. To do so requires large helpings of individuality, talent, experience and audience insight that AI simply cannot mimic.

3. AI lacks the human touch

   There’s a reason why we don’t tend to hang pictures drawn by computers in art galleries or invite robots into our homes for tea. Humans connect with other humans in a way that is impossible to replicate artificially. Indeed, the knowledge (or even the potential) that your communications have been composed by a computer program will be enough for some people to disengage with your comms altogether – particularly if your business is built on establishing deep connections with customers and clients (and whose isn’t?).

4. AI cannot act quickly and decisively or make legal, ethical and moral judgements

   Editorial work requires the kind of decision-making, awareness and flexibility that AI is unable to cope with. Without human professionals to help you respond to things like cultural sensitivities, rapidly changing events, or particular legal or compliance considerations, your organisation could soon find itself in hot water.

5. AI doesn’t readily understand British culture

   The biggest AI developers are American companies such as OpenAI, Google, Amazon and IBM. For this reason, their tools can struggle with British spellings, slang terms and other nuances that are often important when trying to convey an appropriate tone and meaning to UK audiences.

6. AI can’t be relied upon to catch critical mistakes

   While some AI platforms can assist with basic proofreading, they often miss subtleties that human editors catch, such as tautology (needless repetition), stylistic inconsistencies and contextual errors. Would you have the confidence to dispatch a piece of work that could contain embarrassing howlers?

7. AI doesn’t have a full contacts book

   Larger editorial projects are likely to require extra support from other professionals such as designers, photographers and graphic artists. Unlike AI, real writers and editors can help you develop professional relationships with the right people in the right location and at the right price for your specific needs.
   

It’s true that AI writing tools can be “trained” to incorporate certain factors that will help tailor your communications. But this requires time and effort and is no guarantee of success, as they will only respond to the quality of your input. And if you are not in the business of writing, editing or proofreading, how will you know what specific information to include?

Put simply, AI platforms can provide a useful starting point for editorial projects, but business owners who ignore the technology’s significant limitations do so at their own risk. Only living, breathing editorial experts can help you navigate the nuanced, human-centric and culturally sensitive world of business and consumer communications with confidence.

Alternatively, you could take your chances with our sloth friend, the ai. While she might not be much cop at professional comms, she has at least given this blog post a furry-tail ending…

Is it acceptable to start a sentence with ‘And’, ‘But’ or ‘So’?

At school, did your teachers ever tell you that a sentence couldn’t start with a conjunction such as ‘And’, ‘But’ or ‘So’?

While this is a good rule of thumb for children learning the basics of how sentences are typically constructed, there’s actually nothing wrong with starting a sentence with a conjunction. In fact, it can be a useful technique for adding dramatic pause to a piece of text.

That must be what Louisa May Alcott thought when she wrote the following passage in her novel Little Women:

‘“We can’t do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do it gladly. But I’m afraid I don’t.” And Meg shook her head, as she thought regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.’

So next time someone tells you that you can’t start a sentence with a conjunction, politely tell them that they are mistaken.

And that’s a fact.

How mnemonics can help you to remember difficult spellings

Do you use any mnemonics to remind you how to spell difficult words?

A mnemonic is a system such as a pattern of letters, ideas or associations that helps you to remember something. One of the most famous examples is the phrase “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” – its initial letters corresponding to the order of colours in a rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Here’s a good one for remembering how to spell NECESSARY: Never Eat Chips. Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Young. And if you forget how to spell MNEMONIC itself, try this: Memorising New Expressions Means One Never Indulges Confusion.

Which mnemonics do you use? Let us know your favourites in the comments section below.

PS – Here's one for your next pub quiz: the rainbow mnemonic refers to Richard III, the last king in the House of York, who was defeated by Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

Beware the exclamation mark – or else!

Editor extraordinaire Gill Wing explores the history of the exclamation mark and gives her verdict on whether to use it in your business writing

‘Hi there! Great to hear from you!’ Have you noticed how upbeat everyone sounds on email? As if we were all teetering on the edge of hysteria, rather than soporifically slumped over our laptops, trying to clear our inboxes. Women are especially keen to appear perky, studies have shown, liberally scattering our online interactions with that universal signifier of friendly intention: the exclamation mark.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, it derived from the Latin word ‘io’, which was added to the end of a sentence to convey joy, much like the modern ‘Hooray!’ Over time, the ‘i’ moved above the ‘o’, the ‘o’ became a dot and – hey presto! – a new form of punctuation was born.

But there’s a reason journalists refer to the exclamation mark as a “screamer”, a “gasper” or a “startler”, and some publications ban it outright: it lacks subtlety. It’s the linguistic equivalent of a big pointy foam finger. In professional writing, respect its brute force and use it sparingly or fall foul of style guru H W Fowler, who cautioned: “Excessive use of exclamation marks is a certain indication of an unpractised writer, or of one who wants to add a dash of spurious sensation to something unsensational.”

Granted, some esteemed authors do use them in abundance – James Joyce averaged 1,100 in every 100,000 words – but, unless you’re confident you’re writing an opus destined to be the next Ulysses, defer to F Scott Fitzgerald, who didn’t pull any punches when it came to what American secretaries used to call the “bang”: “Cut out all exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.” 

Need further convincing? Heed Ben Blatt, writing in The Guardian: “I went through tens of thousands of examples on FanFiction.net, where authors create stories in the Harry Potter or Twilight universes. These authors, writing for fun and without editors, use [exclamation marks] at almost four times the rate of the writer of a novel that ends up on The New York Times bestseller list.” 

Here’s my advice for business writers: if your organisation is headquartered in Devon’s Westward Ho!, Canada’s Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! or the Czech Republic’s Ostrava!!!, you have an excuse; otherwise, the exclamation mark should have no place on your page.

Based in London, Gill Wing is a regular contributor to Realwords projects and has 20 years’ editorial experience on some of the UK’s most-read newspapers, magazines, books, websites and apps. 

How to use apostrophe’s (hint: it’s not like that)

Few topics pique a punctuation pedant’s interest more than use of (or misuse of) the apostrophe. For such a tiny mark, it’s caused more than its fair share of controversy.

As the BBC reported recently, a self-proclaimed ‘grammar vigilante’ has been going out in the middle of the night to correct street signs and shop fronts in Bristol that contain misplaced apostrophes. (Technically, they should call themselves a ‘punctuation vigilante’, as apostrophes have nothing to do with grammar. Who’s the pedant now!)

According to founder John Richards, the Apostrophe Protection Society was established in 2001 “with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language”. In contrast, the Kill The Apostrophe website says it exists “for those who want to remove the apostrophe from the English language, on the basis that it serves only to annoy those who know how it is supposed to be used and to confuse those who dont [sic]”.

At Realwords, we don’t believe in naming and shaming people who use apostrophes incorrectly. We do however urge individuals and businesses to understand that their writing is often interpreted by consumers as an indication of the overall quality of their services and products. For this reason, it’s important to ensure your punctuation is as accurate as possible.

We also don’t believe that the apostrophe should be eradicated from the English language. It exists because there is a need for it. Imagine working for air traffic control and receiving this message: “The planes wings are on fire!” With no apostrophe used, the recipient has no idea whether the wings of one plane or more than one plane are ablaze. (Yes, they could just look out of the window, but you get the point.)

There is one simple way to remember when and when not to use an apostrophe. There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but the following serves as a good rule of thumb:

The main purpose of an apostrophe is to denote a missing letter or letters.

So in a word such as ‘don’t’ or ‘can’t’ (these words are known as ‘contractions’), the apostrophe is there to tell you that one or more letters have been omitted (in this case, the second ‘o’ in ‘do not’ and the ‘no’ in ‘cannot’).

“But what about possessions!” I hear you cry. Well, the same rule applies. Some linguists believe that many years ago, when English speakers talked of things people own, rather than saying “Billy’s bucket” or “Jilly’s spade”, they would say “Billy his bucket” or “Jilly hers spade”. Over time, this shortened (or ‘contracted’) in speech, and “Billy’s bucket” and “Jilly’s spade” became normal. The apostrophes are therefore used in written English to denote the missing letters: the “hi” from “Billy his bucket” and the “her” from “Jilly hers spade”. So again, the rule of thumb applies.

If more than one entity owns something, the apostrophe goes after the ‘s’. So, for instance, you would write “my parents’ house” if referring to both parents. Another example is “The Beatles’ hit single” – unless you are talking about one of, say, Paul McCartney’s solo hits, in which case “the Beatle’s hit single” would be correct (however, the less said about The Frog Chorus, the better).

It gets trickier when words ending in ‘s’ are involved. Is it “Bruce Willis’s film” or “Bruce Willis’ film”? Should you write “Charles Dickens’s book” or “Charles Dickens’ book”? At Realwords, and indeed in most newsrooms and magazine offices in the UK, the preference is to simply write it as you would say it. So you might opt for “Bruce Willis’s film” but “Charles Dickens’ book”.

Hopefully, if you were perplexed by apostrophes before, this blog post has cleared a few things up. If you’re still confused, send us your questions in the comments section below and we’ll do our best to help. Oh, and if you see Billy and Jilly, please tell them we’d like our bucket and spade back.

The Oxford comma: to use or not to use?

Earlier this week, the omission of a controversial punctuation mark from a piece of statute led to judges awarding dairy employees in the US state of Maine potentially millions of dollars in backdated overtime pay.

The case has left a sour taste in the mouths of their employers, who have vowed to contest the ruling. It has also reignited debate among linguists as to the merits of the ‘Oxford comma’, also known as the ‘serial comma’ or ‘Harvard comma’. This is a comma placed after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’.

The Oxford comma is called such because it was traditionally used by publishers at the Oxford University Press. These days, you’re unlikely to see one in British English, but that’s not the case in America. Take this US film title, for instance: Sex, Lies, and Videotape. And compare with this UK film title: Rita, Sue and Bob Too.

For British writers, there are, however, occasions when using the curly curiosity is necessary to avoid ambiguity. Consider this sentence: I visited my sisters, Patricia and Pamela. Without the insertion of an Oxford comma, the reader is led to assume that Patricia and Pamela are the names of the writer’s sisters. But it turns out that what the writer meant was that they visited their sisters (names not given) as well as Patricia and Pamela. The Oxford comma is therefore necessary to resolve the ambiguity: I visited my sisters, Patricia, and Pamela.

At Realwords, we use an Oxford comma only when the sentence would otherwise cause ambiguity – unless, of course, we are writing for an American audience. And if you are reading this in the US, may we offer our greetings, salutations, and best wishes!