How To Write With An LLM
Thomas Ptacek's practical tips on using LLMs as copyeditors are useful for anyone looking to improve their writing by leveraging AI tools.
Thomas Ptacek shares his approach to using LLMs as copyeditors, emphasizing that users should avoid using any suggested phrases.
He recommends using LLMs for fact-checking, spelling, and grammar, but not for writing content.Ptacek provides a prompt to help readers build their own LLM copyediting tools.
How To Write With An LLM Thomas Ptacek on using LLMs as copyeditors, not as writing assistants: Rule Number One: You may not use a single word an LLM suggests to you. [...] I think that as a form of intellectual personal protective equipment you should adopt the rule that any specific turn of phrase an LLM suggests is off limits. Be strict about the rule! I won't let LLMs write content for my blog, but I use them for fact-checking, spelling and grammar and as an occasional thesaurus (see my proofreading prompt ). The rule to never use a turn of phrase suggested by an LLM feels good to me. The text has that weird smell to it, and it's also a good principle to help stay disciplined. Later in this piece Thomas shows a screenshot of his personal LLM copyediting tool (see also this Twitter thread ), and provides a prompt to help kickstart building your own. Tags: thomas-ptacek , writing , ai , generative-ai , llms
This report is categorized under AITOP's "How-to" desk, focusing on US frontier AI labs and Silicon Valley technology leaders. Within our cross-regional analytical framework, it directly maps to AI developer toolchains, coding agents, and engineering workflows. Key entities and technical topics under continuous tracking include thomas-ptacek, writing, llms, copyediting.
Source attribution: curated from Simon Willison’s Weblog.
