How to Edit AI-Written Content

Human editing is necessary to ensure that your AI-written content connects with readers on an emotional level and gains their trust. This is the only way to guarantee that your content performs well and converts.

AI-written content has become ever-popular; however, it is far from perfect and requires a heavy human hand. There are several advantages when it comes to using AI to write content. It is fast, automated, and efficient and can play a crucial role in your content distribution strategy.

ChatGPT can write 1000 words in five to ten seconds. Compare this to a wholly human-dependent process. This process might take days or even weeks to complete. You need to write the content brief, then find a writer who has to do the research and write the blog article. And that's not the end of it. You need to go through several rounds of editing and proofreading to make sure that the article is accurate and hits the right tone.

AI-written content with its speed drastically flattens this process. However, there’s only one issue — AI-written content can be junk. While a lot of AI-written content is decent or passable, it has several issues that need to be fixed before hitting that published button. These issues include: 

• Hallucinations

• Faulty tone

• Generic content

• Thin content

• Plagiarism

So how do you fix this problem? You need a content editor. A professional content editor knows how to edit AI-written content for accuracy and tone. They also make sure that the article ends up reading as something original and unique. A professional content editor will edit to 1. Ensure accuracy, 2. Unique or interesting perspectives and 3 Avoid plagiarism.

How do they do so? It begins with a proper content brief that narrows the margin of error for AI. This is then followed by heavy and substantial editing to guarantee the proper tone is used and that facts are accurate. In this article, we provide tips and strategies that you can use to ensure that your AI-written content comes across as readable and useful to your readers. Read on to learn more. 

What does editing AI-written content mean? 

Editing AI-written content means making corrections to content produced by AI to ensure factual accuracy, uniqueness, and proper tone of voice (TOV). The most popular AI software by far is ChatGPT. 

ChatGPT, introduced by OpenAI in November 2022, quickly became popular in content writing because of its advanced language capabilities. The software is based on extensive datasets and has seen constant improvements through successive models, such as GPT-3 and GPT-4. 

ChatGPT has been revolutionary in terms of its ability to produce coherent, relevant, and creative text. Although it was first designed as a chatbot for conversational use, ChatGPT soon excelled in creating other forms of content:

• Articles

• Marketing copy 

• Social media content

The software became and continues to remain popular among website owners, businesses, and writers who see it as a cheap, fast, and convenient way to produce content.

However, the software is far from perfect and has a number of issues that need to be addressed before it can be properly incorporated into a content distribution strategy. ChatGPT is guilty of hallucinations — that is, making stuff up. 

In addition to this, it is after all a robot. That means content can be generic, boring to read, and unappealing to readers. Of course, there is your tone as either an individual or a business. AI-written content frequently fails to capture the appropriate tone for your business. 

Why AI needs to be edited

AI has several advantages in terms of content production and distribution, but it simply won’t work without human editing. So what are the issues that content marketers face with AI?

1. Hallucinations. Hallucinations refer to AI making things up. AI is unable to generate unique content. It relies entirely on other sources of data. In the absence of relevant information, ChatGpt will simply come up with an approximate answer.

As a mathematical or statistical concept, that makes perfect sense. In maths, we use averages, approximations, and statistical predictions to come up with an answer when we’re not sure. This won’t work when it comes to factual data.

This is especially true for many YMYL (your money your life) industries. For example, the healthcare or legal industry. If you are in either of these industries, you can’t rely on approximations of facts. Medical dosages of specific medications should be specific and precise. 

You can’t have a chatbot come up with an average dose of medicine for a specific disease. Someone’s life may depend on this information being accurate. The same is true for legal matters.  

2. Faulty tone. AI is a robot and it sure sounds like one. Most AI-written content comes across as academic essays written by undergraduate students or even high school students in gifted programs. They are dry in tone and use a bunch of outdated or inappropriate expressions.

It’s one thing to write and edit SEO-friendly content that can rank. It’s another to write content that can gain the trust of buyers or prospects and encourage them to convert. You can only do so by achieving the right tone of voice or TOV.

3. Generic content. Much of the content that you get from AI will be generic. AI is not at that stage where they can create anything unique or original. What would be the point of anyone reading your content if your perspective adds nothing new or original? 

AI generates content by simply summing up knowledge from sources gathered throughout the Internet. It does not have the taste or discernment to tell apart reliable sources from unreliable sources or an interesting angle from an uninteresting one. Only human judgment is capable of making those choices, and AI simply does not have that yet.

4. Plagiarism. AI more often than not spins source material into original phrasing. However, frequently, it ends up regurgitating unspun or plagiarized content word for word. This has both legal and trust implications. 

The original copyright owners of this material may have the legal right to sue you. Plus. readers who are aware of the original content may not trust you. If the situation gets bad enough, it may even result in a Google strike for violating copyrighted material. 

Another problem linked to AI is thin content. Often, you may ask AI to produce 1000 words of content and you end up with 500. AI chatbots are a relatively new and even experimental product. That means it is still a little janky.

It would be irresponsible to wholly rely on it without any human input. However, more importantly, your readers can tell when AI is used to generate content. This has the downside of reducing trust in your product service or brand.

A process to edit AI-written content 

Editing AI-written content should not begin with AI-generated content. Instead, it should begin with your content briefs. Think of your content briefs as the intelligent prompt that you use to make sure that you get the best possible content from AI.

For example, you can’t just type in “Write me a 1000-word article on how to build a sales funnel. Instead, you have to come up with a content brief that includes headings and subheadings. In addition to this, you should also pay attention to using proper source material and include it in your prompts and briefs. 

Professional editing is the final stage. This could include you serving as the final editor to give a human touch to AI-generated content. On the other hand, you can hire a professional editor to do so for you.

The list below shows the steps to follow when editing AI-written content.

Step 1. Create a comprehensive content brief  Step 2. Include credible sources in your content brief Step 3. Create a prompt that instructs the AI to consider both the brief and source links Step 4. Generate the content Step 5. Edit the content for accuracy Step 6. Edit the content for TOV Step 7. Proofread the content Step 8. Hit publish

AI may have made publishing content easier. But it’s not a magic cure. Simply producing hundreds or even thousands of blog posts that sound like robot-inspired junk will get you nowhere. You will simply turn readers off. 

Research has even shown that people are growing more and more suspicious of AI-written content. More to the point, one study even showed that it lowered consumers’ purchasing intention. This means AI can turn people off from buying your products or services.

So even if you rely on AI for content production and distribution, it should not be obvious. The more you rely on AI for content production, the more you should rely on professional content editing services. 

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How EminentEdit can help you edit AI-generated content

EminentEdit has a small team of dedicated editors who edit AI-generated content with one goal in mind — making sure that your content inspires your prospects to buy. 

We provide editing services that ensure that your content sounds like something written by a human and is accurate. Our services include:

• Editing for factual accuracy

• Editing to fix thin content 

• Editing for proper TOV

• Editing for SEO optimization

• Editiing for sales conversion

In addition to this, we offer you the option of taking charge of your content production process from beginning to end. We can begin with the content briefs that you provide instead of beginning with the AI-generated content. 

Do you rely heavily on AI-generated content and are not sure it inspires confidence in your readers or prospects? Get in touch with one of our representatives today to see how we can help — Get Help to edit your AI content. 

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2024, November 8). How to Edit AI-Written Content. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/how-to-edit-ai-written-content