Generated drafts fail in a consistent pattern, which is why a consistent routine beats careful reading. The prose is fluent, the structure is generic, and the specific claims are either absent or invented. Reading top to bottom, you fix the sentences and miss all three. Five passes, each hunting one thing, take about fifteen minutes on a 1,000-word draft and catch nearly everything.
Pass one: structure (about 4 minutes)
Before touching a sentence, look at the headings alone. Read them in order and ask whether they form an argument or just a list of related topics. Generated drafts produce the second — six sections that are all about the subject rather than six steps that go somewhere.
- Delete any heading that restates the previous one.
- Merge sections under 80 words into their neighbour.
- Check that the order matches how a reader would actually decide or learn.
- Move anything that answers a question the reader has not asked yet, further down.
Structure is the only pass that can invalidate the others, so it goes first. Roughly a third of our editing time sat here, and it was the pass that changed the draft most.
Pass two: specificity (about 4 minutes)
Now hunt for vagueness, which is the signature of generated text. Search mentally for these and replace each with something you actually know:
- Unattributed claims. "Studies show", "experts agree", "many users find". Either name the source or cut the sentence.
- Numbers with no referent. "Up to 40% faster" than what? A figure you cannot defend is worse than no figure.
- Adverbs doing a noun's job. "Significantly improves" → say what changed and by how much, or say nothing.
- Named things left generic. "A popular tool", "in most industries". Name it or generalise honestly.
This pass is where you add the material only you have: a result from your own work, a figure from your own records, a real example. If a paragraph has nothing you can add, it probably should not be in the piece.
Pass three: voice (about 3 minutes)
Generated prose has tells. Fix them mechanically:
- Cut the opening wind-up. "In today's rapidly evolving landscape" and its variants — start at the actual sentence.
- Remove the closing summary. The final paragraph that restates what the piece said. Delete it; the piece already said it.
- Break the rhythm. Generated sentences cluster at similar lengths. Deliberately write one short sentence after a long one.
- Kill the triads. "Fast, reliable, and scalable" — three adjectives is a machine signature. Keep one.
- Delete hedge stacking. "It may be worth considering that this could potentially" — one hedge, or a straight claim.
Pass four: facts (about 3 minutes)
The pass people skip, and the one that produces corrections. Anything checkable gets checked: prices, plan names, limits, dates, statistics, quotes, and any claim about what a specific product does. Checked against the source, not against another draft — asking a tool to verify a tool's claim confirms fluency, not accuracy.
Keep a short list of the facts you state most often, with the date you verified them and the URL. Our experience was that prices and plan limits go stale fastest, and a stale price in a comparison piece is the correction readers actually send.
Pass five: finish (about 1 minute)
Mechanical, and worth doing last because earlier passes change it:
- Links: every internal link resolves, externals still live.
- Formatting: tables wrapped so they render, headings in sequence, no orphaned subhead.
- First and last line read aloud — most drafts open and close badly, and those two lines get disproportionate attention.
- Title and description match what the piece now says, after four passes of changes.
What this costs, measured
Our 30-day benchmark put editing at roughly 22 minutes per 1,000 words on a low-cost dedicated writer and about 8 minutes on a stronger general assistant. Same routine, very different starting point — the cheaper tool's drafts needed structural work; the stronger model's needed mostly specificity and voice. At $30 per hour that is about $7 of your time per piece of difference, which is worth knowing before choosing on subscription price alone.
One edit that fixes most generated prose
If you only do one thing: delete the first paragraph and the last one. Nearly every generated draft opens with context the reader did not ask for and closes with a summary of itself. Removing both typically takes a 900-word draft to 700 words and makes it read like someone wrote it deliberately.
Fix the shape before the sentences
Structure first, then specificity — the order is what makes it fast.
Try Rytr →Frequently Asked Questions
How long should editing an AI draft take?
Around fifteen minutes for a 1,000-word piece using five ordered passes. It varies by tool: our benchmark measured about 22 minutes per 1,000 words on a low-cost writer against roughly 8 on a stronger assistant.
What is the most common problem with AI drafts?
Generic structure — six sections about the topic rather than six steps that go somewhere. Fixing headings first saves rewriting sentences later.
Should I fact-check with the same tool that wrote it?
No. Asking a tool to verify its own claim confirms fluency, not accuracy. Check prices, limits, dates and statistics against the original source.
How do I make AI writing sound less generated?
Delete the opening wind-up and the closing summary, break up uniform sentence length, and cut three-adjective lists. Those three edits do most of the work.
Do I need to edit short content too?
Less, but the facts pass still applies. An email or caption carries fewer structural problems and just as many invented specifics.