Is this just a list of words to avoid?
No. Word-lists go stale fast (the book explains why “delve” already backfires). It teaches the underlying habits, structure, rhythm, specificity, stance, so your writing reads human even as the models change.
Field guide
Your writing sounds like AI. Here is exactly why, and how to fix it.
The Complete Encyclopedia of AI Writing Tells. 70+ ways machine-written text gives itself away, each one paired with the specific fix. Current to 2026 and written for people whose work has to read human, not machine.
The problem
Readers can smell it. Most guides about it are junk.
The internet is drowning in AI slop. The em-dashes. The “in today’s fast-paced world.” The rule of three, every single time. The tells are real, but the guides that list them are usually written by AI, half the “facts” are made up, and the words they warn you about changed six months ago. This is the opposite: a working field guide where every tell comes with a fix, and the sources are cited and linked.
What is inside
Seventeen sections. Every tell has a fix.
- The statistical signatures detectors actually use, in plain English
- Vocabulary, syntax, and structure tells with before-and-after fixes
- The punctuation and formatting cluster that survives word-scrubbing
- The subtle ones almost no guide has: announced candor, self-narration, stage-directing the reader
- Model-by-model fingerprints for the 2026 lineup (GPT-5.x, Claude, Gemini, Grok, open models)
- Domain playbooks for journalism, fiction, marketing, academic, legal, and technical writing
- The honest truth about AI detectors, and why no result is ever proof
- The master fix, plus a references section with links
Why trust it
It cites its sources.
Most “spot the AI” content is itself AI, unsourced, and already out of date. This edition is the opposite. Where a popular tell stat could not be traced to a real source, it was cut. Where the research was real, it is cited and linked. That is the difference between this and the free listicles: you can trust what is in it.
References listed and linked
Current to the 2026 model lineup
Honest about the limits: no single tell is proof
Who it is for
If your work cannot sound automated.
Ghostwriters and freelancers who cannot afford to read like a template. Editors and content leads auditing a team’s output. Marketers who want copy that converts because it sounds like a person. Anyone tired of their own drafts reading like a press release.
Questions
Before you buy.
Will it help me beat an AI detector?
It helps you write like a human, which is the only durable answer. Read the detector chapter first: it explains, with sources, why detectors are unreliable and why no score is ever proof.
What do I get, and how?
A designed PDF, 17 sections, delivered instantly after checkout. Free updates to this edition.
Write like a person again.
The Complete Encyclopedia of AI Writing Tells, second edition, 2026. One-time $29, instant download, free updates to this edition.