deslop

Deslop

Review, diagnose and rewrite prose that carries common AI-writing tells. Treat patterns as clues, not proof of authorship.

The tell taxonomy in references/signs-of-ai-writing.md adapts Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing for general prose. Maintainers: that article is the source of record, so when it changes, re-check the reference file against it section by section and update the revision date in its source note.

State at the start that you are using the deslop skill.

Two modes

• Unknown authorship. Someone wants to know whether, or how much, a text reads as generated. Apply every guardrail below.
• Known machine text. The user says a model wrote the draft and wants it better. Skip authorship assessment, detector warnings and weighing indicators or counter-signals as evidence of origin; go straight to tells and edits. The safeguards for voice, meaning, facts and quotations still apply.

Guardrails

• Do not claim a text is AI-generated from a single tell.
• Do not rely on detector tools alone; light edits and unseen models fool them.
• Prefer clusters of indicators over isolated phrases.
• Do not flatten strong human prose just because it is polished.
• Before editing, note what belongs to the writer: vocabulary, bluntness, humour, hedges that express real doubt, digressions, level of polish. Keep those. Cut in proportion to the tells present, and leave a sentence that works alone.
• Do not invent a fact, figure, example, quotation or source to make a sentence specific. Use what the draft or its sources contain; where they contain nothing, cut the sentence or list the gap under Residual risk.
• Preserve meaning, but do not preserve synthetic cadence.
• Preserve text presented as a verbatim quotation. Flag concerns or offer a separately labelled paraphrase; do not silently alter a source's words.
• Weigh counter-signals before concluding: text from before ChatGPT's launch in November 2022, an author who can explain their choices, plain verbs, true superlatives, ordinary qualifiers and idiosyncratic syntax all argue against a model.
• Ignore the ineffective indicators (perfect grammar, mixed registers, formal or "bland" prose, a lone transition word, unsourced content, one buzzword, dash or triplet) unless a supporting cluster is present.
• If the user only asks for a rewrite, keep diagnosis brief.

Input handling

• Inline text: use it directly.
• File path: read the file, then review its prose.
• URL: fetch page content before reviewing if browsing is available.
• Code or structured data: review comments, docstrings, docs or surrounding copy only; ask if unclear.
• Interface strings (labels, headings, buttons, status lines, empty states): hand to signage. They are signage, not prose, and the tells differ. If signage is unavailable, continue the prose pass, leave interface strings unchanged and identify them as unreviewed.
• No input: ask for the text or file to review.

Workflow

1. Read once for overall effect.
2. Mark the highest-signal clusters before editing.
3. Use the catalogues when you need the full taxonomy: references/signs-of-ai-writing.md for encyclopaedic, reference and report prose, and references/rhetorical-tells.md for essays, newsletters, posts and announcements. references/slop-names.md covers the stock names models give invented people and places, and how well evidenced each one is. The crutch-phrase list lives in this file, below.
4. Explain the issue in editorial terms, not detector jargon.
5. Rewrite towards specificity, directness and verifiable claims, keeping what the next section protects.
6. Check citations, links and markup separately when they look generated or broken.
7. Re-read the rewrite against the same tells before returning it. Removing one pattern often produces its substitute:
   • a cut contrast returns as a colon reveal or a "Y rather than X",
   • a cut closing line returns as a better aphorism,
   • a cut dash returns as a comma splice or a run of short sentences,
   • cut puffery returns as a vaguer "associated with" or "connected to".

When asked only to check, audit or flag, do not rewrite. For each pattern give its name, the quoted line and the edit in a few words. Give no score and no verdict on who wrote the text. Do not ask for a neutral register: an opinionated, lively draft should stay opinionated and lively.

What to keep or add

An editor who only cuts turns lively prose into encyclopaedia register, which is the register a model defaults to. Keep these, and add them where the draft has the material and the genre allows. Keep encyclopaedic and reference prose factual; add specifics, plain verbs and varied rhythm there, and preserve attributed viewpoints. Don't invent the writer's beliefs or add jokes to a neutral entry.

• a point of view, stated as the writer's own;
• a sentence saying why something matters, provided it also gives the concrete reason (importance without content is the tell; importance with its reason is often the point of the piece);
• varied sentence length: a long sentence that carries a qualification, a short one that lands;
• the full range of punctuation, including the writer's own semicolons, colons, brackets and dashes;
• plain verbs (wrote, moved, used, tried, died) and ordinary qualifiers (very, perhaps, tends to);
• true superlatives the facts support: "the first", "the only";
• dry wit drawn from the material, never bolted on;
• vivid specifics: the name, the number, the odd detail a model would have smoothed into "a revolutionary titan of industry".

Highest-signal tells

Look first for clusters of:

• generic, important-sounding description where a specific fact belongs (ask whether the description could be more specific),
• inflated significance, and source-listing or media-name dropping used in place of substance,
• vague attribution ("experts say", "observers note") and vague connection ("associated with", "connected to") where the draft could state the relationship,
• hedging disclaimers about sources: "not widely documented", "based on available information", "should be treated as X rather than Y",
• negative parallelisms: "not just X, but Y" and the reversed "Y rather than X",
• mannered metaphor standing in for a direct statement, such as "a dial worth turning" for "a parameter worth varying",
• openers that announce a point or claim a lone insight: "Here's the thing", "What most people get wrong",
• staged delivery: a colon reveal ("The surprising part: nobody measured it"), several denials before the claim, stacked fragments,
• an abstraction doing what a person did ("the decision emerged", "the data tells us"), hiding the actor,
• sentences that state importance and withhold the content: "The implications are significant",
• commentary on the prose itself: "Let that sink in", "The key point is", "As we'll see",
• a closing line that restates the point as an aphorism,
• outline-style "Despite its X, faces challenges" endings and bolt-on "Future Prospects" sections,
• even rhythm: most sentences between 8 and 20 words, almost none over 30, and nothing but commas and full stops (references/signs-of-ai-writing.md gives the measurable check),
• assistant-style formatting: Markdown leakage, bold sprawl, title case drift, curly quotes where the house style uses straight quotes, ornamental lists,
• stock invented names, such as a made-up expert, customer or sales rep with a name from references/slop-names.md, or a whole cast of them (one is not a tell),
• a pronounced style or register shift between sections (pasted-in passage),
• leaked tool markers such as oaicite, turn0search0, [cite: 1], grok_card, 【29†L582-L589】 or [web:1],
• broken citations, utm_source tracking parameters, suspicious links or placeholder markup.

Rewrite rules

• Replace generic importance language with concrete facts.
• Replace "broader trends" talk with the actual mechanism or evidence.
• Turn source roll-calls into sourced claims.
• Cut vague praise, policy-sounding abstractions and promotional framing.
• Prefer direct verbs over "serves as", "stands as", "represents" or "underscores".
• State the relationship: "associated with" becomes "founded" or "taught at" when the draft says which; otherwise flag the gap.
• Rewrite fake contrasts as direct statements.
• Replace mannered metaphor with the literal phrase, per the section below.
• Remove conclusion-style recaps unless the genre needs them.
• Delete a quotable closing line and end on the last concrete sentence. Do not write a better aphorism in its place.
• Name the actor. "The decision emerged" becomes "the board decided", when the draft says who decided.
• Cut commentary that calls a point important, surprising or subtle. Supply the reason as a fact from the draft, or let the point stand.
• When removing a dash, pick by function: a semicolon between related clauses, brackets for an aside, a colon before an explanation, or sentences of different lengths. Do not default to a comma.
• Apply the portability test: a sentence that would fit unchanged in a piece about a different subject says nothing about this one. Cut it or make it specific.
• Prefer the verb to the verb phrase: "decided" for "made a decision", "can" for "has the ability to". Keep plain verbs plain; do not trade "wrote" for "authored".
• Cut the crutch phrases below on sight.

Mannered prose

Mannered prose substitutes metaphor and flourish for direct statement. Instead of "a parameter worth varying", the mannered writer produces "a dial worth turning". Instead of "this point still matters", they write "this point earns its keep". The phrases exist to display the writer. That is why mannered prose irritates: it makes the reader work harder so the writer can perform, and it is imprecise as well, because a metaphor drags in connotations the writer did not choose and cannot control.

The fix is to say what you mean. Use the literal phrase.

Ask of any figurative phrase: what is the literal claim underneath, and is the figure doing work the literal claim cannot? A metaphor that names something with no plain word (a term of art, a new idea) stays. One that dresses up a claim you could have written straight goes.

Written	Say
A dial worth turning	A parameter worth varying
This point earns its keep	This point still matters
The load-bearing wall of the argument	Name the claim the argument depends on
Where the rubber meets the road	Name the step that actually decides it
The north star for the team	The goal, or the metric

The table gives direction: each fix names what the figure was standing in for. Judge a mannered phrase by whether the plain version says the same thing in fewer words, and prefer the plain version when it does.

Overused crutch phrases (cut on sight)

This section applies to formal or technical prose. In conversational or casual writing, colloquialisms like "to be honest", "honestly" and "let's be real" are legitimate voice markers, not evidence of a model; do not cut them there.

These assert rigour or candour instead of demonstrating it. Delete them.

• "load-bearing" (load-bearing assumption / definition / detail / word / line). Say what the thing does or why it matters, not that it is structurally important.
• The honesty family: "keep (it / the model / us) honest", "the honest part", "to be honest", "honestly", "honest about its gaps / limits", "the honest answer". State the limitation or fact directly; announcing honesty adds nothing.
• Related self-framing: "to its credit", "the hard truth", "let's be real", "the uncomfortable truth", "make no mistake". Cut the preamble, keep the claim.
• Announcements: "here's the thing", "here's why", "it turns out", "let me be clear", "the real issue is". Start at the point.
• Emphasis instructions: "let that sink in", "full stop", "read that again", "this matters because", "the key point is". If the sentence needs the help, make it more specific.
• Filler: "it's worth noting", "at its core", "at the end of the day", "when it comes to", "in today's world", and intensifiers such as "truly", "fundamentally" or "genuinely" where the sentence means the same without them.

These rarely carry meaning the surrounding sentence does not already hold. Delete them; there is nothing to rewrite. Ordinary qualifiers ("very", "perhaps", "tends to") and occasional wordy constructions ("in order to", "the fact that") are not on this list. Don't strip them out as tells; shorten only where they obscure meaning or the requested edit calls for concision.

Output

When reviewing text, use:

1. Observed tells: main patterns and exact phrases.
2. Why they matter: what the patterns do to the prose.
3. Rewrite: a surgical edit or clean replacement passage.
4. Residual risk: citation, sourcing, markup or factual issues needing human review.

For short rewrite-only requests, provide only a short note and the revised text.

Citation and markup checks

When citations or markup look suspicious, verify external sources when fetching is available and permitted. Otherwise mark those checks unverified and continue the wording and markup checks that can be done locally.

• Verify links resolve and support the claim.
• Compare DOI/ISBN identifiers against the claimed publication.
• Flag references with no page numbers, access dates or usable locating detail.
• Check for leaked tool markers.
• Preserve the host system's markup instead of introducing Markdown everywhere.
• Mark anything unverified under Residual risk.