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humanizer

Strip AI writing patterns from text. Checks 24 patterns across 4 categories (structural, lexical, rhetorical, formatting) with academic economics adaptation. This skill should be used on any text that reads too "AI-generated", or as a final pass on drafted sections. Triggers on "humanize", "de-AI", "make it sound natural", or "strip AI patterns".

Published by brycewang-stanford ↗brycewang-stanford/Auto-Empirical-Research-Skills

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humanizer

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Use humanizer to humanize [text file path] by correcting detected AI-writing patterns while preserving its academic economics content, citations, technical terms, and LaTeX structure; overwrite the file and provide a change report.

Required inputs

  • [text file path]

User-approved starter prompt based on a pinned source version; check current skill requirements before running. Task evidence ↗

SKILL.md

name: humanizerdescription: Strip AI writing patterns from text. Checks 24 patterns across 4 categories (structural, lexical, rhetorical, formatting) with academic economics adaptation. This skill should be used on any text that reads too "AI-generated", or as a final pass on drafted sections. Triggers on "humanize", "de-AI", "make it sound natural", or "strip AI patterns".argument-hint: "[file path to .tex, .md, .txt, or .qmd file]"allowed-tools: ["Read", "Write", "Edit", "Grep", "Glob"]

Humanizer

Strip AI writing patterns from academic text while preserving economics content and formal structure.

Input: $ARGUMENTS — path to file to humanize.

Workflow

Step 1: Read the File

Read the target file from $ARGUMENTS. Support .tex, .md, .txt, and .qmd files.

Step 2: Scan for AI Patterns

Check all 24 patterns across 4 categories:

Category 1: Structural Tics (6 patterns)

  1. Triplet lists — "X, Y, and Z" appearing 3+ times in a section
  2. Formulaic transitions — "Moreover", "Furthermore", "Additionally" as sentence starters
  3. Echo conclusions — final paragraph restates every point
  4. Uniform paragraph length — all paragraphs suspiciously similar in length
  5. Topic sentence + support — every paragraph follows identical structure
  6. Numbered/bulleted reasoning — "First... Second... Third..." in prose

Category 2: Lexical Tells (6 patterns)

  1. "Delve" — almost never used by humans in academic writing
  2. "Landscape" — as metaphor ("the policy landscape")
  3. "Crucial/pivotal/vital" — overused intensifiers
  4. "Multifaceted" — AI favourite
  5. "Underscores" — as verb ("this underscores the importance")
  6. "Navigate" — metaphorical ("navigate the challenges")

Category 3: Rhetorical Patterns (6 patterns)

  1. Excessive hedging — "it is worth noting", "interestingly", "arguably"
  2. Performative enthusiasm — "fascinating", "remarkable", "exciting"
  3. False balance — "while X, it is also true that Y" for every claim
  4. Hollow acknowledgment — "this raises important questions" without answering them
  5. Premature synthesis — summarising before enough evidence is presented
  6. Universal agreement — "scholars agree", "it is widely recognised"

Category 4: Formatting Tells (6 patterns)

  1. Over-signposting — "In this section, we will discuss..."
  2. Excessive parallelism — every sentence in a list has identical structure
  3. Definitional opening — starting sections with dictionary-style definitions
  4. Disclaimer stacking — multiple caveats before making a point
  5. Summary before content — "This section covers X, Y, and Z" at the start
  6. Colon-list pattern — "There are three key factors: (1)... (2)... (3)..."

Step 3: Apply Fixes

For each detected pattern:

  1. Identify the specific instance with line number
  2. Rewrite to sound more natural/human
  3. Preserve the academic content and meaning

Academic Economics Adaptation Rules

  • Preserve formal structure where genuinely needed (equations, proofs, identification arguments)
  • Keep technical terms — do not simplify econometric vocabulary (heteroskedasticity-robust, LSOA fixed effects, hedonic pricing, etc.)
  • Maintain citation density — do not remove scholarly references
  • Vary sentence structure — mix short and long, simple and complex
  • Allow imperfection — real writing has slight asymmetries and personality
  • Respect economics conventions — "we estimate", "we find", "column (3) shows" are standard, not AI patterns
  • Keep LaTeX intact — do not modify \textcite{}, \parencite{}, \label{}, \ref{}, or equation environments

Step 4: Report Changes

Present a summary of changes:

## Humanizer Report: [filename]
**Patterns found:** N / 24
**Changes made:** N

| # | Pattern | Category | Location | Change |
|---|---------|----------|----------|--------|
| 1 | Triplet lists | Structural | Section 3, para 2 | Varied list lengths |
| 2 | "Delve" | Lexical | Line 47 | Replaced with "examine" |
...

Step 5: Save

Overwrite the original file with the humanised version (the user can review via git diff).

Principles

  • Preserve meaning. The content must be identical — only the expression changes.
  • Do not over-correct. Some formal academic patterns are normal, not AI tells.
  • Context-aware. "Moreover" in a proof derivation is fine. "Moreover" as every paragraph opener is not.
  • Reversible. User can always git checkout to undo.
  • Light touch for good writing. If only 2-3 patterns found, the text is probably fine. Focus effort on heavily AI-patterned text.
  • Economics-aware. Standard economics phrasing ("we exploit variation in...", "we instrument...") is conventional, not AI-generated.