Composition

"What I'm going to tell you; what I'm telling you; what I just told you" -- applied at every level of the document. Every subsection gets a summary. Every section gets a summary. The document itself gets a summary.

“In this section, we'll explore... [3000 words later] ...as we've seen in this section.”

Latching onto a single metaphor and beating it into the ground across the entire thing. A human writer would introduce a metaphor, use it then move on. AI will repeat the same metaphor 5-10 times.

“The ecosystem needs ecosystems to build ecosystem value.”

ESPECIALLY COMMON IN TECHNICAL WRITING: Rapid-fire listing of historical companies or tech revolutions to build false authority.

“Apple didn't build Uber. Facebook didn't build Spotify. Stripe didn't build Shopify. AWS didn't build Airbnb.”

Making a single argument and restating it in 10 different ways across thousands of words. The model pads a simple thesis to feel "comprehensive" by rephrasing the same idea with different metaphors, examples, and framings. An 800-word argument becomes 4000 words of circular repetition.

“The same point, restated eight ways across 4000 words.”

Repeating entire sections or paragraphs verbatim within the same piece. This happens when the model loses track of what it has already written, especially in longer pieces. A dead giveaway of unedited AI output. Less common nowadays.

“The same section appeared twice, word-for-word identical.”

Explicitly announcing the conclusion with "In conclusion", "To sum up", or "In summary". Competent writing doesn't need to tell you it's concluding. The reader can feel it. AI signals its structural moves because it's following a template, not writing organically.

“In conclusion, the future of AI depends on...”

The rigid formula where AI acknowledges problems only to immediately dismiss them. Always follows the same beat: "Despite its [positive words], [subject] faces challenges..." then ends with "Despite these challenges, [optimistic conclusion].".

“Despite these challenges, the initiative continues to thrive.”