Formatting
Visual and typographic patterns
Em-Dash Addiction
formattingCompulsive overuse of em dashes for dramatic pauses, parenthetical asides and pivot points. A human writer might use 2-3 per piece (and naturally); AI will use 20+.
“The problem -- and this is the part nobody talks about -- is systemic.”
Bold-First Bullets
formattingEvery bullet point or list item starts with a bolded phrase or sentence. Extremely common in Claude and ChatGPT markdown output. Almost nobody formats lists this way when writing by hand. It's a telltale sign of AI-generated documentation and blog posts AND README files (especially with emojis).
“Every single bullet point begins with a bold keyword.”
Unicode Decoration
formattingUse of unicode arrows (->), smart/curly quotes, and other special characters that can't be easily typed on a standard keyboard. Real writers typing in a text editor produce straight quotes and -> or =>. Claude in particular loves the -> arrow.
“Input → Processing → Output”
3 tropes in Formatting
References
Wikipedia: Signs of AI writing