Writers: how to use ChatGPT for proofreading/copyediting

I’ve been doing a lot with ChatGPT, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that produces writing similar to what human would produce.

One thing I noticed: when I would publish a post which contained, say, an intro and closing around the conversation I had with ChatGPT, I’d sometimes make errors. Those tended to fall into either proofreading (spelling/grammar), or copyediting (clarity of the writing), or both.

ChatGPT doesn’t make those like I do. It also understands me when I make mistakes.

I thought I’d ask it to proofread/copyedit for me!

That worked quite well. I didn’t take all of its copyediting suggestions (I often like to be idiomatic on purpose, and I want my style to be there), but a lot of it was good.

It first just gave me the revised writing. Then, I asked it to give me the differences, and show me what it did and why.

I liked that!

I asked it for a good prompt for other readers to do to get similar results. Here’s what it wrote (following what I’ve done before, ChatGPT’s comments will be in italics):

ChatGPT:

“Please proofread and copyedit the following text, and provide a list of changes made, categorizing each change as (sp) for spelling, (gr) for grammar, or (ce) for copy-editing, along with an explanation for each change.”

I’m asked it to do that for what I wrote as an intro to this article: here is its response:

ChatGPT:

I’ve been doing a lot with ChatGPT, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that produces writing similar to what a human would produce.

One thing I noticed: when I would publish a post which contained, say, an intro and closing around the conversation I had with ChatGPT, I’d sometimes make errors. Those tended to fall into either proofreading (spelling/grammar) or copyediting (clarity of the writing) categories, or both.

ChatGPT doesn’t make those mistakes like I do. It also understands me when I make mistakes.

I thought I’d ask it to proofread and copyedit for me!

That worked quite well. I didn’t accept all of its copyediting suggestions (I often like to be idiomatic on purpose, and I want my style to be present), but a lot of it was good.

It first just gave me the revised writing. Then, I asked it to list the differences, and show me what it did and why.

I liked that!

I asked it for a good prompt for other readers to use to get similar results. Here’s what it wrote (following what I’ve done before, ChatGPT’s comments will be in italics):

Changes:

1. (ce) “I’ve been doing a lot with ChatGPT, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that produces writing similar to what human would produce.”
   Changed to: “I’ve been doing a lot with ChatGPT, an AI (Artificial Intelligence) that produces writing similar to what a human would produce.”
   Reason: Added missing article “a” for clarity and correctness.
2. (ce) “Those tended to fall into either proofreading (spelling/grammar), or copyediting (clarity of the writing), or both.” Changed to: “Those tended to fall into either proofreading (spelling/grammar) or copyediting (clarity of the writing) categories, or both.”
   Reason: Improved phrasing for clarity and readability.
3. (ce) “ChatGPT doesn’t make those like I do.”
   Changed to: “ChatGPT doesn’t make those mistakes like I do.”
   Reason: Added “mistakes” for clarity and readability.
4. (ce) “I thought I’d ask it to proofread/copyedit for me!”
   Changed to: “I thought I’d ask it to proofread and copyedit for me!”
   Reason: Replaced the slash with “and” for clarity and readability.
5. (ce) “I didn’t take all of its copyediting suggestions (I often like to be idiomatic on purpose, and I want my style to be there), but a lot of it was good.”
   Changed to: “I didn’t accept all of its copyediting suggestions (I often like to be idiomatic on purpose, and I want my style to be present), but a lot of it was good.”
   Reason: Improved phrasing for clarity and readability.

Note: I left my intro the way I originally wrote it so you could see this at work. I normally would have revised it myself before publishing.

I think this can be very useful, both for creative writing and business writing. It won’t surprise me at all if something like this gets integrated into Word and other word-processing programs.

Note: you could also tell it what your audience is…that helps it! It could revise the text differently for 5th graders than for college professors, for example.

I’m always happy to hear what you think! The best way is probably to reach out to me on Twitter:

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Bufo’s Alexa Skills

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the The Measured Circle blog. To support this or other organizations, begin your Amazon shopping from a link on their sites: Amazon.com (Smile.Amazon.com)