Ah, the modern world! So many new technologies that make our lives easier! Some of the most interesting emerging services provide manuscript editing powered by artificial intelligence. A good example is ProWritingAid, which analyzes your text and not only flags obvious spelling and grammatical mistakes – which we’ve seen for years – but makes suggestions for how to re-phrase and even embellish a sentence. The AI algorithm figures out what you want to say and provides a list of acceptable alternatives. It’s easy! As the guy in the 1-800-GOT-JUNK commercial says, “All you need to do is point,” and you’ll have an acceptable document.
AI Editing for Everyone
The good thing about such AI editors is that they make basic editorial cleanup available for anyone. Companies, for example, churn out billions of words every year. They publish blogs and white papers and reports, and these documents need to appear professional and free from errors. Before releasing them, it doesn’t hurt to run them through an application like ProWritingAid to ensure they meet a minimum standard of quality. The service is fast and cheap, and produces a predictable product.
The Fast-Food Editor: Bland Uniformity
If this sounds like a fast-food solution to editing, you’re right. Take McDonald’s, for example. The mission of McDonald’s is to make acceptable, edible food available to everyone at a low price. If you have five bucks in your pocket, you can get a burger and fries at McDonald’s. You can go nearly anywhere in the industrialized world and get the same burger and fries. But this approach has serious limitations. At any fast-food restaurant, you’ll never get a hand-cooked, premium meal. You’ll always be served what the kitchen scientists at the corporate office think you should eat. And what you consume is the same stuff that millions of other people are consuming. This is not a defect of McDonald’s, but a feature.
Services like ProWritingAid, Grammarly, WordVoiceAI, AuthorONE, and many others have the same constraint. They’re designed to deliver bland, uniform results according to the algorithm. This may work well when you’re a corporate communications officer looking for fast and cheap proofreading of your quarterly report. But if you’re writing a book with your name proudly emblazoned on the cover, and you want to deliver a premium product that will rise above the crowded market, the last thing you need is AI powered editing. You don’t want to serve your readers a McDonald’s fast food experience. You want to give them a gourmet meal they’ll never forget and which may even change their lives.
Go to ProWritingAid when you want a fast, cheap product. But when you need quality, hand-crafted editing that transforms your self-help book, business book, or novel from a commercial burger to a premium gourmet meal, you need a professional human editor. I look forward to hearing from you!
