Using AI to check 10 writing basics while maintaining authorial control
This virtual copy editor scans your writing, identifying errors from grammar to flow. It presents each correction with clear reasoning, then hands you the red pen—letting you decide which improvements belong in your final text. Three versions of the prompt are included and discussed here, including a one-sentence version of the prompt at the conclusion of this post, following a link to the free assistant at OpenAI, and a discussion of the full prompt, which you are free to copy and modify.
Try the free Custom GPT at OpenAI: Steve’s Quick Editor
One of the advantages of a basic paid account today with the major AI vendors is the ability to save and share prompts, assistants, and agents, allowing others to use your AI tools. But no paid account is required to use the full prompt given and discussed below, available ready-to-work at OpenAI’s Explore GPTs; you input a draft text and the tool returns a list of suggested edits considering several basics of writing and editing (enumerated below). Along with Lingua Maven, a talking thesaurus, usage guide, and OED-esque reference librarian with personality, I frequently use this saved prompt, Steve’s Quick Editor, as part of a writing workflow. If you wish, it will implement the changes you approve, returning an edited draft. Usually, I will wrap the text I wish to edit in <draft> tags (language models benefit from the use of <description>”Your stuff here.”</description> tags). The full URL of the tool is: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-nSfBh8gwK-steve-s-quick-editor.
Under the hood: The full Quick Editor prompt
The full text of the prompt is shown here. Or, rather, the full text of this version of the prompt is shown here. While I wrote the first draft (shown at the end of the post), the draft here was generated by Claude, using my draft as part of a prompt to create a copy-editing assistant. The guts of the prompt are discussed after the code window.
<PROMPT>
You are a copy editor assistant designed to help improve the quality of written content. Your task is to analyze the given text for common writing mistakes and suggest corrections or edits. After providing your suggestions, you will ask which, if any, should be implemented.
Here is the text to be edited:
<text_to_edit>
{{TEXT_TO_EDIT}}
</text_to_edit>
Please analyze the above text for the following common mistakes:
1. Grammar and syntax errors
2. Punctuation missteps
3. Spelling mistakes and typos
4. Inconsistent tense usage
5. Misplaced modifiers
6. Redundancy and wordiness
7. Lack of clarity and ambiguity
8. Inconsistent style and formatting
9. Improper use of capitalization
10. Structural issues and flow
For each mistake you identify, provide:
a) The original text
b) The suggested correction
c) A brief explanation of why the change is recommended
Present your findings in the following format:
<corrections>
1. [Type of mistake]
Original: [Original text]
Suggested: [Corrected text]
Explanation: [Brief explanation]
2. [Type of mistake]
Original: [Original text]
Suggested: [Corrected text]
Explanation: [Brief explanation]
[Continue for all identified mistakes]
</corrections>
After listing all corrections and edits, ask the following question:
<question>
Which of these suggestions, if any, would you like to implement? Please provide the numbers of the corrections you'd like to apply, or let me know if you'd like to implement all of them.
</question>
Remember to maintain a professional and helpful tone throughout your analysis and suggestions.
If this is your first exchange with the user, assume they are submitting TEXT for you to process as instructed above; after the first exchange, assist the user as prompted.
<METADATA>
CREATOR: Steve Little prompting Claude 3.5 Sonnet
PROMPT NAME: Steve's Quick Editor
VERSION: 3.0
CUSTOM GPT URL: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-nSfBh8gwK-steve-s-quick-editor
GITHUB REPO: https://github.com/DigitalArchivst/Open-Genealogy
DESCRIPTION: copy editor scans your writing with expert precision, identifying errors from grammar to flow. It presents each correction with clear reasoning, then hands you the red pen—letting you decide which improvements belong in your final text.
CREATION DATE: 2025-01-09
MODIFIED DATE: 2025-02-24
LICENSE: This work by Steve Little is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 License.
</METADATA>
</PROMPT>I did not use this prompt to edit this text you are reading at this moment (nor any of this post). 😉 But I did run the text above through the tool (without using the results, but keeping them), so that you can see what this post would have looked like if I had: here is an example of this tool in use, as if to copy edit this post (so far): https://chatgpt.com/share/67bd4c8a-cdf8-8004-abf9-6b77bf10bcc3.
The guts of this copy-editing prompt are the ten basic writing elements to which the model is instructed to attend. Here is the magic: If you disagree with these 10 elements, you are allowed, invited, and encouraged to modify the tool to your needs (that is the purpose of the Creative Commons license). The remainder of the full prompt handles the presentation of the suggested edits and any implementation. Anyway, here are the ten elements that this version of the prompt attends: “Please analyze the above text for the following common mistakes”:
- Grammar and syntax errors
- Punctuation missteps
- Spelling mistakes and typos
- Inconsistent tense usage
- Misplaced modifiers
- Redundancy and wordiness
- Lack of clarity and ambiguity
- Inconsistent style and formatting
- Improper use of capitalization
- Structural issues and flow
Here is a one-sentence version of the prompt:
<PROMPT>
Please analyze the above DRAFT for the following common mistakes: grammar and syntax errors, punctuation missteps, spelling mistakes and typos, inconsistent tense usage, misplaced modifiers, redundancy and wordiness, lack of clarity and ambiguity, inconsistent style and formatting, improper use of capitalization, structural issues and flow.
</PROMPT>I developed the full prompt from my draft using Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
