Going beyond ChatGPT as your Ghostwriter

While there seems to be endless articles, videos and tips sharing the “ultimate” prompts to use with ChatGPT, there is something I’ve been doing that I haven’t seen discussed.

We’ve reached the point where we have meme’s about ChatGPT helping people write long emails and the recipient using it to break that email down into easy-to-read bullet points.

I think there is a better way to use ChatGPT with the goals of keeping your own writing skills sharp and retaining your personal voice in your communications. While the technology is improving at break-neck speeds, text generated by AIs can still sound flat. And of course, for students, there are tools being employed to spot papers written by AI.

When I have some text that I feel isn’t ready for sharing, I turn to ChatGPT and ask it to do something fairly specific.

• I found I have to explicitly state I don’t simply want it to rewrite the text I share with it. It wasn’t always this way, but I think they’ve tuned ChatGPT 4 to be less verbose due to loads.
• I ask it to critique my writing while providing the criteria I want it to use such as clarity, conciseness, etc.
• If I’m struggling to find the right words to convey certain information, I will type into ChatGPT a stream of consciousness which I add to the prompt as the information I’m trying to convey.

It's been nothing short of miraculous.

Not only does it teach me how to write better, but it’s also been able to provide additional context when I state who the intended audience is. It generally gives me an overall sense of the text such as, good start, needs work, etc. as well as a list of specific critiques and suggestions of how it might be improved. I’m able to take those suggestions and rephrase them in a way that’s consistent with my own voice.

If the communication is particularly important, or I can tell I’m still struggling I work iteratively with ChatGPT sharing each new version that I create. When I feel it’s ready, I ask ChatGPT to critique it as a final draft. If it’s good, it explains why it’s good. If it catches typos or areas that still need minor tweaks it lets me know.

The TLDR; version: instead of using ChatGPT as a ghostwriter make it your editor through these techniques. If you’re looking to keep your writing abilities in top shape while still leveraging the power of ChatGPT, I highly recommend this methodology for any communication you care about.

UPDATE: While following this method recently, I discovered that ChatGPT and I had missed some errors. I was a bit confused at first, as I thought it can't be because it's not capable.

So in a bit of a meta moment I decided to ask it why it hadn't caught the specific error I came across while rereading the article.

As researchers are finding out, the specifics of your request matter when it comes to how you ask ChatGPT to performing certain tasks. (Here's a recent post that touches on that subject: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/mikejmcaulay_gpt-4-is-smarter-than-you-think-introducing-activity-7061790799885185024-xgKE).

To help catch the kind of errors I'd found while double checking the article, I needed to ask it explicitly to proofread it. Here's the full response from ChatGPT, which I believe highlights some of its limitations in inferring context:

Absolutely, I can help you spot such errors. In this context, it's typically referred to as proofreading for typographical errors, misused words, or grammatical errors. When you want me to check for these, you can specify that you would like a "proofread" of the document.

For example, you might say, "Could you please proofread this article for typos, misused words, and grammatical errors?" This lets me know that you're looking for a detailed review of the language at the word and sentence level, rather than a broader critique of the content or structure.

-ChatGPT 4

I hope this helps improve your own usage of ChatGPT as an editor.