sometimes you can't use a rewriting tool. maybe you're in an exam setting. maybe you just want to know what to look for. here's how to manually edit ai text to sound more human.

step 1: break the rhythm

ai writes in a steady beat. medium sentence, medium sentence, medium sentence. your first job is to break that.

take every third sentence and either cut it in half or combine it with the next one. add a fragment somewhere. "works every time." or a question. "why does this matter?" the goal is uneven rhythm.

step 2: kill the transitions

find every "moreover," "furthermore," "additionally," "it's worth noting," and "in today's landscape." delete them. all of them.

if the paragraph still makes sense without the transition (it will), leave it out. if it genuinely needs a connector, use "but," "and," "so," or "also." normal words that normal people use.

step 3: add something specific

ai text is always general. "many professionals find that..." "students often struggle with..." replace at least one general statement per section with something specific. a name, a date, a place, a number. "my roommate failed her bio midterm because of this." specificity reads as human.

step 4: mess with the formality

ai maintains a consistent register. every sentence is the same level of formal. humans don't do this. you write a formal sentence, then follow it with something casual, then back to formal.

throw in a contraction where the ai used the full form. use "gonna" or "kinda" once. start a sentence with "look," or "honestly." these register shifts are a strong human signal.

step 5: cut the conclusion

ai always wraps up neatly. "in conclusion, we can see that..." delete it. end on a point, not a summary. human writing often just stops when it's done making its point.

the time cost

manual editing like this takes 20-30 minutes per 1000 words. it works, but it's slow. paraai's paraphrase does all of this automatically using fine-tuned models — same result in seconds. but if you need to do it by hand, these five steps cover the main tells.

untraceable ai writing is about breaking patterns. whether you break them manually or with a tool, the patterns are the same.