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Us About Good Writing," UCLA writer and lecturer Laura
The very point of sale
The ve ry point of sale Hartenberger wrote that good writing, in addition to being
clear, concise and grammatical, has a human factor that AI
cannot fully replicate.

"Perhaps the best writing also innovates in form and
content; or perhaps it evokes an emotional response in
its readers; or maybe it employs virtuosic syntax and
sophisticated diction," she wrote. "Perhaps good writing
just has an ineffable spark, an aliveness, a know-it-when-
you-see-it quality."
Take stock and With these principles in mind, I created columns

for technical and grammatical accuracy, clarity and
begin again conciseness, and originality/voice. But I left out know-it-
when-you-see-it, figuring that category would take care
of itself, since writers, editors and even judges know when
By Dale S. Laszig harmonized words create a perfect hallelujah.
DSL Direct LLC Separating bot, human

or many businesses, the month of January is a It's not easy to rise above the noise in the payments
time to take inventory and prepare for the year industry. For every professional vying to win a job, contest,
ahead. I've worked at companies where everyone partnership, sale or investment round, or trying to bring
F pitches in on a Saturday, dividing into teams and a product or service to market, there are thousands of
moving through the warehouse, counting every item on understudies waiting in the wings, ready to take over.
every shelf. Each team has a foreman and everyone counts Some of these hopefuls, as Hartenberger noted, are not
everything twice, using pencils and pads and comparing even human. But are they contenders?
notes. Eventually, after breaking for pizza and arriving at
final counts, staffers clock out and go home. "What is the voice of ChatGPT?," she wrote. "When it lacks
instructions to imitate a particular voice, it presumably
For individuals, taking inventory can be a similar process, imitates all of us, averaging our voices together into an
beginning with griping about it, then agonizing when indistinct default. Conversing with the chatbot feels like
things don't match up and finally feeling overwhelmed by encountering someone you recognize but have never
the enormity of what it would take to get one's house in met—a voice of the masses, distant yet familiar."
order, whether literally or figuratively. And the kicker is,
because the process begins at home, there's no way to clock Hartenberger further noted that ChatGPT hardly waxes
out and leave. poetically on chosen topics but rather explains things in
a flat, monotone style. Robot narrators make salient points
Evaluation framework but fail in many cases to make that all-important human
connection, which she framed as the essence of writing: a
The inventory process came to mind when judging a relational act with the power to exchange ideas. As such,
literary contest for an industry trade association. The 20 writing is the "closest we can get to inhabiting the mind of
finalists had been chosen by a panel of industry experts; it another human, the closest to escaping our own egos."
was my job to cull the list to first, second and third-place
winners. Separating finalist, winner
Choosing the top three from a pool of engaging, gifted In a marketplace with no shortage of qualified applicants
writers was far from easy. The first step was to formalize and specialists, the smallest detail can make the difference
the process, using tried-and-true methods from my stock between a winner and a runner up. A misspelling or typo,
checking days. When listing submissions by subject and broken link in a published article, or a website that isn't
title, I left out author names to stay focused on content optimized for mobile can disqualify a candidate.
rather than contributors and created columns for qualifying
criteria. The resulting worksheet provided a framework for Hiring authorities tasked with choosing a few good
judging each entry. candidates from a pool of highly qualified executives with
stellar references will occasionally use arbitrary reasons for
Separating good, great disqualifying people. Maybe one candidate didn't graduate
college or have a post-graduate degree. Maybe another had
What qualities separate good writing from the stockpile of a completely explainable gap in employment history. This
mediocre pitches flooding editors' inboxes every day? In approach may not seem fair but is preferable to putting on
a July 25, 2023, post in NOĒMA, titled "What AI Teaches
a blindfold and throwing a dart.
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