---
title: "Ruben Hassid on AI Writing and Em Dashes"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/f90ab921-003b-4259-9f69-1e2c24df2969
source_url: "https://x.com/rubenhassid/status/2087856703773508025?s=12"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/business/stack/7c5a8832-3368-4e35-961e-f9273bcef8cc
summary: "Ruben Hassid identifies nine common patterns of AI-generated writing and provides a six-step framework to improve AI writing quality using the ASD-STE100 standard and custom Claude skills. The guide emphasizes simplicity, brevity, clarity, and humanity as core principles for authentic writing."
tags: "ai-writing, writing-tips, ai-detection, content-quality, prompt-engineering, claude, asd-ste100"
key_entities: "Ruben Hassid (person), Claude (technology), ChatGPT (technology), Gemini (technology), Grok (technology), ASD-STE100 (concept), Zinsser (person), Substack (organization), AI detection (concept)"
classification: "tutorial"
content_hash: "sha256:2c31ce922dab20e5a76302066b7b1026aff1727c1af95581153ea4aaa51c180b"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 886
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# Ruben Hassid on AI Writing and Em Dashes

Ruben Hassid @rubenhassid I absolutely hate AI writing. And my entire job is to write about AI. So I keep a file of the new em-dash to recognize AI writing instantly: Everyone learned the em dash trick. AI is trained to not write with em dashes anymore. Now you can get accused of using AI if you write in perfectly structured sentences. These are some of the dead giveaways of using AI: 1. "That's not X. That's Y." "That's not compliance. That's stalling." Say the second half only. "They're stalling." 2. Two short bits stuck together. "Fast. Simple." "No fluff. Just answers." Pick only one to write like a real person. 3. "Less a hammer, more a scalpel." Visualizing two pictures with no advice. Directly say what to do instead. 4. Clapping for itself. "And that matters." "That's the part everyone misses." "Which is exactly the point." Delete them all. You lose nothing. I promise. 5. "It's the Excel of AI agents." Only works if I know both things. Usually I don't. 6. Warming up before talking. "Here's the thing." "Let me be clear." "The truth is." Start one sentence later. 7. Always three things. "Faster, cheaper, smarter." Real life gives you two reasons. Or five. Never always three. 8. "5 to 10 minutes." A range means you never did it. Just say 7 minutes. 9. The ending that repeats the whole post. "In short…" "At the end of the day…" Just stop typing. End on a high note. Now that you know how AI writes. Here's how to actually stop AI from doing all nine: Step 1. Type only these two words in your prompt. Open chat & write: "Use ASD-STE100." That's the writing standard for plane manuals. Short words, short sentences, because a confusing sentence there can kill someone. Claude already knows it. Those words remove 80% of the bad writing. Works on ChatGPT, Gemini & Grok too. Step 2. Get the skill so you never type it again. I built the full version with every rule inside. It's free: ste.rubenhassid.ai Download the zip. In Claude, click Customize on the left. Click Skills. Click Upload a skill. Drop the zip in. Type /ste to use it. Step 3. Turn it off for fun stuff. I asked it for a poem. Unreadable. I asked it for a LinkedIn post. It sounded German. Use /ste for guides, steps, explanations, emails, documents. Turn it off for anything with a heart. Step 4. Add 4 lines to your claude .md. "follow Zinsser's four principles of quality writing: 1. Simplicity 2. Brevity 3. Clarity 4. Humanity" /ste gives you the first three but forgets about the fourth. This prompt puts it back on the track. Step 5. Make a forbidden .md. Copy the 9 patterns above into a file. Tell Claude to check every draft against it. Then add a new line every time you spot one. Your file gets better every week. Mine certainly does. Step 6. Start a new chat more often. If your chat is long, the writing gets worse. It repeats itself & goes back to the pretty sentences. When it feels half full, open a fresh chat & paste your files back. The skill is free, right in your inbox: ste.rubenhassid.ai Ruben Hassid @rubenhassid Jul 23 Article How to bypass AI detectors: Substack is at war against AI. The CEO of Substack just announced their new AI detector: You can also detect AI slop instantly. What’s AI slop? It’s when you receive this from your colleague: This...