Update metadata and transcripts through end of July 2026

Refreshed episodes/hosts/comments/series from hpr.sql, and added
official HPR transcripts for the 180 episodes aired since the last
sync (hpr4516-hpr4695).

hpr_transcripts/hpr4601.txt

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+Episode: 4601
+Title: How to be a better writer
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4601/hpr4601.mp3
+Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:14:54 (official HPR transcript)
+
+---
+
+This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4601, for 2026-03-23
+Today's show is entitled, "How to be a better writer"
+The host is enistello and the duration is 00:09:59
+The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
+The summary is "By taking apart large language models' writing style, we can learn to be better writers."
+Hello there, welcome to Hacker Public Radio. I'm Ann Estelo. If you've ever thought
+now you dreamt about creating your own podcast and getting it published, head over to
+the Hacker Public Radio website. There are instructions there. It's really easy to get
+you started. I'd urge you to do it. So this episode is about improving your writing.
+And the way that we're going to be doing this today is by examining the writing style
+of large language models, LLMs, which we laughingly call AI. Now, most people can spot
+text that's written by a large language model. It's that kind of feeling of soullessness
+and impersonal tone, use of the M-capitalized headings. Things like that. But I thought it
+might be interesting to examine some text produced by an AI and then maybe try and do something
+different. So the first thing to keep an eye out in for is that LLMs are good at spelling
+and grammar. And so to be a good writer makes a mistakes. Don't be afraid of making
+mistakes. Don't be afraid of misspelling words. Your spell check will probably pick those
+up anyway. But don't be afraid of making grammatical errors. Sure, there's probably a grammar
+Nazi out there, who might me, who may well pick you up on those and laugh at you behind
+your back. But in all seriousness, I spend eight, twelve hours a day reading the internet.
+And I would much rather read a few human mistakes than the type of craft that a large
+language model will produce. Second thing, verbosity. Large language models are verbose.
+They overdo it and they subscribe to the edict that the more words they use, the better.
+So as a writer, try and use one word instead of two or three or more. Here's an example
+of a kind of thing that I mean. It's an exit from a blog post on the Open AI website,
+Open AI, of course, being the company that produce chat GPT. I think it's important to give
+Open AI some credibility. And if you like oxygen of publicity, because give it 12 months
+or so, and the poor souls will all be out of business. Okay, here's something that chat GPT wrote.
+Rapid Consumer Adoption of AI has created a powerful flywheel. Come on, accelerating the
+pace at which the technology is being brought into work and professional settings. Close
+quote. Okay, let's pair this down and turn it into consumer use of AI has brought it into
+the workplace. It's shorter, it's tighter, it means the same thing. Here's another sentence
+from chat GPT. Open quote, the history of general purpose technologies, M- dash, from
+steam engines to semiconductors, M- dash, shows that significant economic value is created
+after firms translate underlying capabilities into scaled use cases. Close quote. Okay, so
+let's cut this one down. Technology, comma from steam engines to semiconductors, comma amplifies
+firms abilities to create value. Again, shorter means the same thing, not written by an AI.
+So, the lesson if you like is, after you've written something, be your own judge. Go through
+every word with a red pen or traditionally it'll be a green pen, an experiment with word
+removal. Take out a word. Does the meaning remain? You may feel you've lost nuance, but does that
+really matter? Perhaps it does. If you're writing creatively or writing poetry, for instance,
+it certainly would matter. But is the nuance important in every sentence? Pairing down what
+you write incredibly effective. Initially, it's a bit of a pain and it can be more than a bit
+soul destroying. Essentially, you'll be coming your own editor and writers on the whole,
+hey, editors, but 99% of the time the editor has a point. Eventually, dear listener, the process of
+self editing, this process of cutting out your own velocity becomes second nature. And one day,
+I guess, I hope you'll realize that what you're writing is sharper and it's more to the point.
+When you do wax lyrical, when you do throw in adjectives and adverbs and descriptions and so on
+and so forth, you'll feel it's necessary and it's notable and it's notable to your readers and your
+readers will thank you. Now, AIC is terrible at this aspect of writing, it adds useless words all
+the time, sentences that get there, point over and just a few words typically, chat GPT spins out to
+be dozens of words long and the grown-up phrase for this is taughtology, but you can think of it
+if you like as laboring the point. Say it once, say it simply. This brings me to a little adjunct
+which I guess I could call rule 2A, which is all about syllables. Stop using as many syllables,
+sounds really stupid. The tendency comes from new words springing up all the time and they're often
+pointless extensions of existing shorter words. Usage is a really common one. Usage is now used
+instead of the word use. Here's an example. I made this one up by the way. My usage of the train was
+my choice. Sounds okay, but better surely would be my use of the train was my choice or even
+I chose to use the train but yeah. Orientate is another one used instead of Orient capability
+is now used commonly instead of ability. Why the extra syllable? Don't get me started on
+methodology. A methodology by the way listeners is a set of methods not a method. So when was the
+last time anyone explained their method or methods? They don't anymore, they explain their methodology,
+everyone describes their methodology. Okay, so we may be going a little bit far in stripping out
+extraneous syllables but the point remains. There are a few ticks or giveaways that a piece of
+text is created by an LLM and so therefore you might want to adapt your own writing so that you don't
+exhibit the same ticks or you might like them. I don't know. First one, the rule of three. You see
+this all the time and it's become a habit I think now exhibited by human writers. The rule of
+three goes like this. Such and such a thing is or it's like x, y, and z. I'm going to quote from the
+wikipedia article, link in the show notes, quote reads, the rule of three can take different forms
+from adjective, adjective, adjective to short phrase, short phrase and short phrase. LLMs often
+use this structure to make superficial analyses appear more comprehensive. It's a superficial analysis
+made less superficial by chucking words at it. So this refers back to rule two, pairing it down.
+Next tick that you might want to avoid, be aware of comparisons, not only but also, or not just
+something, but something. It's not just about something something, something, something,
+semi-colon or M-dash. It's something different. A variation on that is it's not only about something,
+something, but something else, something else. Wikipedia calls these parallelisms
+that explicitly state that a particular item doesn't possess the first characteristic at all.
+It's not only about this, but it's about something else. So in summary, how to be a better writer.
+First of all, be human, make some spelling mistakes, make some grammatical mistakes. For a reader,
+it's good to know that there's a human behind the keyboard, not a piece of silicon in the form of
+a large language model. Rule number two, be your own editor, go back through what you've written,
+and if you're using tallologies, repetitions, and you're being too verbose, take words out.
+Does the sentence have the same meaning? If it does, great. You don't need three words. You
+need one. Rule number three, if you sound like an AI, people will think that you are an AI,
+and will be less inclined to read you. So you can try and avoid some of those ticks. Like,
+the rule of three, for instance, the not only but also not just something, but something.
+In conclusion, then there are two calls to action. First of all, go and read the Wikipedia article.
+If you're that way inclined, there's obviously a great deal more detail in that than I've
+latched on to and spoken about today. It's a good read. For instance, there are lots of
+mentions of words and phrases that large language models use now and have used since
+2022 and how those words have changed and the second call to action, of course, is
+going to record your own episode of Hack a Public Radio. That's all. Thanks for listening.
+I'm Emma Stello and this has been Hack a Public Radio.
+You have been listening to the Hacker Public Radio podcast, at hackerpublicradio.org.
+Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
+If you ever thought of recording a podcast, then visit the HPR site to find out how easy it really is.
+Hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by anhonesthost.com, the Internet Archive, rsync.net, and the HPR Community Content Delivery Network.
+Unless otherwise stated, today's show is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.