The Journal
Plain-English essays on AI detection, AI humanizers and writing well. Calm, honest, no hype.
Looking for a structured read? Take a course — the essays below are organized into short, opinionated paths.
The Detection Primer
Start here. Three short lessons on what AI detectors are actually measuring, where they're reliable, and where they bluff — so you can read any score critically.
- 01What is AI detection?
- 02How do AI detectors work?
- 03Why AI writing gets flagged — and how to fix it
Writing Honestly With AI
The ethics, the practical workflow, and the line between using a model as a tool and laundering its words. For students and professionals who want to use AI well, not hide it.
- 01Is using an AI humanizer cheating?
- 02Why AI writing gets flagged — and how to fix it
The Honest Editor's Desk
A working editor's course on rescuing AI-touched prose — memos, emails, cover letters — without losing the voice or the point. For professionals who use models daily and want their writing to still sound unmistakably like them.
- 01What makes writing sound human
- 02Why AI writing gets flagged — and how to fix it
- 03Editing a cover letter the AI helped you draft
- 04Citing AI assistance honestly
Writing Papers in the AI Era
For students and researchers. A defensible standard for using AI through the lifecycle of an academic paper — reading, outlining, drafting, paraphrasing, disclosing — without surrendering the scholarship.
- 01Writing an academic paper with AI in the room
- 02Citing AI assistance honestly
- 03False positives: when a detector is wrong
- 04Is using an AI humanizer cheating?
Ethics
- 24 May 20266 min
Citing AI assistance honestly
Most AI-use policies leave you to write the disclosure yourself. Here is a defensible standard — and the exact phrasing for each common case.
- 22 May 20266 min
Is using an AI humanizer cheating?
We make an AI humanizer, so treat this with appropriate suspicion — then read it anyway. Here's the honest version, including the cases where the answer is yes.
Explainer
- 23 May 20266 min
What makes writing sound human
Detectors describe what AI writing looks like in negative — the tells, the flags. This piece does the opposite. What actually makes prose read as a person made it?
- 23 May 20267 min
False positives: when a detector is wrong
Detectors get human writing wrong in predictable ways. If you've been flagged unfairly, the failure mode probably has a name — and a defence.
- 22 May 20266 min
What is AI detection?
AI detectors are everywhere now — in classrooms, hiring, publishing. Here's what they actually measure, in plain English, and an honest account of what they can and can't tell you.
- 22 May 20267 min
How do AI detectors work?
There are really only two ways to build an AI detector, and they fail in different ways. Here's how each one works, without the jargon.
Guide
- 24 May 20269 min
Writing an academic paper with AI in the room
Banning AI from your workflow is unrealistic. Letting it write your paper is unethical. Here's the honest middle path most researchers actually need.
- 23 May 20267 min
Editing a cover letter the AI helped you draft
You let a model write the first pass. Now it reads like everyone's first pass. Here's the editor's workflow for putting yourself back in.
- 22 May 20267 min
Why AI writing gets flagged — and how to fix it
AI text gets flagged for specific, nameable reasons. Here are the tells a detector reacts to, and how to write — or rewrite — around each one.
Looking for a quick definition? The Glossary covers the key terms in a sentence or two each — and links back to the essays that explain them in depth.