A “No AI” badge tells readers no AI text generator wrote a story — Hello. I’m Katharine Valentino, creator of the “No AI” badge. A writer puts a slightly smaller version of this badge on a story to assure you that the story was written by them and not by ChatGPT, Jasper AI, GrowthBar, Frase, Copysmith, Hypotenuse, Copy AI, Writer, InferKit, Quillbot, Writesonic, Ryter…

An unfond memory of childhood and how it reflects on today’s gun culture — When I was in first grade 73 years ago, my friend Johnny and I walked to and from school together every day. Walking to school was carefree; walking from school was careful. We had to be careful to take a different route each day, and even then we were sometimes…

A Guide to Editing Stories for Your Publication — As an editor, your responsibilities include: Working with your writers to create stories that are as they should be: accurate, authentic, cohesive, complete, consistent, explanatory, sincere, truthful, and understandable Revising stories submitted for publication according to the standards of your publication Working with your writers Wouldn’t it be lovely if you had unlimited time…

Medium says “not without attribution” — but … — Scott Lamb, vice president of content on Medium, has come out with the official Medium statement on AI-generated writing: [W]hen we encounter content that we believe is AI-generated but not disclosed, we won’t distribute it across Medium’s network. When I encountered AI text generation for the first time a couple…

A bit of … Alzheimer’s? Oh, no, not that! — “Ya know, when they tell ya, if you fall offa horse, you better get yo ass right back up on that horse? Well, what ah say is … ” Here, the old man pauses. Looks around to see who’s paying attention. I’m paying attention even though I’ve never ridden a…

The answer may surprise you (it certainly surprised me) — The Social Security Board of Trustees estimates that by 2035, there will not be enough money to pay full Social Security benefits to everyone who had money taken out of their paychecks during their working lives. The previous yearly estimate by the board of trustees was that there would be…

Writing complex sentences without the right punctuation is like offering your reader a spoon to carve up a steak — As an editor, I work with writers to construct stories that are readable. Most of the stories I edit have no problems with sentence structure — subject, predicate, and object. Where my assistance is needed more often is with punctuation. Punctuation is like a knife: It slices up a story…

🦎🦋❌🍎🥑🚂🚦⚾🔥😜️ — As an editor, you may want to enhance a story for a writer who is not familiar with the visual aspects of reader engagement. …

I found out why (and it may not be what you think) — Why do we have refugees, many of whom are used to temperatures in the 90s and 100s, sleeping on our streets in 28-degree weather? Why do mothers set out on a 2,000-mile trek to the U.S., babies in their weary arms and small children stumbling along behind, homesick and hungry…