clustering-and-formatting.md

Clustering and formatting — avoid stacking, then tune per brand

Pass-two patterns read fine once and signal machine when they cluster. The rule is "avoid clustering", not "remove all instances". A single tricolon, one em dash, one strong adjective is human. Three tricolons in a paragraph, an em dash in every sentence, and a wall of grandiose nouns is the tell.

Vocabulary to watch (thin it when it clusters)

Grandiose nouns: tapestry, landscape, realm, ecosystem, paradigm, synergy, journey, testament, cornerstone, beacon, nexus, frontier, fabric, treasure trove.
Inflated adjectives: robust, pivotal, crucial, vital, compelling, comprehensive, meticulous, innovative, transformative, seamless, dynamic, multifaceted, cutting-edge, unparalleled, nuanced, profound.
Magic adverbs: quietly, deeply, fundamentally, remarkably, arguably, notably, seamlessly, effortlessly.
Pompous verbs: delve, unpack, navigate, harness, leverage, utilize, foster, cultivate, embark, revolutionize, elevate, empower, unlock, streamline, spearhead, showcase, underscore, resonate, amplify, curate.
The "serves as" family: use "is" instead of serves as, stands as, represents, embodies, functions as, emerges as.

Structure to watch

Tricolon overuse: at most one rule-of-three per section; never stack three.
Decorative lists: three-comma scene-painting where each item is a coat of paint on the same idea. Allowed only when the items are concrete, distinct, and the rhythm is conversational.
Anaphora: no same sentence opener three-plus times in a row ("You've tried X. You've tried Y. You've tried Z.").
Uniformity: vary sentence and paragraph length. Three similar-length sentences in a row, or every paragraph at three-to-four sentences, hums like a machine.
One-point dilution: do not restate a single argument in eight ways.

Formatting tics

Em-dash addiction: a human uses two or three per piece, max.
Bold-first bullets: do not open every bullet with a bolded phrase plus colon.
Decorative unicode: no arrows, no ornamental symbols; standard punctuation.
Emoji sprinkling: none at sentence ends unless asked; never a rocket, megaphone, or fire emoji to open a post - one of the most-flagged "this is AI engagement-bait" signals on social.
Green-check rows: do not format points as a stack of checkmark bullets.
Heavy markdown in prose: do not inject sub-headings and lists where paragraphs belong.

Building the house banned list

Every brand adds hard rejects on top of the general patterns. Three that carry most of the weight:

No em dashes in shipped prose. Hyphens, commas, colons, periods instead. This single rule removes a large share of AI-flagged copy at a glance.
A house banned-word list. Start with: transformative, game-changing, revolutionary, seamless, robust, best-in-class, industry-leading, cutting-edge, "excited to announce", "don't hesitate". Add the words the brand's own audience never uses. Enforce these at zero tolerance, like a pass-one pattern.
No sales-pitch pivot. A thought-leadership piece must not close by circling back to how early the company was, how it built this before anyone required it, or how the market is "catching up". The value is the idea, not the plug. Many pieces should not name the product at all.

Keep the house list short and absolute. A ten-word zero-tolerance list beats a hundred-word "use sparingly" list nobody applies.

The two-line final read

The pub test: would two colleagues say this line to each other over lunch? If not, name the specific thing the phrase is gesturing at.
The ship test: would the author post this without feeling they need to de-AI it first? If not, the draft is not finished.