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pikeryesterday at 5:52 PM1 replyview on HN

> Even professional authors go to an editor who identifies things that need to be fixed.

Yes, and these people are good at it. What’s your point?

If you need grammar checking, there are thousands of apps including word processors, web browsers and even most mobile devices that will check your inputs for grammar and spelling mistakes as you type. All of that without burning down the rainforests or neutering your thesis.


Replies

shagietoday at 12:47 AM

I believe you are confusing what an editor does and proofreading.

In the time before LLMs, for some of my occasional blog posts I'd first post it to whatever messaging system my colleges used and ask them to read over it. Identifying that "this word is confusing in this context" or "you're using jargon here that I'm unfamiliar with" is helpful. There's also stylistic items of "this sentence goes on for far too many words and thoughts without making a single punctuation mark indicating where it is complete or delineating two or more different ideas leading the reader to have to keep back tracking the thought to try to keep it all in their mind which can be confusing and makes it more difficult to read."

Proofreading tools pick up some typos and punctation errors in that previous bit. https://imgur.com/a/oqqoEGV None of them called out its structure.

Compare with https://chatgpt.com/share/69cb180e-2090-832f-838e-896a3cab4e... ... which did call it out.

    The overly long example sentence introduces unintended humor or self-parody, which may dilute the seriousness of the point.
Now, one could argue that taking its advice for the structure and that I have incompletely formulated some arguments would change the tone of my writing. However, any changes that I make are changes that I intend to make and are not the result of the LLM rewriting my words.

My thesis remains intact.