Keeping Your Own Voice Visible

Unit ID: PAW-M04-U03 Estimated active time: 20-25 minutes

Why everything starts to sound the same

AI-assisted writing has a recognisable default: balanced, slightly formal, fond of triples, fond of "moreover", ending on an uplift.

Used across a team, it flattens everyone into the same register. Readers notice, and what they usually notice is that nobody seems to be speaking.

Voice is specifics, not style words

Asking for "a warm, authentic tone" produces more of the same default.

What actually carries voice is concrete:

• the examples you choose;
• what you refuse to claim;
• the order you put things in;
• the things you say plainly that others hedge;
• your usual sentence length.

None of those are adjectives.

Supply a sample, not a description

The most reliable way to hold a voice is to show one.

> Below are two paragraphs I wrote. Match their sentence length, directness, and level of hedging. Do not match the subject.

A sample gives the tool something to imitate that a description cannot convey.

The voice guard

VOICE GUARD

Keep:      short sentences; concrete examples; naming the trade-off
Avoid:     "moreover", "furthermore", "in today's fast-paced world"
Avoid:     three-item lists where two items would do
Avoid:     closing with an uplifting summary sentence
Never:     claims of certainty I would not make myself
Check:     read it aloud -- would I say this in a meeting?

The read-aloud test at the bottom catches more than the rules above it.

Write the first draft yourself sometimes

For anything that carries your judgement — a recommendation, an apology, a decision note — writing the first draft yourself and asking for a critique keeps the voice yours.

The reverse order rarely recovers it. Editing a generated draft tends to leave its shape intact.

Mini practice

Take two pieces of your own writing and extract five concrete voice rules from them.

Build a voice guard.

Then generate one draft with it and one without, and read both aloud.

Mark complete