Avoid AI Writing Find the patterns that make text read as machine-generated, then fix them without sanding off the author's voice. What a flag proves These patterns are more common in model output, and people produce them too, especially under deadline, in an unfamiliar genre, or in a second language. The evidence on machine detection cuts both ways. A Stanford audit found seven detectors flagged 61% of TOEFL essays by non-native English writers as AI-generated, against roughly 5% of essays by native writers (Liang et al., Patterns , 2023). A 2025 audit found open-source detection unsuitable…