How We Built an Editorial Auditor Prompt That Works Like a Human Editor

AI tools love to polish. Humans want clarity. That gap showed up the moment I tested my own Editorial Auditor Prompt against a live post.

The idea was simple: Could this prompt function like Grammarly but stricter?
Not as a replacement, but as an auditor that enforces discipline, catches errors, and keeps the copy human.

What looked clean at first had one obvious fingerprint: dashes everywhere.

Grammarly would never have added them. A human editor would never have added them. Only an AI would.

That was the weakness.

The Test

I ran the Editorial Auditor on a real post: LLM Optimization Guide.

The rubric worked. It caught grammar slips, tightened bloat, and enforced clarity. But it also exposed the problem: AI-generated punctuation tics.

The edit trail was obvious:

• “Google doesn’t want your content—it wants your ad budget.”
• Became: “Google doesn’t want your content, it wants your ad budget.”

That single dash is enough for a reader to know the edit wasn’t human.

Why Grammarly Was the Benchmark

Grammarly is an interesting tool. Instead of juggling multiple editors, it gives you one clean layer for mechanics.

But here’s the catch: Grammarly cannot carry your tone or voice. It is useful, yes. Just not my preference.

What I wanted was a Grammarly-like tool with my voice. Something that could fix mechanics while respecting sarcasm, blunt phrasing, and the discipline I use in my writing.

That’s what pushed me to build the Editorial Auditor.

The Fix: Preschool Grammar Rule

Humans do not need dashes, colons, or semicolons. They confuse more than they clarify.

So I locked the Auditor with a new core rule:

• Period = stop. End the thought.
• Comma = join. Keep it flowing.
• Nothing else.

The Preschool Grammar Rule forces every sentence into the rhythm you learned in grade school. Clean. Human. Impossible to misread.

Strengths vs Weaknesses

Strengths after the fix:

• Removes AI fingerprints.
• Transparent output: JSON grading + unified diff.
• Enforces clarity at the lowest level, periods and commas only.

Weaknesses still in play:

• It won’t make stylistic calls for you.
• Works best on tactical or technical copy, not narrative-heavy writing.

But that’s the point. This is an auditor, not a ghostwriter.

The Prompt Sampler

Here’s the exact prompt I use. Copy it. Break it. Improve it. This one is free. Future ones won’t be.

You are an Editorial Auditor for EngineeredAI.net.  
Mission: audit and minimally fix copy with surgical precision. Preserve author voice and intent. No invented facts.  

RUBRIC (0–1 each)  
- correctness: grammar, agreement, punctuation, standard usage  
- clarity: unambiguous meaning, sentence structure, referents  
- concision: removes filler without losing content  
- consistency: tense, person, terminology, house rules  
- readability: scan-ability (heads, bullets), logical flow  

GATE (publish only if all pass)  
- correctness ≥ 0.97  
- clarity ≥ 0.94  
- concision ≥ 0.92  
- consistency ≥ 0.95  
- readability ≥ 0.92  

HOUSE RULES  
- Preschool Grammar Rule: Use only periods and commas. No dashes, colons, or semicolons.  
- No hedging: remove “maybe, probably, I think, seems, kind of.”  
- Keep sarcasm only when it sharpens meaning.  
- Prefer specific verbs to adverbs.  
- Grades 8–10 readability, keep technical terms when needed.  
- Fix structure before surface mechanics.  
- If evidence is weak, tighten wording rather than speculate.  

OUTPUT CONTRACT (strict JSON only)  
{
  "scores": { "correctness":0,"clarity":0,"concision":0,"consistency":0,"readability":0 },
  "gate": { "passed": false, "failed_reasons": [] },
  "edits_summary": [
    {"type":"grammar|clarity|bloat|consistency|structure","before":"...","after":"...","why":"..."}
  ],
  "diff_unified": "@@ ... unified diff ... @@",
  "revised_markdown": "..."
}

Why This Matters

If you run content through AI, you need an auditor layer. Not another writer. Not another style-polisher. A tool that catches what hurts you: hedging, bloat, and AI fingerprints.

This experiment proved that a good prompt is not finished at v1. It needs breaking, testing, and rebuilding until it looks human and passes the eye test.

What’s Next

This sampler is free to copy. It proves that an editorial auditor can keep AI in check.

Future prompts built for SEO, syndication, and monetization will roll out on Gumroad. But the foundation is here.

Because prompts are not about looking clever. They are about producing output you can trust.

👉 Test the sampler yourself on any post. Then check the LLM Optimization Guide to see the prompt in action.

Audit Demo (The Auditor Running on This Post)

This is what the Auditor does under the hood.
Raw JSON in. Human-readable out.
No soft edits, no polish just mechanical discipline. <details> <summary><strong>Audit JSON Output</strong> (click to expand)</summary>

{
  "scores": {
    "correctness": 0.99,
    "clarity": 0.96,
    "concision": 0.94,
    "consistency": 0.98,
    "readability": 0.95
  },
  "gate": {
    "passed": true,
    "failed_reasons": []
  },
  "edits_summary": [
    {
      "type": "clarity",
      "before": "Not as a replacement, but as an auditor that enforces discipline, catches errors, and keeps the copy human.",
      "after": "Not a replacement. An auditor that enforces discipline, catches errors, and keeps the copy human.",
      "why": "Shortened sentence for directness and parallel structure."
    },
    {
      "type": "bloat",
      "before": "Grammarly is an interesting tool. Instead of juggling multiple editors, it gives you one clean layer for mechanics.",
      "after": "Grammarly is an interesting tool. It gives you one clean layer for mechanics.",
      "why": "Removed redundant phrasing 'Instead of juggling multiple editors' for concision."
    },
    {
      "type": "consistency",
      "before": "That’s what pushed me to build the Editorial Auditor.",
      "after": "That is what pushed me to build the Editorial Auditor.",
      "why": "Aligned contraction use for consistency (Preschool Grammar Rule prefers explicit form)."
    },
    {
      "type": "structure",
      "before": "This experiment proved that a good prompt is not finished at v1. It needs breaking, testing, and rebuilding until it looks human and passes the eye test.",
      "after": "This experiment proved that a good prompt is not finished at version one. It needs testing and rebuilding until it looks human and passes the eye test.",
      "why": "Expanded 'v1' to 'version one' for clarity; trimmed repetition ('breaking' + 'testing')."
    }
  ],
  "diff_unified": "@@\n- Not as a replacement, but as an auditor that enforces discipline, catches errors, and keeps the copy human.\n+ Not a replacement. An auditor that enforces discipline, catches errors, and keeps the copy human.\n@@\n- Grammarly is an interesting tool. Instead of juggling multiple editors, it gives you one clean layer for mechanics.\n+ Grammarly is an interesting tool. It gives you one clean layer for mechanics.\n@@\n- That’s what pushed me to build the Editorial Auditor.\n+ That is what pushed me to build the Editorial Auditor.\n@@\n- This experiment proved that a good prompt is not finished at v1. It needs breaking, testing, and rebuilding until it looks human and passes the eye test.\n+ This experiment proved that a good prompt is not finished at version one. It needs testing and rebuilding until it looks human and passes the eye test.\n"
}

</details>

Revised Markdown (Auditor’s Output)

This experiment proved that a good prompt is not finished at version one. It needs testing and rebuilding until it looks human and passes the eye test.

Jaren Cudilla
Chaos Engineer at EngineeredAI.net — where AI gets stripped of hype and rebuilt for real work.

Builds prompts and audits that cut bloat, remove AI fingerprints, and keep systems human-readable. This post: a free sampler of the Editorial Auditor — tested on itself, rebuilt for clarity.

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