Read these two sentences. “Exercise has many benefits for health and wellbeing.” And: “After my knee surgery I could barely climb stairs, so I started with ten minutes on a stationary bike and added a minute each week.” The first could have been written by anyone, or anything. The second could only have come from one person.
That difference is the whole secret of writing that sounds human, and it’s also why some honest writers get flagged. This article is about specificity: what it is, why it matters and a set of simple edits that make a draft more yours.
The trouble with safe sentences
Safe sentences are the ones nobody could disagree with and nobody would remember. “Technology has changed the way we communicate.” “Education is important for success.” They’re easy to write because they require no knowledge, and they’re easy to skim because they contain none.
Detectors measure predictability. A sentence that any writer might produce in that position is, almost by definition, highly predictable. That’s why generic writing and flagged writing overlap so heavily. Nothing about the sentence is wrong. It’s simply empty enough to be anybody’s.
Climb the specificity ladder
Try taking a vague line up a few rungs. Start with “Many students struggle with time management.” Move up to “Many first-year students struggle with time management.” Then to “In my first semester I missed two deadlines because I treated every Friday as free time.” Then add what changed: “I fixed it with a paper planner and a rule that nothing gets done after 10 p.m.”
Each rung adds a person, a place, a number or a consequence. You don’t need to reach the top every time. Even one rung up lifts the sentence out of the crowd. In an essay or report, aim for one concrete detail per paragraph.
Replace labels with examples
Abstract words such as “challenges,” “factors,” “aspects” and “issues” are labels for things the writer hasn’t named. Whenever one appears, ask what it stands for. “There were several challenges in the project” becomes “The supplier delayed the shipment twice, and our test rig broke on day nine.”
You may find the sentence gets longer. That’s fine. Specific writing usually does, until you trim the throat-clearing around it.
Cut the throat-clearing
Most drafts carry a lot of filler: “It is important to note that,” “In today’s world,” “It goes without saying.” These phrases do no work, and they’re among the most predictable in any text. Delete them and read what remains. Often the real sentence was hiding behind the warm-up.
The same goes for closing lines that repeat what you just said. “In summary, these factors show…” After a clear paragraph, you rarely need one. Trust the reader.
Vary rhythm on purpose
People write in uneven bursts. A long sentence that wanders through an idea and a few clauses, then a short one. Then a fragment. Machines, left to their own devices, tend to keep sentence lengths in a narrow band. You don’t need to force variety artificially. Read your paragraph aloud and listen for monotony. Where five sentences in a row have the same shape, break one apart or fuse two together.
Notice, too, what a paragraph is doing. If every paragraph opens with a topic sentence and ends with a neat moral, you’ve built a template. Let one end on a detail instead.
Check your text, then judge the highlights
After editing, it’s worth being able to check your text with a tool that shows which sentences it finds predictable. A tool that highlights individual sentences turns the score into something you can act on. Read each highlighted line and ask whether it’s vague, borrowed or generic. If it is, climb the ladder. If it’s a clear definition that every writer states the same way, leave it alone.
Don’t edit toward a number. A sentence that’s true, plain and yours is better than one contorted to satisfy software. The tool is a mirror for your habits, and specificity is the habit worth building.
Keep what only you know
Good material for specific writing is your own experience, so gather it deliberately. Keep a notes file of things you observe, odd numbers you come across, remarks from conversations and small failures that taught you something. When you sit down to write, you’ll have more than generalities to work with.
Where your subject is outside your experience, borrow specifics from your research instead: the exact figure from a study, the name of the town, the quote from the interview. Cite them, of course. A reader who sees real detail trusts you faster.
A before and after
Here is an invented example. Before: “Social media has had a significant impact on teenagers. It affects their mental health, relationships and academic performance in various ways.” After: “During exam week a student I’ll call Dana put her phone in a drawer and slept an hour longer each night. Her marks didn’t jump, but she stopped replaying group chats at midnight.” The second version isn’t longer because it’s padded. It’s longer because it contains a person, a habit and a result.
Mistakes to avoid while editing
Don’t invent details to sound specific. A made-up anecdote presented as fact is worse than a plain sentence. Don’t pile on adjectives either, since “incredibly vibrant, dynamic community” is vague in a louder voice. And don’t swap every common word for a rare one. Specific doesn’t mean ornate. It means the reader can picture what you mean.
Specifics Belong to You
Anyone can write that exercise has many benefits. Only you can write about the stationary bike and the ten extra minutes a week. Specific writing carries a signature that’s hard to imitate, easy to defend and pleasant to read, and the edits that produce it are small: a name instead of a label, a number instead of an adjective, a moment instead of a moral. Make them and the writing sounds like you, because it is.
For more practical editing advice and ways to read your own drafts critically, further reading on the Phrasly blog has guides that build on these habits.