Em dash (—) — the classic AI writing tell

The em dash is the most over-used punctuation mark in ChatGPT and Claude output. Detect overuse before it gives your text away.

What ProfText flags

Em dash (—) is overused in AI-generated text. Consider if it's stylistically appropriate.

Phrases this rule catches

• —

How to fix it

Use commas, parentheses, or split into separate sentences.

Why this matters

Large language models reach for the em dash to bind clauses where a human would use a comma, parentheses, or simply a new sentence. In English the em dash is legitimate but uncommon; in French, Spanish, German and Italian it is rare to the point that even one or two occurrences flag professional prose as machine-written. The pattern is so distinctive that journalists and instructors increasingly screen for it directly.

Languages

• en
• fr
• es
• de
• it

Detection pattern

—

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