How to Remove the em—dash.

ChatGPT loves em dashes.

And it’s really hard to remove them:

So much so that it became even the symbol of ChatGPT.

The em-dash is now the number one way people can tell if something’s written by AI. Some call it the em-dash conspiracy.

Okay, we do know there is a problem with em-dashes. Even if you love them, there is a high chance you want to remove them because the fact that it’s here makes it sound like you use AI.

And you don’t want to.

Because the whole point of using AI is to keep your taste and your tone of voice. 

And the problem is that the em-dashes—even if you love them—ruin this away.

Let’s make a quick step-by-step guide on removing the em-dashes.

Step 1: Go to your Custom Instructions.

In your bottom left menu on your face, go to “Personalization”.

Then found “Custom Instructions” after enabling them.

Step 2: Add this specific line.

Here’s the magic prompt:

"Systematically replace em-dashes (“—”) with a dot (”.”) to start a new sentence, or a comma (”,”) to continue the sentence."

I made a test before/after adding this specific prompt.

You might make the mistake of thinking that it was as easy as prompting, “Please stop using em-dashes”. But it’s not.

You actually have to give ChatGPT an alternative to using them. Otherwise, it will keep using it.

Now that I said you can use dots or commas and that I prefer short sentences, it’s working!

You might say that now the sentences are too short, 

but it’s up to me to change the custom instructions,

 and I know that it will always systematically change the em-dashes to either commas or dots, and I guess that’s your goal.