Should You Make Typos to Prove You’re Human?

You’ve probably seen some version of the joke by now.

Someone sends a message with a typo, then follows up with something like,

“Well, at least it proves a human wrote it!”

It’s funny because there’s some truth in it. As AI writing tools have become part of everyday work, a lot of people have started reading with a new question in the back of their minds:

did a person actually write this?

And some writers have quietly started adjusting how they write in response.

From Em Dashes to Typos: How We Got Here

The changes tend to start small, and each one makes a certain kind of sense on its own.

First, the em dash goes

The em dash is a genuinely useful piece of punctuation. It can set off a thought, add emphasis, or let a sentence take a turn. Online, though, it has picked up a reputation as an AI “tell,” and that reputation has stuck.

For people who have used em dashes naturally for years, that’s a frustrating development.

Some have started swapping them for commas or rewriting sentences entirely, just to avoid the side-eye.

Then the typos stay

A misspelled word that would have been fixed a few years ago now sometimes gets left in.

Occasionally it’s even framed as a feature, a small mistake treated as a signature that proves a real person was at the keyboard.

Then polish itself starts to feel risky

From there, it can go further. Writers start second-guessing words they’ve always used, sentences that feel a little too tidy, or a list that comes out a bit too neat.

Writing well starts to feel like something that needs explaining.

Are We Doing Too Much Mental Gymnastics?

At some point, it’s worth stepping back and asking whether all this adjusting is helping anyone.

Typos are simply human, in the plain sense that people make them. They’ve always happened, and they always will.

Leaving one in on purpose to prove something is a different matter.

Deliberately adding mistakes, or giving up punctuation you like, takes a surprising amount of effort, and most of that effort goes toward an imagined skeptic rather than the actual reader.

It can also cost something. A business email with errors can read as rushed, and a proposal stripped of the structure it needs can be harder to follow. The writing gets a little worse, and it’s not clear anyone is more convinced.

What Readers Tend to Notice Instead

When writing feels like it could have come from anywhere, the cause is rarely a punctuation mark. More often it’s the content: vague claims, familiar phrases that don’t say much, and no clear point of view.

What makes writing feel like it came from a person is usually harder to fake. It’s a specific example, an opinion someone is willing to stand behind, or a turn of phrase that sounds the way that person actually talks.

Those details make a reader feel like someone is on the other side of the page — and none of them depend on avoiding a particular punctuation mark.

Letting Your Writing Come Through

AI doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, and many of us are still learning how to work alongside it. That learning doesn’t have to mean writing defensively.

It also helps to stay mindful of your own voice, whether you’re using AI to get started or working hard to avoid sounding like it. Either one can quietly smooth out the parts of your writing that are most recognizably yours.

A personal writing style also looks a little different depending on what you’re writing. A client proposal and a LinkedIn post probably shouldn’t sound identical. In either one, it helps to write the way you’d explain the idea out loud. Reading the finished piece back is a quick way to check whether it still sounds like you.

If an em dash is the clearest way to make a point, it’s worth keeping. If there’s a typo, it’s worth fixing — not to prove anything, but because the reader deserves the clearer version.

Before You Hit Send

• Have you changed how you write because of how it might be perceived?

• When something you read feels generic, what actually gives it away?

• What details or phrases make your writing recognizably yours?

• If you use AI to help you think, where does your own voice take over?

• Is your next piece of writing aimed at your reader, or at an imagined skeptic?

  
  

We’re all still figuring out how to write in a world with AI in it.

What readers tend to respond to hasn’t changed much: a clear message from someone who means it.

If you’d like help shaping a voice that sounds like your business, learn more about how the Communications & PR team at MCDA CCG supports growing businesses with brand messaging and executive writing.