Reviewing and fine-tuning texts with AI

Nr. 4 – Checking and fine-tuning a text with AI

When starting to write a new manual, your first step as a technical writer is to gather information. A few clever prompts are an effective and sensible use of AI to collect the right data. The next step is to create a clear and coherent text. Writing a manual isn’t done in one go, however. You write, you erase, and you write some more, until you have a product you’re reasonably satisfied with. Then it’s time for the next phase: critically reviewing the text and rewriting it where necessary.

But how do you go about this? If you want to rewrite a text, you first need to figure out whether it actually needs rewriting. Is this text adequate, and if not, why not? A common method to assess texts, is the CCC-model (see the table below). CCC stands for Correspondence, Consistency and Correctness. The model contains fifteen questions to help determine whether a text is understandable for your reader (Correspondence), whether it is written consistently (Consistency) and whether it contains any errors (Correctness).

When answering all of these questions, you have to go through the entire text a total of fifteen times! That’s quite a task cut out for you, but fortunately AI offers a solution. AI can check the quality of your text using the CCC model (do keep in mind that many of these AI tools require an account and/or may charge additional fees).

Correspondence

There are many AI tools to review English text, such as Grammarly. Tools to review Dutch text are unfortunately few and far between. Oftentimes, tools claim to work for Dutch, but the options prove to be limited. Luckily, LanguageTool does a better job. This tool allows you to assess the structure of sentences and paragraphs for comprehensibility and receive suggestions for improvements. These suggestions aren’t perfect, but at least they can give you an idea on how to improve your text. LanguageTool can also help you find alternatives for (technical) jargon or other complicated words.

Consistency

There are also several AI tools that can check your text for consistency in style, structure, and content. Again, the options for Dutch content are limited. Fortunately, the AI tool TekstAssistent is an example of a tool specifically designed for Dutch text.

Correctness

You can also use AI tools to check the correctness of your text. Although, once again, the range of tools available for English content is much larger. Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and SlickWrite are all examples of useful AI tools, but they offer no or limited support for Dutch text. The aforementioned LanguageTool is a tool you can use to check spelling and grammar. Furthermore, the tools Wisecube and LEO AI are helpful tools to check the accuracy of technical content; we’ve already mentioned them in one of our earlier blogs on collecting information.

You may be thinking: can’t I just use Word’s spell and grammar check? Yes and no, this thought needs some nuance. Indeed, Word’s review function can detect many errors, but by no means all of them. Moreover, Word is adamant that compound nouns (words consisting of several words) should be written separately as one does in English. Dutch, however, is really more of a “glue language”; you simply “glue” all the words together into one big word (provided it is reasonably legible).

Target audience

AI has different ways of determining whether or not a text is suitable for your target audience. It can assess the tone of voice in your text: is it friendly or formal, informative or creative? It can also analyse the complexity of your sentences and check whether this matches the knowledge and language proficiency of your target audience. In addition, AI can help determine whether or not the content is relevant to your target audience and even assess whether your text is culturally sensitive. If you have multiple versions of a text, AI can compare them and suggest which version best suits the target audience.

Of course, while there are many tools available, their value for Dutch content is limited. Additionally, the effectiveness of a tool also depends on cultural nuances and the characteristics of your target audience.

All you need to do is run the text through an AI tool and you’re done?

Unfortunately not, you’re not getting off that easily! Above all, critical thinking is still key. After all, you are an experienced language user and part of your own culture. No AI can compete with that. Think of AI as a helpful tool to gather ideas or to lay the groundwork. Don’t let it replace your human creativity.

We’ve outlined a few additional things to consider below.

• Data privacy
  When you run (parts of) your text through an online tool, you should know how the tool processes and stores that data. First check the tool’s privacy guidelines. Are they unclear? Choose another tool.
• Context
  Humour, subtle context clues, and cultural references are often overlooked by AI tools. For this reason, an AI tool may incorrectly judge a text to be poor or inappropriate.
• Excessively strict
  Sometimes AI tools can be too strict. Every deviation from strict grammar rules is seen as wrong, whereas you can actually add nuance by deviating slightly or ‘playing’ with language. Creativity is not rewarded by these AI tools.
• English bias
  We’ve mentioned it a few times already: there are far more AI tools available for English than Dutch. You’ll notice that many tools are based on English. Just look at the discussion about Word and its use of spaces between compound nouns.
• Objectivity?
  You can judge the quality and style of a text based on many criteria. However, it will almost always be a subjective verdict. The best way to know what your read thinks of a text is to ask them yourself. If that’s not possible, you are the second most reliable source of information. AI tools are exactly that: tools, or in other words, utilities and aids.
• Limitations
  Do not assume that AI tools function perfectly or that they are always correct. They might contain bugs or the data they use might be outdated, insufficient, or inaccurate. A critical eye is therefore always important.

Common sense

In short, you can use AI tools to help you assess and rewrite your text. But combine the insights gained from those tools with your own expertise as a language user and (technical) writer, and always take a look at the ‘back end’ of a tool before using it (i.e., check the privacy guidelines and whether the data used is up to date). Always remember that AI-tools aren’t perfect and, above all, always think for yourself. As a language user and part of your own culture, you are always the foremost expert. So always check what AI presents and make your own decisions to improve your text.

Foxiz and AI

At Foxiz we implement AI in a safe, smart, and effective way to aid our specialists with their work on technical documentation and translation. We combine the best of both worlds to create high quality technical content.

In need of proper technical documentation for your product or system? Want to pick our minds on how to improve your documentation and its translation? Or are you interested in a job as technical documentalist? Please contact us! We are happy to help you.

TIP: read our last blog on writing a manual from scratch with AI. In our next blog we’ll discuss translating with AI and why it does (or doesn’t) work. Stay tuned!