Em dash remover

Paste text and every em dash is marked. Pick a comma, a period or a spaced hyphen to replace them, then copy the result. It also catches the hidden characters and leftover markdown that come with the same copy and paste.

Why AI text has so many em dashes

Chat models use the em dash far more often than most people type it. Nobody outside the labs knows the exact cause. Likely ones are the edited books and articles models learn from, where the dash is common, and tuning that favors a polished, written register. Most keyboards have no em dash key, so readers notice when a quick Slack message has three.

To stop them at the source, add a line such as "Never use em dashes" to ChatGPT's custom instructions or a Claude style. For text you already have, paste it above.

Which replacement to pick

A comma suits a dash that sets off a short aside, and it gives you commas on both sides of an aside in the middle of a sentence. A period suits a dash that joins two full sentences. A spaced hyphen keeps the look of a dash with a key you can type. Read the result once before you send it.

A dash that starts a line, like a list bullet, is removed, and so is one that ends a line. An en dash between numbers, as in 10 to 20, becomes a plain hyphen.

Is an em dash a sign of AI writing?

One em dash proves nothing. Writers used them long before chat models, and plenty still do. Readers treat a cluster of them as a tell, especially in short messages where people rarely type one. The other tells are in the list of AI writing tells.

Then make it sound like you

Cleaning fixes the characters. The words can still sound like a model wrote them. Ownhand rewrites your agent's drafts in your own voice, from 5 to 10 things you wrote, and learns from what you send.

Try it on your text Connect your agent

More free tools: ai text cleaner and ChatGPT watermark remover.