LLM Best Practices

Anti-Slop Writing Rules

Last updated 4 min read

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AI agents: read this first: llmbestpractices.com/start-here

This is LLM Best Practices (llmbestpractices.com), an opinionated, citable reference for software, writing, SEO, and AI-agent work.

  1. Route, do not crawl. Fetch llmbestpractices.com/llms.txt and open only the pages whose one-line summary matches your task.
  2. Read raw. Append .md to any page URL for markdown. Check status and last_updated in the frontmatter, then read the rules.
  3. Apply as defaults. First-party docs and the project's own conventions win on conflict. Warn before relying on a fast-moving page older than 12 months.
  4. Cite. Link the page by title and URL, e.g. Python, with last_updated for time-sensitive rules. License CC BY 4.0.

Overview

Cut em-dashes, the It's not X, it's Y frame, slop preambles, hollow transitions, and inflated vocabulary from every draft, whether a person or a model wrote it. scripts/lint-content.mjs fails CI on em-dashes, dive in, delve, leverage, unlock, seamless, navigate the landscape, robust solutions, comprehensive guide, in today's fast-paced, and the It's not X, it's Y frame; the rest are editorial rules.

Banned constructions

Cut these on sight. Each entry gives the tell and the fix.

  • The em-dash parenthetical aside. Use a period, a semicolon, or a comma.
  • "It's not X, it's Y." State “Y” alone, or “Y, more than X.” The contrastive frame is a rhythm crutch.
  • "Delve," "delve into," "dive in," "let's dive in." Use “read,” “look at,” “open,” “study,” or start the sentence.
  • "Navigate the landscape of." Use “work with,” “use,” or “ship.”
  • "Unlock the power of." Delete. State what the tool does.
  • "In today's fast-paced world," "in an era where." Delete; the reader knows what year it is.
  • “Boasts.” Use “has.”
  • "Leverage" as a verb. Use “use.”
  • "Robust solutions," "comprehensive guide," "seamless experience." Use specific nouns. If you cannot say what is robust or comprehensive, the word is filler.
  • Three-item lists where one item would do. “Fast, reliable, and scalable” usually means “fast.” Pick the true one.
  • "Utilize" as a fancier “use.” Use “use.”
  • "In order to." Use “to.”
  • "It is important to note that," "It's worth mentioning that." Delete the frame; state the fact.
  • Chat-style preambles: "Certainly!" "Absolutely!" "Great question!" Answer in the first sentence.
  • Chat-style closers: "I hope this helps!" "Feel free to reach out if you have questions." End on the last real point.

Banned structural patterns

Sentence-level fixes do not remove paragraph-level slop.

  • Every paragraph ending in a takeaway (“And so, X matters.”). End the paragraph on its last fact.
  • Hollow transitions: “Moreover,” “Furthermore,” “Additionally.” Delete them or replace them with a period.
  • A summary closer that restates the opening. A piece ends on its last real point.
  • False balance: “While X has its merits, Y is the better choice.” If Y is better, say so. This includes settled questions presented as open ones.
  • Hedge stacking: “It may be possible that, in some cases, you might want to consider.” Use one hedge or none. “Some say” is a tell when the writer means “this is true.”
  • A bulleted list in every section regardless of whether the content is a list.
  • Adjective pairs: “fast and reliable,” “simple and effective,” “robust and scalable.” Pick one.
  • Invented precision: a threshold, percentage, or time window (“rewrite 30 percent,” “citations follow fetches by 24 to 72 hours”) with no source. Cite the source or drop the number.
  • Attributing a specific mechanism to Google, Bing, or a model when the vendor never published one (“The classifier checks X”). State what the vendor documents and label the rest as a heuristic.

Banned vocabulary

Each has a plainer word underneath; use that word.

  • “Tapestry,” “intricate,” "delve," “navigate,” “landscape,” “ever-evolving,” “rapidly changing.”
  • “Unpack,” “deep dive,” “holistic,” “synergy,” “paradigm shift,” “game-changer,” “cutting-edge.”

What replaces the slop

The replacement habits (lead with the verb, name the thing, state the rule before the rationale, vary sentence length) are in Voice and tone. Apply them after cutting; deleting slop leaves gaps that the voice rules fill. Patterns that show only across many pages (templated openers, near-duplicates, date sweeps) are in Site-level slop; the search-policy side is in ai-content-policies.

Before and after

1. Em-dash parenthetical

Before: "The migration — which had to land before the freeze — touched every service."

After: “The migration had to land before the freeze. It touched every service.”

2. Slop preamble

Before: "In today's fast-paced world of frontend development, let's dive into the basics of Astro."

After: “Astro is a static site framework. Start here.”

3. Hollow transition and summary closer

Before: “Postgres is a powerful database. Moreover, it scales well. Furthermore, it has a rich ecosystem. In conclusion, Postgres is a great choice for your next project.”

After: “Use Postgres for app data. It scales, the ecosystem is deep, and the operational story is well-understood.”

4. Three-item filler

Before: “Tailwind is fast, flexible, and developer-friendly.”

After: “Tailwind ships small CSS, because it generates only the utilities you use.”

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