Canonical page: https://verifiedhuman.info/definitions-for-writers Reviewed library edition: 2026-10-29 [Standards](https://verifiedhuman.info/#standards)[Writers](https://verifiedhuman.info/writers) [Standards](https://verifiedhuman.info/#standards)[Writers](https://verifiedhuman.info/writers) [Standards](https://verifiedhuman.info/#standards)[Writers](https://verifiedhuman.info/writers) # Definitions for Writers Who put the words together? The words you choose and the way you put them together are the heart of your authorship. These definitions explain how the VerifiedHuman Standard for Writers applies when AI is part of your process. [Read the Standard for Writers](https://verifiedhuman.info/writers) ## At a glance - The threshold: Written work must meet VH3 (Human-Led, AI-Assisted) or above to carry the VerifiedHuman mark. - Editorial assistance: AI may improve your own writing for clarity, grammar, and flow, provided the ideas, meaning, and voice remain yours. Review the changes and take responsibility for the final work. - Translation: A human-written original retains its qualification through AI translation when that use of AI is clearly disclosed. - AI-generated drafts: Substantially reauthor the material in your own voice. Minor edits or a percentage of changed words do not establish authorship. - The Five-Word Principle: A prompt to examine wording carried over from an AI-generated draft, not a pass-or-fail count. [Back to top](#main) ## Essential Authorship A writer chooses words and puts them together. Those choices give the work its ideas, meaning, and voice. Start with how the writing began. If you wrote it, AI may help edit it while your ideas, meaning, and voice remain yours. If AI supplied the draft, you must substantially reauthor it in your own voice. Apply that judgment to the whole work and its passages. You remain responsible for the final writing. [Back to top](#main) ## The Five-Word Principle When you use an AI-generated draft, five consecutive words carried unchanged into your final writing are a reason to pause. Have you reauthored the passage in your own voice? Five is a gut-check, not a pass-or-fail count. A common phrase such as “as a matter of fact” does not establish AI authorship. Changing words just to avoid a match does not establish human authorship either. This check concerns generated material presented as your own writing. See the separate guidance for [disclosed translation](#ai-translation), [editorial assistance](#ai-editorial-assistance), and [attributed quotations](#ai-quotations). [Back to top](#main) ## Go deeper. Open the explanations, examples, and terms you need. ## Human authorship and AI The human role behind the standard. You can experiment with AI and remain a member. Use the mark only on work that meets your field’s standard. Your commitment gives audiences a clear account of the human work behind it. [Back to top](#main) ## Which level describes your work? From entirely AI-generated to entirely human. The Human–AI Spectrum has five levels. Written work at VH3, VH4, or VH5 qualifies for the VerifiedHuman mark. These levels describe how the writing was authored. ### VH5 · Entirely Human-Written - You author the original work without generative AI. - Traditional tools such as word processors, spell-check, and thesauruses are fine. - The work reflects your voice, perspective, and creative decisions. ### VH4 · Human-Written, AI-Enhanced - You supply the original writing. - AI may support research, outlining, brainstorming, and citation formatting. It may also improve the clarity, grammar, and flow of your writing. - Your ideas, meaning, and voice remain your own. You review the changes and take responsibility for the final work. - Having AI generate a draft or passage from a prompt or outline is assessed under VH3. ### VH3 · Human-Led, AI-Assisted - You lead the creative process and substantially reauthor AI-generated material in your own voice. - The final writing reflects your authorship and creative choices. Minor edits or a particular percentage of changed words are not enough. - Use the [Five-Word Principle](#five-word-principle) to examine wording carried over from an AI-generated draft. It is a gut-check, not a numerical threshold. Work below VH3 does not qualify for the VerifiedHuman mark. [AI translation](#ai-translation) is permitted with clear disclosure. Identify the translated version’s use of AI even when the original was written without generative AI. [See the complete Human–AI Spectrum](https://verifiedhuman.info/human-ai-spectrum) [Back to top](#main) ## Using AI in your writing How the standard applies to AI assistance. You are responsible for deciding whether your work meets the standard. Consider where the writing began, how AI contributed, and whose ideas, meaning, and voice the final work expresses. ### Research and outlining You may use AI to research a subject, organize your thoughts, or suggest an outline, then write the text yourself. AI has helped with preparation. You have supplied the writing. ### Editorial assistance and sentence rewriting AI editorial assistance is permitted. Writers may use AI to improve the clarity, grammar, and flow of their own writing, provided the ideas, meaning, and voice remain the writer’s. The writer reviews the changes and takes responsibility for the final work. Having AI generate text from a prompt or outline is assessed separately under the guidance for AI-generated material. ### Translation AI translation is permitted. A human-written work retains its VerifiedHuman qualification when translated with AI, provided the use of AI translation is clearly disclosed. A simple disclosure is: Human-written original. Translated with AI. ### Working from an AI-generated draft VH3 allows AI-generated source material when you substantially reauthor it in your own voice. That can involve rethinking the structure, developing the ideas, and rewriting the expression. The judgment concerns your authorship of the resulting work. Replacing a few words, changing the tone, or making minor edits is not enough. Nor does changing a particular percentage of words establish authorship. Ask whether you have substantially reauthored the passage or whether its expression is still essentially AI’s. Reading an AI draft and then writing your own version calls for the same judgment: who authored the resulting work? ### Quoting AI-generated text Clearly attribute AI-generated passages that you quote. Those words are presented as quotations, rather than as writing you authored. The surrounding work still needs to meet the standard. [Back to top](#main) ## AI assistance in practice A closer look at a writing and research decision. ### Research assistance Sarah is writing a 2,000-word article about climate change. She uses generative AI to summarize ten scientific papers, suggest an outline, and format citations. She checks the research against the original papers and writes every sentence herself. This is VH4: Human-Written, AI-Enhanced. AI supported the research and preparation. Sarah supplied the writing. ### An editorial revision A writer drafts a paragraph, then asks AI to make it clearer without adding ideas. The tool changes phrasing and sentence structure. The writer reads the revision carefully and accepts it, with their ideas, meaning, and voice intact. This is also VH4. The writer supplied the original writing and used AI for editorial assistance. Having AI generate that paragraph from a prompt or outline would instead require substantial reauthoring under VH3. [Back to top](#main) ## Terms used in the standard The language used in the commitment. **Standard** A commitment to specific creative practices. **Writer** The author of written work. **Represent** Claim, present, or share work as your own. **Written work** Words selected and arranged in a meaningful order to be read. **Team** A group of people working together. **Intellectual property** A creative work to which one has legal rights, such as copyright or trademark. **Essential** Fundamental to what something is. **Essentially authored** Written through human authorship, with the permitted forms of AI assistance described in this standard. AI-generated source material must be substantially reauthored in the writer’s own voice. **Essential written elements** Words. **Human** A person, or something originating from a person. **Generative AI** AI systems that generate text, images, audio, code, or video in response to prompts. **Machine learning** Methods that learn patterns from data to make predictions or generate content. **Other generative processes** Other AI or machine-learning processes that create new content. **Artificial intelligence (AI)** A field of computing concerned with systems that perform tasks such as learning, reasoning, and generating content. **AI language model / large language model (LLM)** An AI model trained on large amounts of text to generate language. **Word** A distinct, meaningful element of speech or writing. **AI editorial assistance** AI help with the clarity, grammar, or flow of human-written text, while the writer’s ideas, meaning, and voice remain intact. The writer reviews the changes and takes responsibility for the final work. **AI translation** Rendering a human-written original in another language with AI. The original retains its qualification when the use of AI translation is clearly disclosed. **Substantial reauthoring** Reauthoring AI-generated material in the writer’s own voice, so the result reflects their authorship. It is assessed through the resulting writing, not a percentage of changed words. [Back to top](#main) ## Worked examples for writers [See the field guide and hypothetical examples](https://verifiedhuman.info/verifiedhuman-for-writers) alongside these definitions. The examples illustrate the current requirements; they do not qualify a work by themselves. ## Ready to join? Read the Standard for Writers and make your commitment. [Read the standard and join](https://verifiedhuman.info/writers) Free to join. Support us if you can. ## Definitions for other fields [Visual artists](https://verifiedhuman.info/definitions-for-visual-artists)[Musicians](https://verifiedhuman.info/definitions-for-musicians)[Voice actors](https://verifiedhuman.info/definitions-for-voice-actors)[Content creators](https://verifiedhuman.info/definitions-for-content-creators) [Human–AI Spectrum](https://verifiedhuman.info/human-ai-spectrum)