Correct and polish text
Polishing fixes the mechanics of a passage — grammar, clarity, rhythm, consistency — without changing what it says or how long it is. It is the lightest-touch use of the paragraph assistant and the one with the smallest risk.
See Write and revise a paragraph in the visual editor for the dialog.
How to run it
- Put the passage in the editor.
- Select Write with AI.
- Choose Rewrite current content with other words.
- Set Word Count to approximately the current length.
- Prompt with the correction you want, and the constraint that meaning must not change.
- Estimate, confirm, review.
The word count matters more than it looks. Leaving it well above the current length turns a polish into an expansion.
Prompts
The essential ingredient is an instruction not to change the substance:
Correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Do not change the meaning, the facts or the structure.
Variations for specific problems:
| Problem | Prompt |
|---|---|
| Non-native phrasing | Correct grammar and idiom so it reads as written by a native speaker; keep the meaning |
| Inconsistent terminology | Use "customer" throughout instead of alternating with "client" and "user" |
| Awkward rhythm | Improve the sentence flow; vary sentence length; do not add or remove information |
| Long sentences | Split sentences longer than about 25 words; keep every detail |
| Inconsistent formatting | Make the list items grammatically parallel |
| Redundancy | Remove repeated phrasing; keep every distinct point |
Polishing translated text
This is where polishing is most valuable. Machine translation produces text that is accurate and reads as translated: correct word order that no native speaker would choose, false friends, register that is slightly too formal or too casual for the target language.
A polish pass on translated copy, with a prompt like make this read naturally to a native speaker; do not change the meaning, improves it substantially.
Two cautions. The polish runs in the site's language, so it works on the target-language text after translation, not during it. And a polish cannot detect a mistranslation — if the translation says the wrong thing, polishing makes it say the wrong thing more fluently. Review the translation for accuracy first; see Review machine translation.
What to verify afterwards
Even a light pass can change things you did not intend:
Facts. Numbers, dates, names, product identifiers. Compare against the original.
Qualifiers. "Up to", "usually", "from", "in most cases". A polish that tidies a sentence can tidy away a hedge that mattered.
Deliberate choices. A sentence fragment used for emphasis, an intentional repetition, a house style that breaks a general rule. The tool will regularise these unless told not to.
Terminology. If your organisation has fixed terms, confirm they survived. Naming them in the prompt is more reliable than checking afterwards.
What polishing will not do
- Verify anything. It corrects how a claim is written, never whether it is true.
- Fix a bad argument. A well-punctuated non sequitur is still a non sequitur.
- Replace proofreading of critical text. For legal, medical, financial or safety content, a human specialist reads it.
- Maintain a style guide. It follows the prompt and the business description, not your internal standards document.
When to do it by hand instead
For a couple of sentences, manual correction is faster and free. The tool is worth its cost when the passage is long, when it is translated, when it was written by several people in different registers, or when it is not in your first language.
Fitting it into a workflow
Polish last, not first:
- Get the content right — facts, structure, argument.
- Get the length right — expand or shorten.
- Get the tone right — change the tone.
- Polish.
- Read it once yourself before publishing.
Polishing before the content is settled means polishing text you are about to rewrite.