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econ-humanizer-plus

Rule lists to run alongside econ-humanizer: econ-specific phrases to delete on sight, a banned AI-word list ("delve", "landscape", "leverage" as a verb, "robust" outside statistics), mixed sentence-length targets, and explicit permission for em-dashes and parentheticals, because stripping them all is itself an AI tell. Also asks for calibrated hedging, natural field vocabulary by subfield, and micro-rules for naked "this", "where" versus "in which", compound-modifier hyphens and named Greek letters.

Category: editing
Field: economics
License: MIT (repo LICENSE, "Copyright (c) 2026 John Barrios"). The vendored third-party skills keep their own terms: the Anthropic document skills say "Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms", and the K-Dense skills carry per-library licence lines.
Updated: 2026-05-26
Stages: revision-editing

Barrios Skills — John Barrios's curated workflow for economists and accountants. Prioritize reproducible empirical work, clear identification language, and journal-ready output.

Econ Humanizer Plus

Use alongside econ-humanizer — not instead of it. The original handles the core Cochrane-style transforms (active voice, short sentences, plain words, concrete claims). This skill adds the specific lists and micro-rules below.

1. PHRASES TO DELETE ON SIGHT

Search for these and cut them. In most cases the paragraph is stronger with them removed entirely; occasionally the meaning needs to be rewritten.

Meta-prose / throat-clearing: - "It should be noted that..." - "It is worth noting that..." - "It is important to note that..." - "It is easy to show that..." - "A comment is in order." - "In other words..." - "As mentioned above..." - "As we will see..."

Literature-review padding: - "An important question in the literature is..." - "This paper contributes to the literature by..." - "The literature has long been interested in..." - "The literature lacks a model of..."

Methods padding: - "We investigate/examine/explore the relationship between X and Y." - "We perform/conduct/carry out a regression of Y on X." - "Results are reported in Table X." (tables speak for themselves if captioned well)

Roadmap: - "The remainder of this paper is organized as follows." (Keep the roadmap content, drop this sentence.)

"That"-deletion heuristic: Search for "that" and try deleting the preceding clause. Often the sentence tightens: "The results show that X increases Y" → "X increases Y."

2. BANNED AI WORDS

These are tells. A single use is fine; repeated use (>1 per section) signals AI prose.

Never use in academic econ prose: - "delve", "delve into" - "landscape" (as in "the economic landscape") - "multifaceted" - "notably" (almost always deletable) - "leverage" as a verb (use "use" or "exploit") - "robust" outside its statistical meaning (don't say "robust findings" — say "strong" or just report the evidence) - "pivotal" - "groundbreaking" - "shed light on" - "pave the way" - "comprehensive" (almost always hollow) - "furthermore" (use a period + new sentence) - "utilize" (use "use") - "crucial" (usually unsupported; be concrete about why it matters) - "underscore" / "underscores"

Use sparingly, with specific content: - "important" — only when you say why - "significant" — reserve for the statistical meaning; use "large" for economic significance - "interesting" — delete; show, don't tell

3. SENTENCE LENGTH VARIATION

AI prose trends toward uniform medium-length sentences. Real academic writing mixes:

  • Short (8-12 words): for punch, for the finding, for the transition.
  • Medium (13-20 words): most sentences.
  • Long (20-30 words): for setup, for a qualified claim, for a list.

Check: read three consecutive sentences aloud. If they all feel the same length, break one in half or combine two with a semicolon.

4. EM-DASHES AND PARENTHETICALS ARE ALLOWED (Even Encouraged)

Over-sanitization is itself an AI tell. Real academics use: - Em-dashes for qualifications and asides: "The effect — small but precisely estimated — survives every robustness check." - Parentheticals for side notes: "Workers (particularly those in manufacturing) respond strongly." - Semicolons for paired clauses: "The coefficient is positive; the magnitude is modest."

Do NOT strip all of these in the name of "cleaning up." A paragraph with zero em-dashes and zero parentheticals reads robotic.

5. HEDGING — USE IT

AI writing over-asserts. Real empirical work hedges where warranted:

  • "This likely reflects..."
  • "One interpretation is..."
  • "A plausible explanation is..."
  • "The evidence is consistent with [A] but does not rule out [B]."
  • "We cannot distinguish between [A] and [B] with these data."

But: do not hedge the main finding itself in the abstract or introduction. Hedge interpretations, not results.

6. FIELD VOCABULARY — USE IT NATURALLY

Generic phrasing is a tell. Use the actual vocabulary of the subfield:

  • Labor: extensive margin, intensive margin, job ladder, reservation wage, LATE, compliers
  • IO / trade: pass-through, markup, market power, demand elasticity, MRPL, gravity, multilateral resistance
  • Public / health: treatment on treated, ITT, take-up, compliance, salience, framing
  • Finance: abnormal returns, CAR/BHAR, cross-section, factor loadings, Fama-MacBeth, winsorize
  • Accounting: discretionary accruals, earnings management, going concern, conservatism, timely loss recognition
  • Macro: impulse response, steady state, shock, wedge, log-linearization, calibration

If the draft says "the effect of the policy" where "pass-through" is the right word, change it.

7. NAME SPECIFIC INSTITUTIONS

Generic placeholders are AI tells. Replace:

  • "the dataset" → "the Current Population Survey" / "Compustat" / "the HRS"
  • "the agency" → "the EPA" / "the FDIC"
  • "the policy" → "the 2010 minimum-wage increase in Washington State"
  • "the country" / "the economy" → "the United States" / "the German economy"

8. MICRO-RULES

Clothe naked "this"

Never let "this" stand alone as a subject. Add the noun: - ✗ "This shows that wages rose." - ✓ "This regression shows that wages rose." - ✓ "This pattern reflects..."

"Where" vs. "in which"

  • "Where" = physical place. "In California, where wages rose..."
  • "In which" = abstract / model / conditions. "Models in which consumers have shocks..." NOT "models where consumers have shocks."

Compound-modifier hyphenation

Before a noun: hyphenate multi-word modifiers. - "risk-free rate", "after-tax income", "above-median firms", "two-period model" - BUT NOT when the first word is an -ly adverb: "randomly assigned treatment" (no hyphen), "statistically significant result" (no hyphen).

Name every Greek letter

Don't leave σ or γ unexplained. On first use: - "the elasticity of substitution, σ, equals 3" - "the discount factor β ∈ (0, 1)" Then remind the reader on re-use in a distant section.

No double adjectives on your own work

  • ✗ "very novel", "truly striking", "highly significant" (unless quoting a test)
  • ✓ Just state the magnitude and let the reader judge.

No self-adjectives at all

Don't tell the reader your results are "striking", "important", "remarkable", "surprising". Report the finding; the reader decides.

9. PARAGRAPH RHYTHM CHECK

Before finalizing a paragraph, verify: - Opens with a claim (a topic sentence), not a citation. - Has one idea — if it has two, split it. - Closes with a claim or transition, not a citation dump. - Contains at least one concrete datum, magnitude, or institution (unless it's a pure theory paragraph).

10. COAUTHORSHIP VOICE

Multi-author drafts often have style discontinuities that look AI-like because different authors (or AI at different times) wrote different sections.

  • Agree on "we" vs. "I" upfront. Use the same one throughout.
  • Designate a voice editor who reads end-to-end for tonal consistency.
  • If one section feels different, rewrite for rhythm — don't just copy-edit words.

11. HOW THIS SKILL DIFFERS FROM econ-humanizer

Concern econ-humanizer econ-humanizer-plus
Active voice ✓ —
Plain words ✓ —
Specific phrase-deletion list — §1
Specific banned AI words — §2
Sentence-length variation — §3
Em-dash / parenthetical permission — §4
Hedging guidance — §5
Field vocabulary — §6
Specific institutions — §7
"Where" vs. "in which" — §8
Compound-modifier hyphens — §8
Greek letter naming — §8

When both skills trigger, defer to econ-humanizer for top-level voice (Cochrane-style active/direct/concrete) and apply the specific rules above as a second pass.

Rules synthesized from the hanlulong/econ-writing-skill corpus: Cochrane "Writing Tips for PhD Students", McCloskey "Economical Writing", Shapiro "Writing Economics", Head "Five Tips for a Perfect Introduction", Bellemare "How to Publish in Top Journals".