How I Edit 92 Blog Posts Using ChatGPT in 2024

Recently, one of my posts went viral on TikTok, drawing people to my other social media accounts, including Instagram and this blog. While I don’t mind much about my Instagram account, I am particularly concerned about this blog. It’s not the content that worries me—I’ve shared almost everything everywhere about my personal life, from divorce to mental health and career shift. There’s no secret, and I’m not hiding from anybody.

My main concern is the grammar and overall writing quality. I have been a corporate writer for over five years now. Coming back here with more experience, I’ve noticed many grammatical errors and poor readability in my older blog posts.

How can a professional writer write like that?

At the office, people always come to me to proofread their write-ups. If they ever see what I had here, they would think I am an imposter or scammer. Initially, I wanted to go through all the posts and take the time to edit all of them. Editing each of the 92 posts manually seemed daunting, so I delayed the task for a while.

My Assistant, Little Miss ChatGPT

I’ve been using ChatGPT at work for gathering information, brainstorming, grammar checking, finding synonyms, and writing emails. Some people believe ChatGPT can take over a writer’s job, but I disagree.

ChatGPT can’t totally replace writers because it misses out on the personal touch, creativity, and understanding of context that humans bring. Writers have unique styles and can handle sensitive topics with care. From my experience, ChatGPT still lacks the knowledge of my personal and company’s specific requirements, preferences, styles, and insider insights. I’m also cautious about sharing non-public company information with it.

While ChatGPT can’t replace me entirely, it serves as an excellent assistant. If you’re not currently using any AI tools, I believe you may find yourself at a disadvantage in the future, as others who adopt these tools may advance more quickly.

So anyway, I decided to use ChatGPT to edit my blog posts because I needed to do it quickly before more people arrived here. Bulk editing was an option, but I didn’t want to risk potential errors. I found that editing one post at a time was manageable and effective.

I was the junior writer, ChatGPT is the first editor while I’m the chief editor.

Aaaahh, I love this team!

The Prompts

My prompt to ChatGPT looks like this:

“Help me improve my blog post by performing these tasks: 1) Check grammar and fix it according to British English without changing the writing style. 2) Expand to at least 500 words and re-organise the paragraph if needed, breaking the article into sections with sub-headlines to improve readability. 3) Include links where applicable. 4) Propose a new compelling title. The blog post as below:”

The most important phrase of this prompt is “without changing the writing style,” ensuring it maintains my choice of words while improving grammar, while “expand” will only involve elaborating on existing points without adding new ones, to improve clarity, readability, and flow.

I also re-assigned categories to my blog posts. For this, I did bulk editing. Here are the prompts:

• “These are my blog’s Archive. Please put them in a table: first column – number, second column – date published, third column – blog post title.” [I pasted all my posts and provided a link to the Archive]
• “Read all the posts in the Archive and propose blog categories for my blog, limited to six categories.”
• “Revise to minimalism, personal development, writing, motherhood, lifestyle, and mindfulness.”
• “Now assign the categories to the earlier table. Add one column for the categories. One blog post may have one or more categories, if applicable.”

Ya Allah, senangnya hidup.

Through the Second Look

Going through all 92 posts, I relived my past experiences, struggles, and determination. I have mixed feelings but also feel proud of my former self. Some posts even brought me to tears, reminding me of different events in my life.

I wonder if my 38 subscribers are still around. If you are, thank you for being part of my journey. This blog saved me during my darker days. Though you are few, you are the reason I kept writing.

If you still have a blog, keep writing. Don’t be afraid (or sceptical) to use ChatGPT—it’s an excellent tool if you know how to use it properly.