Lesson 4 of 8
Show, don't just tell
Why pasting in one real example of your own work beats any amount of describing your tone, and how to use it on the jobs you already have saved.
If you only ever take one shortcut from this course, make it this one. Pasting in a real example of your own work and asking the AI to match it is one of the single most reliable fixes for output that sounds like nobody in particular wrote it.
Why describing your tone doesn’t work
You can spend a paragraph explaining that your emails are “warm but direct, plain English, no corporate jargon, sign off with a first name”, and you’ll get something closer to what you meant, but still generically “warm and direct” rather than warm and direct like you. Tone is hard to describe accurately, because most of what makes writing sound like a specific person is instinct you’ve never had to put into words.
Showing solves that instantly. Paste in an email you actually sent, a specials board description you wrote last month, a quote you’re proud of, and say “write a new one in this exact style.” The AI now has something real to copy, not a vague brief to interpret.
Where to find your examples
You almost certainly have three or four good ones sitting in your sent folder already:
- A customer email you were pleased with
- A quote or invoice note that got a good response
- A social post, description or advert that did well
- Anything a customer or colleague said “sounds like you” about
You don’t need to hunt for a perfect example. Any real, ordinary piece of your own writing works better than none at all.
Two ways to use it
Match the tone. “Write a new specials board description in the same style as this one: [paste].” Useful for anything where the words matter more than the structure: social posts, descriptions, customer-facing copy.
Match the structure. A bathroom fitter who always quotes in the same layout, scope, price, timeline, terms, can paste last month’s quote and ask for a new one “in this exact structure, with these new details.” The AI keeps the shape you already trust and just swaps in the specifics.
One example beats a paragraph of instructions
If you’re ever tempted to write three sentences describing how you want something to sound, stop and ask whether you’ve already written something that sounds that way. If you have, paste it instead. It costs thirty seconds and it’s more reliable than any description, because you’re no longer asking the AI to guess at your voice. You’re showing it.
Next, we look at what happens once you combine a role with a bigger job, and how to stop AI’s answers going shallow on anything larger than a single email.