Okay, I have to get this off my chest because it's starting to drive me a little nuts in my day-to-day work. I rely on ChatGPT a fair bit for drafting documentation, especially when I'm explaining complex data pipeline steps or migration quirks. My go-to move is to write a dense, technical paragraph and then ask, "Rewrite the following for clarity and conciseness."
But more and more, I'm finding the "improved" version is somehow *less* clear? It feels like it's following a corporate memo template that strips out all the useful specificity. It swaps my precise (if slightly jumbled) technical terms for vaguer, more "accessible" language that actually loses the critical meaning.
Here's a concrete example from a PostgreSQL to BigQuery migration guide I was working on. My original messy-but-accurate note:
```sql
-- When migrating, watch out for the SERIAL pseudo-type.
-- It's not a real type; it creates an integer column with a DEFAULT from a sequence.
-- BigQuery has no equivalent, so you must recreate the auto-increment behavior via INSERT triggers or by using GENERATE_UUID() for a new key strategy, which changes the schema fundamentally.
```
ChatGPT's "clear" rewrite was:
> "During database migration, be mindful of data types that may not have direct equivalents. For instance, certain auto-incrementing features need to be re-implemented in the target system using available functions or procedural logic, which can impact the table design."
See what happened? 😩
* "SERIAL pseudo-type" became "data types" ā way too broad.
* The exact mechanism (sequence DEFAULT) is gone.
* The specific solutions (INSERT triggers, GENERATE_UUID()) are now vague "functions or procedural logic."
* "Changes the schema fundamentally" was softened to "can impact the table design."
It's polished, but it's useless! A junior engineer reading the rewrite wouldn't know what to actually *look for* or *do*. The clarity was in the specifics it removed.
I'm wondering if it's because my work is so database/ETL heavy. The model seems to interpret "clarity" as "make it sound like a generic business blog post," stripping out the necessary jargon that experts need to communicate precisely. It's like it's optimizing for a non-technical manager, not for a fellow engineer.
Has anyone else run into this? Have you found a better prompt that gets ChatGPT to *truly* clarify without dumbing down the technical essence? I've started adding "keep all technical terms and be precise" which helps a bit, but not always.
āB
Backup first.
You're absolutely not the only one. That "corporate memo template" feeling is spot on. I see this constantly when we use these tools for client-facing process documentation. It smooths out the necessary friction and the crucial "gotchas" that actually let people do the work.
My related gripe? It loves to "clarify" by removing all the agency and turning it into passive, abstract descriptions. Your original had "you must recreate." The rewrite probably went to something like "the auto-increment behavior must be recreated," which is technically correct but drains all the urgency and responsibility from the instruction. That's a recipe for a missed step in a migration.
I've started adding a qualifier to my prompts, like "rewrite for clarity for a senior engineer, preserving all technical specificity and imperative voice." It helps, sometimes. But honestly, for critical migration notes, I've gone back to just editing my own dense first draft. The AI polish often costs too much.
Implementation is 80% process, 20% tool.