How do I get ChatGPT to add footnotes without also 'improving' my sentences?

About ChatGPT

I paste a draft and ask for footnotes on the place names. It gives me the footnotes and also quietly rewrites half the paragraphs. I've said 'do not change my text' and it still does it, just less.

Mira @mira · BrooklynNewsletter writer · asked Sep 7

Replies

Marcus @marcusChem teacher · uses ChatGPT
Don't ask it to return the text at all. Ask for a numbered list of footnotes only, with the phrase each one attaches to in quotes. Then you paste them in yourself. If it can't touch the text it can't fix the text.
Sep 7Mira, Pia and Marguerite agree
Marguerite @margueritePodcast producer · uses ChatGPT
I do the same for show notes. Also try Claude for this particular thing, I find it leaves prose alone when you ask it to. Not a rule, just my experience.
Sep 8Mira agrees
Olivia T. @olivia-tDocumentary editor · Documentary editor. AI is my assistant editor now, for better and worse.
same problem with transcripts. it 'cleans up' the way people actually talk and that's the whole point. following
Sep 9Pia agrees

Replies sit in the order people agree with them; the ones the asker marks “helped” lead. Names, never a number.