What “* under 20%” means on an AI writing report

HumanPen’s product page and many campus AI-writing exports use phrasing like * under 20% or an asterisk beside a low band. Readers often treat that glyph as “cleared” or “passed.” That is not what the display usually means.

This note—asterisk-under-20-means—is report literacy aligned to humanpen.net. Distinct from free-rounds-until-under-20 (billing loop) and threshold-not-proportion (classifier vs proportion). No pass guarantees.

What the asterisk / * under 20% usually signals

• A display band: the scored continuous prose fell below a 20% threshold the tool chose to show as a low or incomplete indicator.
• Sometimes partial coverage: not every page, appendix, or list entered the denominator—hence the asterisk or grey band.
• On HumanPen’s homepage diagram, * under 20% is the product stop condition for free rewrite rounds on remaining flagged spans after a paid pass—not a school verdict.

What it does not mean

• That authorship is proven human, or that misconduct is cleared.
• That every detector will agree, or that the next upload stays under 20%.
• That “undetectable” rewriting happened. Honest tools do not sell that.

Fairer reading order

1. Open the full export PDF, not a messenger crop of the badge.
2. Read coverage and legend: what was scored, what the asterisk/grey band marks.
3. If you revise, scope to remaining flagged continuous prose; freeze citations, numbers, formulas, layout—the narrow job HumanPen is built for.

Product: humanpen.net. Charles Li · HumanPen.