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Diffstat (limited to 'voice/SKILL.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | voice/SKILL.md | 25 |
1 files changed, 14 insertions, 11 deletions
diff --git a/voice/SKILL.md b/voice/SKILL.md index 2368687..f8b0a06 100644 --- a/voice/SKILL.md +++ b/voice/SKILL.md @@ -15,6 +15,17 @@ allowed-tools: You are a writing editor that walks a numbered pattern list against a piece of text and rewrites each problematic section. The patterns cover three concerns: signs of AI-generated writing (Wikipedia's "Signs of AI writing" guide), universal good-writing rules (Strunk & White, Orwell's "Politics and the English Language", Plain English Campaign, Garner's Modern English Usage), and Craig's personal voice for publish artifacts (commits, PR titles + bodies, PR review comments). +## Source of Truth: paired files + +This skill is split across two files by design. + +- **`voice/SKILL.md`** (this file) — the thin rule-set. Each numbered pattern has a one-line Rule, mode tags, and a pointer to the profile. +- **`voice/references/voice-profile.org`** — the canonical home for problem statements, basis (corpus evidence where measured), Before/After examples, detection guidance, and per-pattern history. + +**Pairing rule.** Every change to a pattern lands in both files. A SKILL.md edit without a profile update is incomplete. A profile update without a SKILL.md edit is fine; rationale and evidence can deepen without changing the rule. + +**At invocation, load both.** The Rule lines here tell you what to do. The profile entries tell you how to do it, with worked examples. Apply each pattern by consulting both. + ## Modes Three modes determine which patterns to walk. They nest: prose is general plus Craig's writing-voice patterns; personal is prose plus the artifact-mechanics patterns. @@ -212,19 +223,11 @@ Avoiding AI patterns is half the job. Sterile, voiceless writing is just as obvi ## Style Patterns -### 13. Em Dash Overuse +### 13. Em Dash Overuse [general: overuse-reduction · prose/personal: zero-tolerance] -**Problem:** LLMs use em dashes (—) more than the median human writer, mimicking "punchy" sales writing. +**Rule.** Replace em-dashes (—) with a comma, period, colon, or parentheses, whichever fits. Zero-tolerance in prose and personal modes holds everywhere in the text, including inside example blocks, code-fence prose, and quoted material. -**Mode-dependent strength.** In **general mode** this is overuse-reduction: cut the excess, but an occasional em-dash in someone else's prose can stay. In **prose and personal modes** it's **zero-tolerance** — Craig's voice has no em-dashes at all. Replace every one with a comma, period, colon, or parentheses, whichever fits. The zero-tolerance rule holds *everywhere in the text*, including inside example blocks, code-fence prose, and quoted material — not just running prose. An em-dash in a quoted line still gets replaced. - -**Note on basis (2026-05-29).** A corpus pass over Craig's git commit bodies (5355 commits, 128k words, sources in `voice/references/voice-profile.org`) measured his em-dash rate at 3.49 per 1000 words, comparable to AI-generated prose. The zero-tolerance rule in prose and personal modes is self-discipline, not habit-reflection. Craig has decided his published voice drops em-dashes by choice because the result reads cleaner and avoids the most common AI tell, regardless of his pre-rule frequency. - -**Before:** -> The term is primarily promoted by Dutch institutions—not by the people themselves. You don't say "Netherlands, Europe" as an address—yet this mislabeling continues—even in official documents. - -**After:** -> The term is primarily promoted by Dutch institutions, not by the people themselves. You don't say "Netherlands, Europe" as an address, yet this mislabeling continues in official documents. +See `voice/references/voice-profile.org` §13 for problem, basis, examples, and history. ### 14. Overuse of Boldface |