Edit Sentences

---
name: edit-sentences
description: The within-sentence quality pass — clarity, economy, active voice, rhythm, plain words, positive form, modifier placement. Returns findings and suggested edits; the writer folds them in. Never mutates the draft. TRIGGER when tightening, proofing, or line-editing a draft's sentences, or when the Editor loads it for the edit-the-sentences stage. DO NOT TRIGGER for the joins between sections or the skim layer (check-structure), for genericness and AI tells (check-ai-writing), or for whether a claim is backed (check-claims).
---

# Edit the sentences

One Process: read each sentence as a mechanical object and fix what reads wrong. This pass owns the inside of one sentence — how it reads on the first pass. It never judges whether a line persuades, whether the section order holds, or whether a claim is backed. Those are other checks.

This pass returns findings and suggested edits and never mutates the draft — beside the writer in production and inside a review round alike, it writes findings in review-copy's finding format and edits nothing. The writer folds the accepted fixes into the next numbered draft. Where a fix would change the argument or spend a claim, still findings-only, and name it plainly for the writer.

The boundary that keeps this pass disjoint: **within one sentence only.** A problem that lives in the seam between two sections, in the title chain, or in the order of the argument is check-structure's, never touched here.

## 1. Clarity

### Make every sentence land on one read
Fail a sentence doing too much, a pronoun with no clear referent, or jargon the reader does not share. Split it, name the referent, or cut the jargon.
Never: "The thing that it does, which is what makes it work, is the part teams rely on" — nothing resolves.

## 2. Active voice

### Let the verb carry the sentence
Fail passive where active works, a nominalization burying the verb, an expletive opener standing in for a real verb, or one passive chained on another.
Example: "leads are captured by the form" → "the form captures leads"; "make a decision" → "decide"; "provide assistance" → "help".
Example: "There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground" → "Dead leaves covered the ground".
Never: "It has been proved that he was seen to enter".

## 3. Cut what adds nothing

### Cut every word the reader does not need
Read the line without the word; if the meaning survives, cut the word. Fail filler intensifiers (very, really, just, actually, simply, literally, truly), dead connectives (in order to → to, the fact that → that), and a removable *that*. Fuse a chain of thin sentences carrying one idea into one.

### Cut every line that adds nothing
Read the copy without the line; if nothing is lost, cut the line.
Evidence (owner, verbatim): "EVERY FUCKIGN LINE OF COPY EITHER ADDS INFO OR DOESN'T EXIST"

## 4. Plain words

### Swap every pompous word for its plain twin
Fail any complex word with a plain twin, and any empty abstraction noun (*case, character, nature, system, factor, feature*) padding for the concrete thing. The test is not "is the long word wrong" but "does the plain word lose anything".

### Say the sentence out loud
If nobody would say a word out loud in conversation, change it.
Evidence (owner, verbatim): "No. ALL words are words that people say."
Example: "acts of a hostile character" → "hostile acts"; "utilize" → "use".
The full swap table and the abstraction-noun rule: [references/plain-english.md](references/plain-english.md).

## 5. Rhythm

### Read it aloud and vary the length
Fail if you stumble, if every sentence is the same length, if clause after clause is strung by *and / but / who / which / while* into one slack line, or if the key word is buried at the tail. Front-load the strong word; mix simple, compound, and periodic sentences.
Example: two devices pass, never fail — a periodic sentence holding the key word to the end for one climactic line, and a fragment for earned emphasis ("Again and again he called out. No reply.").

## 6. Positive form

### Say what a thing is, not what it isn't
Reserve *not* for real denial or antithesis. Fail a needless negative with a positive twin.
Example: "he was not very often on time" → "he usually came late"; "did not pay any attention to" → "ignored".

## 7. Related words together

### Sit every modifier next to what it modifies
Fail a misplaced modifier that bends the meaning.
Example: "he only found two mistakes" → "he found only two mistakes".

Verification: every sentence read; every issue written as a finding in review-copy's finding format with its suggested edit; nothing edited in the draft; no finding raised outside a single sentence's own words.