copy

name

copy

description

Improve, write, or review the copy on a Teacher & School product surface — TFX voice & tone, naming, error-message anatomy, and anti-AI-writing rules (SLP-9), applied at generation time. Use for any copy-only edit — writing or reviewing user-facing text (page, form, notification, empty state, error state), tightening the wording on a page ("improve/polish the copy on the marks page"), or any longer prose (site content, marketing copy, documentation, decision records). Sufficient on its own for copy-only work; the design loop pulls it in at its implement phase. NOT for a whole-page review with no dimension named — that is critique; NOT for a named structural or visual change — that is design.

Copy for Teacher & School products

The TFX-DS voice & tone (§4.1) and naming (§4.2) guidelines, applied at generation time. The intent: copy arrives already on-voice, so no builder — least of all non-native English speakers — carries the UX-writing burden personally. Catalog controls CNT-1 (error anatomy), CNT-2 (naming), and CNT-3 (voice mechanics) bind this skill.

Source of truth. The normative rules are the catalog controls — CNT-1 (error anatomy), CNT-2 (naming), CNT-3 (voice mechanics), and SLP-9 (AI-writing tells), each with a detail file in ../../../standards/controls/. This skill is their application layer (it travels in the plugin); the website's voice-tone and naming guidelines present the same controls for human readers. If any of the three disagree, the catalog control wins and the others are corrected.

Improve-the-copy pass. For a scoped "improve / polish the copy on <page>" run — capture the surface, judge only the wording, propose ranked fixes, gate, and verify — follow ../critique/pass.md with this skill's dimension subset: CNT-1, CNT-2, CNT-3, CNT-4 (domain fidelity — content modeling a real-world artifact is faithful to it or labelled illustrative), CNT-5 (device-agnostic action verbs), CNT-6 (low-informational-value words), CNT-7 (lead with purpose), CNT-14 (voice quality + tone-fit — the copy sounds Clear/Thoughtful/Approachable and its tone matches the surface context), SLP-9, and IDN-3 (IDN-4 on CaseSync surfaces). The rest of this file is that pass's reference: it is what "on-voice" means.

Who you're writing for

Teachers across Singapore — navigating dozens of platforms, relearning seasonal workflows, already tired, already behind. Brand essence is Kind Utility: useful first, kind at the surface. Every sentence either helps them work faster with less stress, or it goes.

Voice (constant)

We are	We are not
Warm but not sappy	Corporate-speak or jargon-heavy
Clear but not cold	Overly casual or slang-filled
Helpful but not pushy	Condescending or preachy
Professional but not stiff	Vague or wishy-washy
Confident but not arrogant	Salesy or hype-driven

Tone (adapts by context)

Context	Tone	Direction
Success	Celebratory, brief	Acknowledge, don't gush
Error	Calm, helpful	What happened → what it means → what to do next
Onboarding	Encouraging	Lower the stakes; show the quick win
Destructive action	Sober, precise	Plain consequences, no drama (CMP-2)
Empty state	Inviting	Lead with the next action
Permission / data request	Transparent, plain	Say what's collected, why, and how it's used — before asking

Writing mechanics (CNT-3)

• Second person ("you"); the product is "we" sparingly.
• Active voice: "Save the plan", not "The plan should be saved".
• Sentences ≤ 25 words. One idea per sentence.
• Lead with purpose, not mechanism. Open copy with what it does for the teacher and when to reach for it; the mechanism (the tool, token, library, or data structure) comes after, or in the body. This binds hardest on descriptive prose — page titles, descriptions, section intros, empty states, feature blurbs — where it is easy to state the what and skip the why. A reader should know why a thing exists and when they'd need it from the first line. "shadcn/ui default token scales, unmodified" → "Consistent spacing is what makes a screen feel calm instead of busy. One shared scale." (CNT-7, split from CNT-3 2026-07-03)
• Choose exactly the words needed to convey a concept or label a control — the simplest way to say something is usually the most universal.
• Cut low-informational-value words (CNT-6) unless clarity suffers: empty openers ("There is", "It is"), filler ("such", "just", "really", "very", "please"), and droppable articles/conjunctions. The canonical lists live in cnt-6.md (same resolved path as slp-9.md below). SLP-9 handles the AI-tell vocabulary and structures; CNT-6 is the no-op words in any copy, whoever wrote it.
• Avoid ed-tech jargon unless it's universal among teachers.
• Name the action, not the input device (CNT-5): "choose", "select", "view", never "click", "tap", "swipe", or "press". Link text names its destination — "View the report", never "click here" or "read more". Teachers reach these products on laptops, tablets, phones, and screen readers; device-agnostic verbs are correct for all of them at once.
• No marketing buzzwords (SLP-9): streamline, empower, supercharge, effortless, seamless, world-class and kin describe nothing — say what the thing does. No em-dash chains standing in for sentence structure, and no label/sublabel/helper triplets that restate each other — if removing one line loses nothing, remove it.
• Read it aloud — if it sounds robotic, rewrite it.
• Singapore English spelling (British base): organise, colour, centre.

The editing sequence (method, not a control)

Good microcopy is edited into shape, not written in one go. The controls above say what "good" is; this is the working order that gets you there. It is a method — none of these passes is itself a control, and none fails a check. Draft first, then edit in passes:

1. Draft. Write what you want to say to the teacher. Don't polish yet.
2. Purposeful. Keep only words that serve the teacher's goal or the product's. Lead with the most important idea (CNT-7, lead with purpose).
3. Concise. Front-load the point; cut filler and empty openers (SLP-9). One idea per sentence, well under the 25-word ceiling (CNT-3).
4. Conversational. Second person, active voice; read it aloud (CNT-3). Name the action, not the device (CNT-5).
5. Clear. Simple words, simple present tense; no double negatives or noun stacks.
6. Check. Consistent terms (CNT-2), plain error anatomy (CNT-1), and a last pass for AI-writing tells (SLP-9).

The website's UI text guideline presents the full sequence for human readers; this skill is where an agent applies it.

AI writing tells (SLP-9)

These rules apply to ANY prose written in a session — UI strings, site and marketing content, documentation, decision records — not just product UI. The buzzword, em-dash-chain, and redundant-pair rules above are part of the same control. The canonical word lists and the full Flag / Do-not-flag calibration live in slp-9.md, resolved relative to this SKILL.md three levels up at ../../../standards/controls/slp-9.md (it ships with the harness — the same path works in the harness dev repo and when installed as the tfx plugin; do not expect standards/ in the project cwd) — that file wins if this summary drifts.

• Copula avoidance. "Glow serves as the encouragement layer" → "Glow is the encouragement layer". Say "is" when you mean is.
• Negative parallelism. "It's not just a gradebook, it's a teaching companion" → say what it is, once. One earned "X, not Y" per screen is fine; a pattern of them is the tell.
• Rule-of-three padding. "innovation, inspiration, and insights" → list only the items that carry weight, however many there really are.
• AI vocabulary. "delve", "testament", "pivotal" and kin — same treatment as the buzzword list: say what the thing does. The canonical word list is in slp-9.md's "How to verify".
• Filler. "In order to save" → "To save". "It is important to note that" → delete and keep the note. (Full phrase list: slp-9.md.)
• Hedging stacks. "could potentially possibly affect" → "may affect". One qualifier, maximum.
• Chatbot artifacts. "Great question!", "I hope this helps" and kin never ship anywhere. (Full phrase list: slp-9.md.)
• Superficial -ing tails. "…, ensuring a seamless experience" → cut it, or state the actual mechanism.
• Significance inflation. "a major step forward in assessment" → the concrete thing that changed.
• Self-audit. After writing, re-read asking "what here reads as generated?" and fix what you find — the prose twin of "Read it aloud".

Not imported from generic anti-AI guides: straight-quote preference (web interface guidelines mandate curly quotes) and heading-case rules (sentence case is already required).

Errors (CNT-1)

State, in order: what happened, what it means for the teacher, what to do next.

• Never a raw error code as the primary message; codes may appear as secondary support detail ("…quote ref 4031").
• Never blame the user: "We don't recognise this date format — use DD/MM/YYYY", not "You entered an invalid date".
• Say what happened to their data: "Your draft is saved on this device."

Naming (CNT-2)

A name that requires explanation has already failed.

• Do: plain language teachers already use · name by function, not metaphor · specific and descriptive · test names with real teachers.
• Don't: portmanteaus ("SyncFlow", "InsightHub") · technical jargon or acronyms · cleverness over clarity · internal codenames in UI.
• Good: "Class Planner", "Student Notes". Bad: "SyncFlow", "InsightHub".

Per-product tone calibration (§6)

Same character everywhere; calibrate weight, never switch systems. This table is the register IDN-3 checks (normative table in standards/controls/idn-3.md); the CaseSync row is hardened by IDN-4 (L1, CaseSync-scoped: no celebration/gamification around case data):

• Teacher Workspace — calm daily command centre: neutral, steady, quietly confident.
• CaseSync — higher gravity: more reserved, restrained celebration, privacy-forward (sensitive casework).
• Glow — lighter, more encouraging: warmer accents, more celebratory moments.
• Posts / PG Staff Portal — pure TW, no nuance.

What to do on conflict

Mandated programme names and legally vetted text win over style rules — record a waiver (tfx-waive CNT-2 reason="..." inline, or in the decision record for non-markup content) rather than rewording.