use-preferred-style

name	use-preferred-style
description	Apply preferred writing style.
user-invocable	true
allowed-tools	["Bash","Read","Edit","Write"]

use-preferred-style — write the way the user prefers

Apply the user's prose style to anything user-facing. The style is plain and direct. Say the point in a short sentence. Stack fewer clauses. Drop filler.

The authority is the user's own guide, Principles of Scientific Writing (PSW): https://morrison-lab.github.io/psw/. PSW covers word choice, conciseness, grammar, and avoiding AI tells --- including the nested-dependent-clause rule below, in its own "Conciseness" chapter. This skill operationalizes PSW and adds the user's own rule on joining independent clauses with coordinating conjunctions rather than subordinate constructions, which PSW does not state explicitly. When in doubt, defer to PSW.

When this fires

• The user asks to "use my style", "apply my preferred style", "rewrite in my voice", "tighten this", "plain-language this", or invokes /style.
• You are drafting or revising any prose the user will read: PR/issue/commit bodies, docs, READMEs, code comments, release notes, emails, chat replies.
• Apply it by default to your own drafts, even when not asked. This is a standing preference, not just an on-demand command.

The rules

Rule 1 restates PSW's own "Limit complex sentence structures" section (Conciseness chapter). Rules 2--4 are the user's own emphasis on filler and clause structure, drawing on PSW's conciseness and word-choice material without matching one specific section. Rules 5--8 come straight from PSW's word-choice, conciseness, and grammar chapters, cited individually below.

1. Limit dependent clauses. A dependent (subordinate) clause cannot stand alone. It starts with a word like because, although, which, while, since, when, or if. One per sentence is plenty. Two or more stacked together is a rewrite signal. Break the sentence apart instead.

2. Cut low-content filler and jargon. Delete words that add no information. Replace jargon with the plain word. See the swap table below.

3. Prefer simple declarative sentences. State the fact. Put the subject first, then the verb, then the rest. Short beats clever.

4. Join independent clauses with coordinating conjunctions. Two complete thoughts read better side by side than nested. Use and, but, so, or, yet, nor, for. Prefer "X is fast, but Y is correct" over "While X is fast, Y is correct."

5. Prefer plain (Anglish) words over Latin-derived ones (PSW, "Word choice"). Old-English-derived words decompose into parts a reader already knows. Latin roots must be memorized. So write before, not prior to; needed, not necessary; use, not utilize. This is a heuristic, not a purity rule — pick whatever word the reader grasps fastest.

6. Prefer active voice (PSW, "Conciseness"). Name the actor, then the action. Prefer "The researchers ran the experiment" over "The experiment was run by the researchers." Passive is fine when the actor is unknown or beside the point.

7. Keep relative pronouns (PSW, "Grammar"). English lets you drop that, which, or who in some sentences, but dropping it forces the reader to backtrack once they realize a describing clause has started. Prefer "the groundwork that I now apply" over "the groundwork I now apply." Also use that for a restrictive clause (identifies which thing you mean, no comma) and which for a non-restrictive one (adds a detail, set off by commas): "the dataset that we collected in 2023" versus "our dataset, which contains 4,000 records,".

8. Name a demonstrative's referent (PSW, "Grammar"). This, that, these, and those used standalone as pronouns send the reader searching backward for what they mean, often across a whole preceding clause rather than one noun. Follow the demonstrative with the noun it refers to.

Filler and jargon to cut or swap

Cut / avoid	Use instead
in order to	to
due to the fact that	because
at this point in time	now
prior to	before
in the event that	if
necessary	needed
has the ability to, is able to	can
utilize, leverage	use
facilitate	help, let
make a decision	decide
give consideration to	consider
a large number of, a number of	many, some, N
it is worth noting that	(delete)
it should be noted that	(delete)
needless to say	(delete)
as a matter of fact	(delete)
basically, essentially, actually	(delete)
very, really, quite, simply	(delete)
in terms of	(rephrase or delete)
with regard to	about

Treat the table as a starting set, not a closed list. Any word that carries no information is filler. Cut it. Most of these swaps come from PSW's "Conciseness" and "Word choice" chapters.

Procedure

1. Read the target prose. A file, a diff, a draft, or text the user pasted.
2. Find the long sentences first. A sentence over ~25 words usually hides a dependent clause you can split out. Split it.
3. Strip filler and swap for plain words. Run the swap table over the text. Delete dead words. Prefer the Anglish word over the Latin one.
4. Flatten subordination. Turn "Although A, B" into "A. But B." or "A, but B." Turn "which" relative clauses into a second sentence.
5. Restore dropped relative pronouns, and name what a demonstrative refers to. Check every describing clause still has its that/which/who, and every standalone this/that/these/those is followed by the noun it means.
6. Switch passive to active where the actor matters. Name the actor first.
7. Keep the meaning exact. Style edits must not change facts, scope, hedges the user meant, or technical precision. When a hedge is load-bearing, keep it. Plainness is the goal, not false confidence.
8. Read it back. Each sentence should make one point. The data should flow top to bottom.

Before / after

Before: It is worth noting that, due to the fact that the cache was not being invalidated when the user updated their profile, which caused stale data to be served, we decided to utilize a new eviction strategy in order to resolve the issue.

After: The cache was not invalidated on profile update. So it served stale data. We switched to a new eviction strategy to fix it.

The "after" is three sentences. Each makes one point. No filler, no utilize, no stacked which/due to the fact that clauses.

When to keep the nesting

This is a default, not an absolute rule. Keep a dependent clause when splitting it would read worse or lose a real logical link. Keep a technical term when it is the precise word and the plain swap would be wrong. Readability wins, not minimalism for its own sake. (Mirrors the "avoid nesting, but not blindly" stance in the coding-style rule.)

Further reading — PSW

The user's guide, Principles of Scientific Writing, is the source of record. Pull the latest rules from it, not from this summary:

• Guide home: https://morrison-lab.github.io/psw/
• Word choice --- Anglish over Latin; avoiding vague/metaphorical language; minimizing jargon.
• Conciseness --- cut redundancy; active voice; the swap list; limiting nested clauses.
• Grammar --- rules 7--8 above: relative and demonstrative pronouns.
• Avoiding AI tells --- overused vocabulary, rhetorical reflexes, formatting habits; see also the find-ai-tells skill below.
• Defining terms clearly
• Paper organization

PSW is a work in progress. When it and this skill disagree, PSW wins — and flag the drift so this skill gets updated.

Relationship to other skills

• find-ai-tells --- the detector counterpart. It scans finished text for AI-authorship tells. This skill prescribes how to write up front. Run find-ai-tells after; run use-preferred-style during.
• simplify / tidy — the same "cut what adds no value" instinct, applied to code instead of prose.
• memorize / remember — for a one-off wording preference, write a memory instead of editing this skill.

Anti-patterns

• ❌ Changing the meaning, scope, or technical precision while "tightening."
• ❌ Dropping a hedge the user meant to keep (turning honest uncertainty into false confidence).
• ❌ Chopping every sentence to staccato fragments — vary length; aim for clear, not robotic.
• ❌ Applying it to code identifiers or quoted material that must stay verbatim.