Draft, rewrite, review, humanise, or adapt prose without losing facts, voice, or uncertainty. Use for technical docs, wikis, product, editorial, marketing, personal, or AI-like writing. Skip code-only tasks.
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name
better-writing
description
Draft, rewrite, review, humanise, or adapt prose without losing facts, voice, or uncertainty. Use for technical docs, wikis, product, editorial, marketing, personal, or AI-like writing. Skip code-only tasks.
compatibility
Core instructions are portable. Optional diagnostics and package checks require Python 3.10+.
The user wants diagnosis or comments, not a rewritten artefact
references/quality-gates.md
Humanise
The prose feels generic, machine-smooth, formulaic, or unlike its author
references/ai-isms-and-humanisation.md, references/genericity-and-stiffness.md; add references/formulaic-language-catalogue.md for explicit avoidance or dense formulae
Adapt
The substance should stay while audience, genre, channel, length, or voice changes
Mixed requests can use more than one job. Keep scope clean: if a request combines a code fix with an error-message rewrite, this skill may revise the user-facing words but does not edit the surrounding source, syntax, or code behaviour. Never rename, rewrite, or reinterpret code constructs to satisfy a style or diction rule. In mixed documentation, edit only the natural-language prose and preserve machine-readable material exactly.
For an explicit request to remove, replace, limit, or standardise em dashes, semicolons, or colons, read references/punctuation-and-sentence-flow.md. Load it conditionally; ordinary line editing and humanisation do not imply a punctuation ban.
For technical documentation or wiki entries, read references/technical-documentation-and-wikis.md in addition to the applicable mode in references/genre-modes.md. Follow repository or organisation style, locale, exact terminology, and destination constraints before the adapted Google developer documentation guidance.
Use another workflow for code-only implementation, standalone fact-checking, or authorship classification. This skill may rewrite prose produced alongside those tasks, but it does not perform them.
Operating workflow
1. Establish the writing contract
Infer what the supplied context already settles. Identify:
reader, deliverable, and desired outcome
source material and factual authority
required length, format, locale, house style, and deadline
whether the user wants a draft, rewrite, review, humanisation pass, or adaptation
how much change is allowed
For an existing draft, build a preservation ledger before editing. Protect facts, numbers, dates, names, quotations, citations, commands, paths, API identifiers, legal or technical terms, explicit uncertainty, and lines that carry the writer's voice.
Ask only when a missing choice would materially change the result. Never invent evidence, experience, approval, customer language, or confidence the source does not contain.
Do not treat unsupported praise or marketing posture as a factual invariant. If removing vague claims leaves too little to write, surface the evidence gap or ask for the missing mechanism instead of rearranging the same abstractions.
Read references/operating-contract.md when the source is sensitive, highly constrained, collaborative, or likely to lose important detail.
Complete when: the reader, outcome, edit freedom, source authority, and protected material are known or explicitly marked unknown.
2. Diagnose before rewriting
Name the failure at the right scale:
whole-piece: wrong genre, audience, order, thesis, or scope
section: missing step, evidence, turn, or decision
paragraph: mixed jobs, buried point, repetition, weak transition
sentence: unclear actor, abstraction, drag, monotony, or false emphasis
surface: grammar, spelling, punctuation, formatting, or house style
Preserve what already works. A good edit is not a demonstration that every sentence can be changed.
Complete when: the smallest responsible layer and the draft's strongest material are both identified.
3. Fix shape before style
Choose the page shape in references/genre-modes.md. Give each section and paragraph one job. Put the main point where that genre expects it. Order evidence so the reader never has to guess why it is present.
For documentation and wikis, establish the reader, starting state, canonical terminology, and finish line before styling the page. Use the documentation reference for headings, procedures, links, accessibility, global-audience clarity, and maintenance boundaries.
Read references/natural-structure-and-digestibility.md when the request calls for a substantial structural recast, a more natural flow, or repair of dense, wall-of-text, or over-chunked prose. Use its worked transformations to split at changes of job, not at arbitrary lengths.
For review-only work, stop short of rewriting: report the diagnosis, cite exact passages, rank issues by reader impact, and offer a rewrite only as a clearly labelled example.
Complete when: the opening establishes the right contract, the middle advances it without echoing itself, and the ending performs the genre's real closing task.
4. Run two clarity passes
Use references/revision-pass-stack.md.
Paragraph pass: one job per paragraph, visible logic, no repeated claim, evidence beside the claim it supports.
Sentence pass: clear actor and action, concrete nouns and verbs, related words together, honest qualifications, informative emphasis.
Do not compress every sentence. Restore connective tissue when the page starts to read like chopped notes. When a long passage needs reshaping, choose paragraphs, lists, headings, or tables from the information's real shape; formatting cannot replace reasoning.
When punctuation is the edit target, classify the relation before changing the mark. A colon fulfils a promise, a semicolon balances close independent clauses, and a conjunction or subordinate clause should name logic that punctuation would otherwise leave implicit. Protect literal punctuation in code, URLs, times, ratios, quotations, labels, and configuration.
Complete when: a reader can follow the argument or procedure on the first read without losing the draft's meaning or cadence.
5. Restore voice and specificity
Use references/voice-and-rhythm.md for stance, cadence, sentence movement, and read-aloud repair. Use references/style-bundles.md to calibrate a voice from samples or declared traits without imitating a living writer's signature.
Human signal comes from judgement, selection, detail, and position—not fake typos, random slang, decorative swearing, invented anecdotes, or forced informality.
Complete when: the prose has a discernible point of view, sentence movement suits the thought, and the writer's high-signal details remain intact.
6. Run the formulaic-language and humanisation pass
Run a light avoidance check on every prose deliverable. Do not introduce assistant residue, empty ceremony, canned significance, unsupported benefit language, or a formula that hides the actor, mechanism, evidence, or consequence.
Read references/ai-isms-and-humanisation.md and references/formulaic-language-catalogue.md when the user asks to remove AI-like words or phrases, ban formulaic diction, make prose less robotic, or when a draft shows generic authority, excessive symmetry, service tone, or repeated rhetorical frames.
Apply the catalogue's action levels:
remove wrappers and empty stage directions
rewrite canned semantic frames from supported meaning, even when they occur once
review ordinary words and structural signals in context or clusters
protect literal, technical, legal, measured, quoted, and writer-owned uses
Never perform a synonym swap to satisfy an avoidance rule. This applies across the catalogue, not only to individual watch words. Bridge the gap does not become close the divide; identify what is missing and what action changes it. Marks a significant shift does not become signals a major transformation; state the before and after. Plays a critical role, unlocks value, and research shows likewise need a supported action, result, or source. If the source lacks the necessary substance, delete, narrow, or query the claim.
If a substantial draft exists as a file, run:
python3 scripts/scan_aiisms.py path/to/draft.md
Use --format json for automation and --gate only as a conservative multi-pattern cluster gate. A normal scan already surfaces single remove-, rewrite-, and review-labelled matches. Judge those matches against their exceptions; the scanner cannot determine whether a use is exact, suitable for its genre, or evidence of authorship. Treat an em dash, polished sentence, or ordinary word as context—not proof.
Rewrite the thought, not just the flagged token. Preserve dialect, accessibility choices, second-language voice, quoted material, literal terminology, and intentional rhetoric.
Complete when: remove and rewrite rules are resolved or deliberately retained, review-only clusters have been judged in context, and the revision reads better by ordinary editorial standards—not merely less detectable.
7. Calibrate the deliverable
Apply the target genre, audience, locale, and house style. Check headings, lists, calls to action, examples, and ending shape. Keep formatting proportional to the material; not every paragraph wants a heading and not every thought wants a bullet.
For documentation and wiki pages, run the documentation gate in references/technical-documentation-and-wikis.md. Do not replace an established locale or project convention with a Google-specific preference.
Complete when: the artefact looks and sounds native to its destination without losing factual or personal identity.
8. Pass the quality gates and stop
Run the gates in references/quality-gates.md:
fidelity
logic and evidence
clarity and cadence
voice and humanisation
genre and mechanics
final proof
Compare the revision against the preservation ledger. Re-run deterministic diagnostics after the last substantive edit, not before it. Stop when every remaining change is merely different, not better.
Complete when: the deliverable passes every applicable gate, protected material matches the source, and no known critical issue remains.
Output contract
Lead with the requested artefact or review outcome. Keep process notes brief unless the user asked for an edit log. When useful, report:
important structural choices
protected facts or literals
unresolved factual questions
deliberate exceptions to a diagnostic signal
Do not claim a passage was AI-written. Do not turn stylistic preference into an accusation.
Quick reference
Need
Read or run
Brief, preservation ledger, and edit freedom
references/operating-contract.md
Exact revision order and loopbacks
references/revision-pass-stack.md
Natural structure, paragraph architecture, and long-prose digestibility
references/natural-structure-and-digestibility.md
Grammar, clarity, and modern usage baseline
references/foundations.md
Cadence, stance, and voice repair
references/voice-and-rhythm.md
Em-dash replacement, semicolon and colon judgement, and sentence-flow repair
references/punctuation-and-sentence-flow.md
Generic, corporate, ceremonial, or inflated prose
references/genericity-and-stiffness.md
AI-like patterns, humanisation, false positives, and scanner use
references/ai-isms-and-humanisation.md
Contextual avoid rules, phrase families, natural rewrites, and protected uses
references/formulaic-language-catalogue.md
Docs, PRs, specs, memos, reports, essays, email, UI, and copy
references/genre-modes.md
Technical documentation and wiki headings, procedures, links, accessibility, and maintenance
references/technical-documentation-and-wikis.md
Personal voice sheets and style calibration
references/style-bundles.md
Acceptance criteria and final proof
references/quality-gates.md
Research basis and limits
references/research-notes.md
Failure recovery
references/gotchas.md
Templates
templates/rewrite-worksheet.md records the brief, preservation ledger, pass results, and final gates.
templates/personal-style-sheet.md captures a writer's real habits from samples before revision smooths them away.
Non-negotiables
Never improve style by changing the facts.
Never convert uncertainty into confidence without evidence.
Never invent personal experience, quotations, citations, proof, or customer language.
Never mimic a named writer's signature; translate the request into high-level traits.
Never use a phrase list or detector score as proof of authorship.
Never sand away dialect, accessibility, or second-language identity to make prose look statistically “human.”
Never satisfy a formulaic-language rule through synonym substitution alone.
Never keep editing after the applicable gates pass and the remaining options are taste-equivalent.
Never alter code, identifiers, selectors, configuration keys, or other machine-readable constructs; revise only the natural-language prose in scope.
