| name | english-text-review |
| description | Review English technical prose without modifying it. Use for plain-English feedback on comments, docstrings, documentation, commit or pull request text, issues, reports, runbooks, logs, errors, command help, and other human-readable technical writing rather than factual or marketing review. |
English Text Review
Find concrete prose problems and propose the smallest clearer wording while preserving meaning and technical precision.
Workflow
- Confirm the text, intended reader, purpose, and any wording that must remain exact.
- Apply Orwell's six rules below.
- Identify vague abstractions, repeated meaning, and unclear subjects or consequences that the rules do not make explicit.
- Preserve exact identifiers, commands, protocol terms, legal language, quotations, externally required wording, and necessary domain vocabulary.
- Report only findings that materially improve clarity, brevity, or comprehension.
Orwell's Six Rules
- Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive where you can use the active.
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
For each finding, include the smallest relevant excerpt, the problem, why it affects the intended reader, and a concrete replacement. Rank findings by their effect on meaning, then readability. State directly when no material finding exists.
Keep the review read-only unless editing is separately authorized. Use docs-review for factual accuracy and document structure, marketing-claims-review for claim substantiation, and the code-comment policy to decide whether a comment should exist. Do not flatten an intentional voice, alter quoted text, or trade precision for simpler-looking words.
Finish with prioritized findings, proposed wording, the reviewed scope, and any context that limits confidence.