What prose published under this name must do, what it must not do, and how a draft is checked before anyone reads it. The rules are not preferences. Each is derived from a measured corpus or from an invariant already enforced elsewhere in the work, and each carries a test a reader who does not trust the author can apply.
The corpora disagree, and the disagreement is the finding. The essay is not a shorter version of the older voice. It is a different instrument.
| Measure | Articles 2016–24 | Working docs 2026 | Voice specimen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean sentence length | 17.1 | 15.9–21.4 | 11.6 |
| Median sentence length | 15 | 12–16 | 10 |
| Sentences ≤ 8 words | 13.7% | 22–34% | 44% |
| Sentences ≥ 30 words | 7.8% | 10–17% | 4.4% |
| Em dashes per 1,000 words | ~4.7 | 13–23 | 0 |
| Second-person uses | 1,045 | rare | 4 |
| Passive constructions | common | common | 1 |
Where the corpora conflict, the specimen governs prose and the working corpus governs apparatus. The older voice instructs a reader. The current one states a position and leaves the conclusion to them.
Twelve rules. The right-hand column is how each is checked without a human reading for it.
Body prose MUST NOT use em dashes. They may appear in tables, notes, frontmatter and working documents.
Body prose MUST NOT instruct in the second person. The reader is not being coached.
Second person may appear where the sentence hands the reader a test they can run themselves.
Mean sentence length SHOULD fall under 14 words in a finished draft.
A definition MUST be written as denial and correction in two sentences, not one sentence joined by but.
Gray is not wrong. It is unfinished.The rejected reading has to be inspectable on its own.
A term MUST be coined once, defined at first use, then held. Synonyms for a defined term MUST NOT appear.
Varying a term for elegance is a defect. A term that drifts cannot be checked.
Where a practice is criticized, the passage MUST concede its competence first. The error MUST then be placed in the structure rather than in the people.
This is reasonable product design, and it is the wrong layer for the fix.Where a claim could be taken on trust, the passage MUST state what would check it. The requirement MUST rest on the author.
You do not have to trust the answer. You instrument the seam and read it.Where a sentence is about to overreach, the overreach MUST be named and refused in the same passage.
The precision that keeps this claim honest: this is not deterministic AI.Paragraphs SHOULD average four to five sentences and stay under fifty words. A one-sentence paragraph may be used for weight.
Headings MUST be flat noun phrases or plain statements. Questions, puns and clever headings MUST NOT be used.
These MUST NOT appear in body prose: however, moreover, furthermore, seamless, leverage, robust, delve.
The first three are absent from the specimen. The rest are artifacts of the older corpus, which used seamless 78 times. If an idea needs one of these words, it has not been specified yet.
Passive voice SHOULD NOT be used where an actor is available. Adverbs SHOULD stay near ten per thousand words.
Prefer a stronger verb or a number.
The eight invariants already enforced in the code and the documents, restated as obligations on prose. A draft that fails any of these is not a draft.
One canonical shape. A concept MUST have one name and one definition across every document.
Two representations of the same thing drift, and the drift is silent.
Fail closed on the unknown. Where a fact is not known, the sentence MUST say so or be cut. A plausible filler MUST NOT stand in for an unknown.
A guess that reads like an answer cannot be audited later.
Every claim declares its backing. Each objective statement MUST carry a lane in the source: External Fact with a citation, Internal Policy labeled as policy, or Internal Result with a proof artifact or a Pending Proof tag.
Maturity MUST NOT outrun provenance.
A gate must be able to fail. Any check the document claims to apply MUST have a demonstrated failure.
A check nothing has ever stopped is a preference described as a rule.
Negative results are permanent. A retracted claim MUST be retained in the record with its reason, never deleted.
The discarded idea is the one most likely to return.
Conformance is declared, never inferred. Agreement between two documents, versions or layers MUST be stated in a record. It MUST NOT be read off a shared number, name, or adjacency.
Prove without disclosing. Evidence offered in prose MUST NOT include what it attests to where the content is sensitive. Cite the hash, the version, the reference, not the payload.
Value is a measured delta. Where the text asserts something is better, it MUST give both measurements and the gap. A quality claim MUST NOT stand in for a measurement.
A fact that is real but unpublishable MUST be cut, not softened.
A hedged version of a withheld fact is worse than its absence. It asserts something while denying the reader the means to check it.
Retracted material MUST NOT reappear on any surface, including by paraphrase, initials, or identifying description.
Withholding MUST NOT be presented as a gap. Where the absence is deliberate the text may say so, and MUST NOT imply the material does not exist.
A draft is conformant at a level when every rule at that level and below is satisfied.
| Level | Name | Requires |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Vocabulary | Defined terms used consistently (E1, V5) |
| 1 | Voice | All of §2 |
| 2 | Evidenced | §2 and §3; every claim lane resolvable |
| 3 | Published | §2, §3, §4; every External Fact citation verified against a primary source on the publication date |
This document is Level 1 conformant against itself. Measured after drafting: mean sentence 12.9 words, zero em dashes in body prose, no banned term outside §2. It failed on both counts in its first draft at 14.5 words and two em dashes, and was edited until it passed.
A checker MUST exclude §2 from its own banned-term scan, since V11 names the terms it forbids.
Conformance produces prose that is checkable, consistent, and honest about its own support. It does not produce prose that is good, interesting, or correct. A conformant document can be tediously written and entirely wrong about the world. Nothing in §2 or §3 detects that. Only a reader who disagrees will.
The rules also do not settle when a piece is finished. That decision is external to the document by construction, and the author's standing failure mode is treating it as internal.