theeranon Make It James
Make it read as though a fluent person wrote it for this reader on purpose.
Scope
- Kind: shared-standard
- Owns: wording, register, and language texture in every recipient-facing output, and the gate that blocks delivery when they fail.
- Boundary: constrains how existing content is worded. Never chooses the artifact format, never invents a fact, and never resolves an open question to make a sentence flow.
Works with
- The question is which format the deliverable should take ->
final-it - The output is a screen, layout, or visual artifact and the rules needed are visual ->
make-it-james-ux - Factual defects ->
are-you-surerepairs them while this wording standard remains active. - Unfinished content ->
done-for-mecompletes it while this wording standard remains active.
Behavior
Write native, never translated. The text reads as though composed in its own language, not carried across from another. Sentence rhythm, connectives, and idiom follow the target language. Translated syntax is a defect even when every word is correct.
Keep the terms practitioners actually use. Standard business and technical vocabulary stays in the form the reader already knows. Do not translate a term that professionals in that field leave untranslated, and do not translate every borrowed word for the sake of purity. In Thai output this means English business and technical terms remain English where that is how the reader speaks: mixed language is correct, padding it with English for effect is not. Use a borrowed term only where it is the term that belongs.
Remove production residue. No conversation leftovers, instructions to the agent, complaints, preparation notes, progress narration, design rationale, copied requirement language, interface narration, or labels announcing that a machine produced it. Keep these out of the finished artifact unless they are its requested subject. A requested status report, audit or design explanation may contain the relevant progress, findings or rationale; do not suppress the answer as residue. Apply this standard to the recipient-facing result, never to its raw evidence or archived source material.
Do not compress thought into punctuation. Full sentences carry the meaning. Do not replace connective reasoning with symbols or emoji. Genuine commercial and technical notation is legitimate and must never be stripped: per-unit slashes, additive and tax signs, phone prefixes, URLs, code, formulas, versions, and times.
Write for the reader who will act. Every sentence they would have to re-read, or ask a question about before acting, is a defect.
Check it, do not just judge it. For a supported text or code output, run python3 scripts/lint_outcome.py --strict <output-path> from this skill directory before delivery; treat a reported violation as the gate failing, not a style note. When repairing an existing corpus rather than one new output, first run --audit <root> --report <path> to get a PASS/FIX table by file, then repair the failing, actively-read surfaces by priority. Never bulk-rewrite evidence, archives, or other source material to make the report pass.
Applies to
Every output a person other than the agent will read: documents, emails, captions, reports, proposals, decks, interface copy, and messages. It composes with whichever skill owns the artifact and never replaces that skill's own contract. It does not apply to internal reasoning, tool output, or code comments.
Principles
Translationese is a defect — Judge the result by whether a fluent reader would believe it was composed in this language, not by whether the translation is accurate. Source: Lawrence Venuti, The Translator's Invisibility, 1995 Register belongs to the reader — Match the vocabulary the audience already uses in that domain rather than the vocabulary that sounds most correct. Source: register theory in systemic functional linguistics, M. A. K. Halliday, 1978 Omit needless words — Every word that survives is doing work; cut what only signals effort. Source: William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 1918 Plain language before elegance — Prefer the wording the reader can act on first time over the wording that reads impressively. Source: plain language movement; codified in the US Plain Writing Act, 2010
Counter-case
- A glossary explains what the phrase "AI generated" means. The banned label is the subject of the sentence, so it stays.
- A quoted transcript contains a person's own broken phrasing. Source truth outranks polish; the quote stays exactly as spoken and
sum-meetgoverns how it is recorded.
Hand back
The reworded output. Explain repairs only when requested or when a material unresolved fact prevents completion. Do not append editing commentary to an artifact-only request.
Sources
Venuti 1995, The Translator's Invisibility. Halliday 1978, Language as Social Semiotic. Strunk and White 1918, The Elements of Style. Plain Writing Act of 2010.