House-style options
The six retired patterns in retired-patterns.md apply to every user. The rules below are common house-style choices that vary by company. Apply the defaults unless the user or their brand voice guide says otherwise, and record any override at the top of the work to keep the next edit consistent.
Confirm these before editing
| Switch | Default | Ask when |
|---|---|---|
| English variant | American ("organize", "color", "behavior", "program", "inquiry", "afterward") | The company or audience is outside the US |
| Em dashes | None. Use a comma, a colon, parentheses or a new sentence | The brand voice guide uses them |
| Contrast constructions | Avoided (see below) | The brand uses them deliberately |
| Stock vocabulary | Avoided (list below) | The company has its own banned or preferred words |
| Dates and numbers | "September 19, 2026"; digits for figures; "percent" spelled out in running text | A style guide specifies otherwise |
| Headings | Sentence case; a claim or a plain question | The page template fixes the format |
| Bylines | Only on articles, never on service pages | The company's practice differs |
Contrast constructions (default: avoid)
These are balanced-opposition shapes that machine drafts overuse.
- "not just X but Y", "not only X but also Y", "not merely X"
- "X, not Y" and "is not X, it is Y"
- Headings built on parallel pairs or counts: "Two teams, one goal", "Four agencies, four stories"
Write the sentence a person would say. "We work on the pipeline, and the content follows" says more than "Not content, pipeline".
Stock vocabulary (default: avoid)
leverage, seamless, empower, unlock, robust, actionable, data-driven, solutions, holistic, synergy, journey, transform, world-class, cutting-edge, next-generation, and "partner" used as a verb ("partner with", "partner on"). Choose the word a client would use in a meeting, and name the specific thing instead of its category: "a pricing page" over "a solution".
Connected prose
Join related points. Keep one-sentence paragraphs rare. Never leave a fragment standing alone as a paragraph. Lists inside sentences hold three or fewer concrete items, and each item is a real noun.
Evidence
Every number carries a unit, a named source and a year. Assumptions are stated before any arithmetic that depends on them. Forecasts and judgments take "could", "may", "tends to" or "usually", matched to how sure the source is.
By content type
- Articles. Open on the answer or the gap. Keep a short summary near the top (40 to 60 words) with the answer in its first sentence. Section headings may be questions. FAQ answers open with the answer itself and run 40 to 80 words.
- Service and segment pages. The hero sub-line is one or two full sentences saying what you do and for whom. Each section opens with a one-sentence thesis. Card and step descriptions are complete sentences of about 20 to 35 words that begin with who or what acts.
- Emails and LinkedIn posts. Keep them shorter, but every sentence still has a subject and a verb. Open on the reader's situation or a specific observation instead of a compliment or a hook formula.
- Meta titles, descriptions, and machine-readable summaries. Plain declarative sentences. Descriptions stay under about 155 characters and name the subject outright.
- Approved taglines and hero lines. Leave them as written unless the owner asks for changes, and do not introduce new clipped hero lines without asking.
Deliberate exceptions
Keep patterns the checker would flag when they are on purpose:
- A block that demonstrates what to avoid (a "generic positioning" example, a before-and-after comparison).
- Sample outreach messages that depict real buyer-facing wording the page is analysing.
- Legal or compliance copy where exact wording matters.
- A literal value such as "now worth 2 points".
Mark such spans for the checker as described in using-the-checker.md.
Growing the guide
When a new tell turns up, record it under the date with the sentence that prompted it, add a before-and-after pair to rewrite-bank.md, and add a matching pattern to the checker if it can be detected mechanically.