Writing Standards Knowledge Pack Files

Banned Structures

Structural patterns that signal AI-generated writing. These are higher-level tells — they affect paragraph and section organization, not just word choice. Sourced from stop-slop.

Binary Contrasts

The "not this, but that" construction. AI uses it to create false tension.

Patterns to detect:

• "Not because X. Because Y."
• "[X] isn't the problem. [Y] is."
• "The answer isn't X. It's Y."
• "stops being X and starts being Y"
• "less about X, more about Y"
• "X is dead. Long live Y."
• "The question isn't X. It's Y."
• "Forget X. Think Y."
• "It's not X vs Y. It's X and Y."
• "The shift from X to Y"
• "Move beyond X. Embrace Y."

Fix: State the positive claim directly. "The answer isn't speed. It's reliability." → "Reliability matters more than speed here."

Negative Listing

Rhetorical striptease through negation. Builds up by saying what something isn't.

Pattern: "Not a X... Not a Y... A Z."

Example: "Not a framework. Not a library. Not even a platform. A complete engineering department."

Fix: "A complete engineering department." Skip the buildup.

Dramatic Fragmentation

One-word or one-phrase sentences stacked for rhythm.

Patterns:

• "[Noun]. That's it. That's the [thing]."
• "X. And Y. And Z."
• "Simple. Fast. Reliable."
• "One team. One sprint. Ten PRs."
• "[Verb]. [Verb]. [Verb]."

Fix: Write complete sentences. "Ship. Review. Deploy." → "The workflow moves from shipping to review to deployment."

Landing page exception: Suppress. Landing pages use fragment headlines as section labels paired with supporting descriptions. "Deploy. Set up agents on dedicated servers." is a headline + body pair, not dramatic fragmentation. Only flag fragments that stack 3+ in a row with no supporting text.

Rhetorical Setups

Questions or frames designed to create a dramatic pause before the real point.

Patterns:

• "What if [reframe]?"
• "Here's what I mean:"
• "Think about it:"
• "And that's okay."
• "Let me explain."
• "Consider this:"
• "Imagine [scenario]."

Fix: Delete the setup. Start with the point. "What if you could deploy 10x faster? Here's how." → "Deploy 10x faster with parallel agent execution."

False Agency

Inanimate objects performing human actions. AI does this to avoid naming actors.

Patterns:

• "a complaint becomes a fix"
• "a bet lives or dies"
• "the decision emerges"
• "the data tells us"
• "the market rewards"
• "the platform empowers"
• "the tool enables"
• "the numbers speak for themselves"
• "the code reviews itself"
• "results followed"

Fix: Name human actors. "The data tells us deployment speed matters." → "We found that faster deploys reduced rollbacks by 60%."

Narrator-from-Distance

An omniscient narrator describing events from outside, as if watching from above.

Patterns:

• "Nobody designed this."
• "This happens because..."
• "People tend to..."
• "Teams often find themselves..."
• "It's a pattern we see again and again."
• "The industry has shifted toward..."

Fix: Use first person or name specific actors. "People tend to underestimate deployment complexity." → "We underestimated deployment complexity. It cost us two sprints."

Passive Voice

Every sentence needs a named actor. Passive voice is the single most common structural tell.

Patterns:

• "The system was designed to..."
• "Improvements were made..."
• "It was decided that..."
• "The feature can be configured..."
• "Tests are run automatically..."

Fix: "Improvements were made to the pipeline." → "The team improved the pipeline." Name who did what.

Rhythm Patterns

Metronomic Sentences

Every sentence roughly the same length (12-18 words). Vary between 4-word punches and 25-word explanations.

Landing page exception: Reduce to LOW. Landing pages intentionally repeat a headline + description structure across sections. Uniform length is a layout pattern, not a rhythm defect.

Rule of Three

Lists of exactly three items. Use two or four. Three is the strongest AI tell in list construction.

Landing page exception: Reduce to LOW. Three-column feature grids are a standard web design pattern. Only flag when three vague adjectives are stacked ("fast, reliable, scalable"), not when three specific features are listed.

Punchy Paragraph Endings

Every paragraph ending with a short, impactful sentence. Vary your endings.

Question-Answer Pairs

"How does it work? Simple." — questions immediately answered in the next sentence. Rephrase as direct statements.

Word Patterns

Lazy Extremes

• Every, always, never, everyone, nobody, nothing, everything
• Replace with specific quantities or qualifiers.

All Adverbs

• Any -ly word is suspect. See banned-phrases.md for the full list.
• Replace with stronger verbs: "moved quickly" → "sprinted"