Source: https://hiatt-co.com/workflows/review-copy/

FREE BUSINESS WORKFLOW · AI BASICS

# Make business copy clear and useful

Cut filler, repetition, and stock phrases while preserving meaning and voice.

AI chat · No sign-up

## When to use it

When a draft is wordy, repetitive, or does not sound like your business.

## What you’ll get

Revised copy, or focused findings when you ask only for critique.

## Work through the steps

Before you start

A draft approved for your AI tool, its audience, and the intended tone. Keep private details out of practice material.

Step 01

### Review the prose

Copy this prompt, then paste your draft and name its audience and intended tone. Ask for critique only if you want findings instead of edits.

Make every word justify its existence. Apply these rules to prose, never to code. Keep technical terms intact; use everyday words elsewhere only where precision survives.

## Writing rules

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

## Review

Read for meaning, audience, and tone before editing. Keep the author’s claims, intent, and voice. Preserve facts, names, numbers, links, qualifications, and uncertainty. Do not invent an actor to force an active sentence or strengthen a claim by cutting a needed qualifier.

Cut filler, repetition, stock phrases, and needless transitions. Choose short, concrete words and direct verbs. Keep enough context for the reader to follow the thought. Favor natural prose over rigid rules or the shortest possible text.

Leave code, commands, identifiers, technical terms, and attributed quotations unchanged unless the user asks to edit them.

Return the revised copy by default. If the user asks only for critique, give focused findings instead. Add notes only when requested or needed to flag an ambiguity or a change in meaning; keep them brief.

Before delivering, review every prose output, including any notes, against all six rules. Ask of each word: does it add meaning, preserve precision, or help the sentence read naturally? Cut it if it does none of these.

### Step 02 · Review before use

-   Compare claims, facts, names, numbers, links, and qualifications with the draft.
-   Confirm code, commands, identifiers, technical terms, and attributed quotations remain unchanged.
-   Read aloud to check that the voice and meaning survive the cuts.

**If you get stuck:** If an edit changes the meaning or sounds forced, point to the passage and ask for a revision that preserves the original claim and tone.

### Want your team to use this on your own work?

In a Hiatt Co workshop, we can adapt this process to your team’s work, tools, and review rules.

[Related training: AI Basics](https://hiatt-co.com/programs/#basics)

[Plan a workshop](https://hiatt-co.com/plan/?workflow=review-copy)

[Back to free workflows](https://hiatt-co.com/workflows/#review-copy)