Writing style guide

position

purpose

This document governs my prose across the site: essays, notes, frameworks, and seed fragments. It also serves as context for any language-model session that edits, brainstorms, or copyedits with me. Future me forgets. This page remembers.

reader and register

I write for a reader who is tired, distracted, multilingual, or neurodivergent. That reader includes future me. The register sits between academic and plain. An academic reader should keep reading. A non-academic reader should follow without a glossary.

Poetic precision stays. Academic jargon gets cut. Define a necessary term once in the body or glossary, then use it. A term that needs repeated definition is the wrong term.

language and seam

I write in English shaped by Bangla, cinema, internet habits, institutional prose, and compromise. I track what English edits out.

I use AI while studying how it changes my writing. The seam stays visible.

prose

sentences

One clause, one job. Split a sentence when its clauses compete for attention.

Prefer physical verbs over abstract ones. Use “arrive” over “manifest,” “stay” over “persist,” and “shape” over “determine.” Verbs in parallel should work at the same altitude: all physical or all operational.

Watch words ending in -ize, -ness, and -ingly. They often turn a clear verb or adjective into dead weight. “Conceptualize” may mean “conceive.” “Characterlessness” makes the eye stumble. Keep the longer form when the shorter word loses meaning.

Avoid pronoun ambiguity. When two nouns precede a pronoun, make the subject explicit. Name the noun again or restructure the clause.

Keep conjugation consistent within a parallel series. “Curates, filters, and gatekeep” breaks. “Curates, filters, and gatekeeps” holds.

Test short sequences by asking what each sentence adds. “I tried them. Some failed. Some held.” can carry rhythm, but it cannot carry evidence by itself. Keep the pause when the rhythm matters. Name what failed when the claim needs proof.

Rhetorical staging can mark a turn. “Then the word went loose” earns its place when the shift matters. Cut staging that merely announces the next sentence.

assertion

State what holds, persists, or changes. When possible, replace passive negation with the surviving condition. “The institution did not change” becomes “The institution held.”

Negation earns its place when the rejected claim is part of the argument. “Unlearning does not erase the old route” needs the negative because it challenges the deletion story.

Assertive framing never outranks accuracy. Keep the negative when reframing changes the claim.

watch words

These words act as alarms, not bans. Cut them when the sentence loses no meaning.

• Hedges and assurances: just, simply, only, genuinely, honestly, straightforward, actually, basically.
• Stock transitions and packaging: indeed, moreover, furthermore, consequently, finally, “it is important to note,” “it is worth mentioning,” key issues, key takeaways, key insights.
• Inflators and default inquiry verbs: totally, absolutely, completely, literally, really, incredibly, delve, unpack, dive into, explore.

Keep a watch word when it carries evidence, sequence, stance, or literal meaning.

A crutch word is repetition without a job. The current watch list is question, encounter, route, and practice. Count before replacing. A repeated framework term earns consistency; a repeated filler earns removal. Review the list after every three essays.

preferred verbs

typography

Em dashes served me before the AI era. I now limit them because generated prose has made the mark feel automatic. A comma, period, or new sentence handles most interruptions. An em dash stays when the interruption is the rhythm.

A colon introduces a list, a definition, or a formal elaboration. One colon per paragraph is usually enough. A second colon often belongs as a period.

Keep brackets and parentheticals rare in body prose. Move essential context into the sentence. Move evidence that slows the main route into an endnote. Parentheses remain useful in compact reference material and working notes.

Pick one word when two alternatives sit behind a slash. “Persist/remain” is a note to self. Slashes remain available in frontmatter, filenames, and working notes.

When two adjectives modify the same noun, test whether one carries the other. “Useful and adequate” often means “adequate.” Keep the adjective that does the heavier work.

Use no emoji in body prose or metadata. The circle motif is the site’s only recurring glyph.

structure and load

The rule of three is a pressure test, not a quota. Three parts often give a passage enough shape to hold. When a fourth appears, test whether it belongs under one of the three. Keep the fourth when compression damages the material.

Keep paragraphs short enough to hold in working memory. After three paragraphs on one movement, test whether the section needs a break.

Use tables for comparison, not decoration. A table earns its place when two or more dimensions need to be read side by side. A list that happens to have two columns remains a list.

Write headings in lowercase. Lowercase softens the institutional voice without reducing clarity.

Introduce an abstraction through a concrete object. “A drop-down menu, a clinical report, an AI prompt box. Each is an interface.” The objects arrive before the category.

Limit stacked abstract nouns. “Politics of attribution and recognition within systemic taxonomy” makes the reader unpack four layers. “A default curates attribution” gives one verb and one object.

Give a coined term its own definition sentence. The definition belongs in a standalone sentence, not buried inside an appositive or dependent clause.

Use white space as punctuation. A line break between the problem and the definition gives the reader a cognitive rest.

Show before telling. “Handsome” and “powerful” skip the image. Name the detail that earns the adjective, or cut the adjective. Let the reader build the picture from objects and actions.

endnotes

Endnotes carry the second voice. They hold position, doubt, autobiographical texture, and scholarly support that would slow the main route. The body carries the public argument. The endnotes carry the slower record.

An endnote waits at the bottom rather than interrupting the reading line. A reader who wants depth can follow it. A reader who wants the argument can continue.

collaboration

feedback

Give direct editorial feedback. Name the problem and the fix. Avoid bullet packages with bold headings when a sentence will do.

Do not append metaphors, mind maps, summaries, or takeaways unless I ask. The summary is the summary.

Do not replace a paragraph with a polished version unless I request one. Identify the fault, locate it, and let me decide whether to rewrite.

voice and evidence

Do not smooth Bangla rhythms into standard English fluency. Treat regional cadence as deliberate until I say otherwise.

Do not add citations, attribution markers, or invented evidence. Distinguish a sourced finding from interpretation and opinion.

Do not soften a critique. If a sentence is broken, say so. If the logic contradicts itself, name the contradiction. Respect is not agreement.

working state

When I write with slashes, fragments, or incomplete grammar, treat the text as thought in motion. Respond to the idea before correcting the sentence. Grammar becomes the task when I present a draft for copyediting.

Match my energy. If I am terse, be terse. If I am exploring, explore with me. A three-word question earns a three-sentence answer.

version history

1.0 (2026-08-25). First draft. Extracted from a working session on the unlearning framework summary. Covers prose rules, typographic choices, cognitive load, endnote practice, verb preferences, and LLM collaboration terms.

1.1 (2026-08-25). Added assertive framing, suffix and crutch-word checks, and show-before-tell. Recovered editorial instincts from a 2004 blog post. Revised the em dash and colon rules. Added stacked-adjective test and two verb preferences (outlive, hold). Restructured into position, prose, and collaboration.