# The Voiceprint
Eight sections and the four corpus analysis passes. The one document the whole method runs on.

Fill this from your own writing, not from imagination. The four analysis passes are at the end. Keep the finished document
under two pages: a four page Voiceprint gets skimmed by the model and ignored by you.

## 1 Mechanics

Numbers only. No adjectives. These are here because they are checkable, and when you suspect drift you can count.

Average sentence length, and variance

Contraction rate

Comma density

Paragraph length

Semicolons

Person

e.g. | 18 words, high variance, frequent sentences under 8. | /   Contraction rate high; "do not" only
for emphasis. | /   Semicolons: never.

## 2 Signature Moves

Three to five things you do that other writers on your subject do not. These are the load bearing walls. If a passage comes
back without them it has drifted, whatever the other metrics say.

## 3 Forbidden

The most useful section, and the one you will edit most. Two lists, both checkable with a search.

WORDS I NEVER USE | WORDS THE MACHINE REACHES FOR

STRUCTURES I NEVER USE | OPENERS I NEVER USE

Common machine words: delve, landscape, navigate, tapestry, testament, crucial, robust, realm,
foster, myriad, plethora, seamless, elevate, unlock, harness, leverage, journey. Also "It's not just
X, it's Y" and "In today's fast paced world."

## 4 Register

Talking to

Stance

Tone

## 5 Exemplars

Three to five passages of your own writing, verbatim and unedited. Choose your most characteristic writing, not your best.
They are frequently not the same.

## 6 Anti Sample

One passage in your institutional register. The thing you sound like under pressure. Label it plainly: do not write like this.

## 7 Subject Rules

Anything specific to this book: terms of art, spellings, what you capitalize, what you refuse to call things.

## 8 Standing Instruction

Copy this as written. It is the part that does the work.

You are not writing. I write, you respond to what I have written.
Never rewrite unless I ask. Point at what is wrong and tell me why.
When I ask for a rewrite, change the minimum.
If you smooth my rhythm or expand my vocabulary you have failed, even if the result reads
better.
Flag when you think I am wrong. Do not agree with me by default.

## Thefouranalysispasses

Open a session, paste in your corpus, and run these one at a time. A single request produces a summary; you need specifics.

Pass one, the mechanics

Measure this corpus concretely and give me numbers, not adjectives: average sentence length and
its variance, contraction rate, comma density, paragraph lengths, ratio of first person to
third, whether and how I use semicolons, my most frequent verbs and nouns, and any word I use
noticeably more often than a general writer would.

Pass two, the habits

What do you notice about how I construct things? How do I open a section and how do I close
one. Do I argue by example or by principle. Do I name specific people and numbers or stay
general. Where do I use humor and what kind. Do I hedge, and where. What do I do when I am
about to say something I think the reader will resist.

Pass three, the tells

What are the five things I do that most other writers on this subject do not do? If you saw an
unattributed paragraph, what would tell you it was mine?

Pass four, the contrast

Here is a piece of my institutional writing, separate from the corpus. Compare it against the
corpus. What is present in one and absent in the other?

Pass four is the most useful single output of the exercise. It is a list of exactly what you lose under pressure, which is exactly what a model will
remove.
