60 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
60 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
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---
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description: Proofread and line-edit pass — grammar, tense, punctuation, spelling, mechanical errors. Reports issues; does not edit.
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argument-hint: "[path, glob, or selection]"
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allowed-tools: [Read, Glob, Grep]
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---
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Read the text at `$ARGUMENTS` and identify mechanical and sentence-level problems. Report what you find — **do not edit the file**. The writer is making the changes themselves.
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## What to check
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### Grammar and mechanics
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- **Verb tense** — consistency within a sentence, paragraph, and across the piece; unintended slips between past and present
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- **Subject-verb agreement** — number, person, indefinite pronouns
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- **Pronoun-antecedent agreement** — number, gender, unclear reference
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- **Modifiers** — dangling, misplaced, squinting
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- **Parallelism** — in lists, comparisons, correlative conjunctions
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### Punctuation and conventions
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- **Commas** — splices (unless deliberate), missing commas after introductory phrases, serial comma consistency
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- **Semicolons, colons, dashes** — used correctly and consistently
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- **Quotation marks and dialogue tags** — punctuation inside/outside, comma vs. period before tags, paragraph breaks per speaker
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- **Apostrophes** — possessive vs. plural, *its* vs. *it's*
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- **Hyphenation** — compound modifiers, hanging hyphens, en/em dash usage
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- **Capitalization** — proper nouns, titles, after colons, in dialogue
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### Spelling and word choice
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- **Misspellings** — including names that drift across the manuscript
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- **Homophones** — their/there/they're, your/you're, peek/peak/pique, etc.
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- **Confused words** — affect/effect, fewer/less, who/whom, lie/lay, etc.
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- **Repeated words** — accidental doubles, awkward proximity repetition
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### Sentence-level clarity
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- **Sentence fragments** — unintentional vs. stylistic; flag the unintentional ones
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- **Run-ons and comma splices** — flag unless clearly deliberate for voice
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- **Awkward constructions** — passive where active would be clearer, nominalization piles, tangled syntax
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- **Word order** — modifier placement, sentence rhythm
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- **Tightening opportunities** — redundancies, throat-clearing phrases, weak intensifiers (very, really, quite, just), filter words (saw, heard, felt, noticed) when they distance the reader
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### Style consistency
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- **Spelling/style variants** — US vs. UK, *grey/gray*, *-ize/-ise*, etc. Pick one and flag drift
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- **Number formatting** — when to spell out, when to use digits
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- **Time, date, and unit formatting**
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- **Italics, bold, small caps** — consistency for thoughts, emphasis, foreign words, titles
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## Output format
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For each issue:
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- **Location** — chapter/scene/line if known, with a short quoted excerpt
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- **Issue type** — one of the categories above
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- **What's wrong** — concrete diagnosis
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- **Suggested fix** — show the corrected version, not just the rule
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Group issues by type so the writer can attack one category at a time. Close with:
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- **Summary** — total issues by category
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- **Patterns** — recurring problems the writer should watch for in future drafts (e.g., "consistent tense-slip in interior-thought passages")
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Be a careful reader, not a pedant. Don't flag stylistic choices that read as deliberate — fragments for voice, comma splices for rhythm, dialogue that breaks rules to sound right. Note them only if a choice looks accidental.
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