Writing Checklists

Two checklists for assessing a draft, any draft. The first checks whether the thinking holds. The second checks whether the prose lands. Run them in that order. Style polishes a sentence; reasoning decides whether the sentence survives, and there is no point sanding a claim you will cut for being wrong.

Each item carries a test you can actually run, not an aspiration. The point of a test is that it can fail.

Reasoning pass (run first)

1. Ground every load-bearing claim — a number, a source, or a named example. If a sentence rests on an adjective (“dramatic,” “proven,” “widespread”), either ground it or cut it. Test: underline each claim and ask “says who, how much?”
2. Steelman the opposing view before you answer it — state it so someone who holds it would nod. Test: would they recognize themselves, or did you rebut the weak version?
3. Mark your epistemic status — the reader should be able to tell settled fact from live debate from your own guess. Test: can someone sort your sentences into those three buckets?
4. For every causal claim, show the mechanism or rule out the obvious confound — correlation, selection, and reverse causation are the default suspects. Test: name a third thing that could produce the same pattern; if you can’t dismiss it, soften the claim.
5. Say what would change your mind — if no evidence could, you are stating a position, not making a claim, so label it one. Test: finish the sentence “I’d drop this if ___.”
6. Judge the case against its base rate, not in a vacuum — a vivid example is not a frequency. Test: ask what the reference class does on average before you call this instance surprising.
7. Check who benefits from the claim being believed, including your own sources — Test: would this source say it regardless of whether it were true?

Style pass (run second)

1. Know who is reading and what they already believe. Write for that reader, not for yourself.
2. Lead with the point that matters most. (Genre-dependent: true for notes, memos, and arguments; suspend it for narrative, where the buildup is the payoff.)
3. One clear meaning per sentence — rewrite anything you read twice.
4. Order points so each earns the next. A reader should never have to hold a question open across paragraphs.
5. Prefer simple, concrete words over abstract or fancy ones.
6. Prefer a strong verb to a noun plus a weak one — “decide,” not “make a decision.”
7. Cut every word that isn’t working — but vary sentence length on purpose.
8. Active voice by default; passive only when the actor doesn’t matter.
9. Read it aloud; fix whatever makes you stumble.

The limit of both

Each checklist only inspects what is already on the page. The reasoning pass checks the claims you made; the style pass checks the sentences you wrote. Neither can surface the load-bearing point you never thought to say, or the better structure you did not consider. That gap is the part no checklist reaches. It stays with the writer.

See also

• Decision Frameworks — a worked example: its planning-fallacy section is the base-rate check (reasoning 6) applied to project estimates, and its caveats are epistemic-status marking (reasoning 3)