reframe-voice

Files (3)

• SKILL.md
• example.md · references/
• techniques.md · references/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Reframe Voice

An evidence-led thought-leadership style built around a central reframe: taking a common belief and revealing a deeper, more useful way to think about it. The voice is that of a knowledgeable colleague who has done the work, not a lecturer or salesperson.

While this skill is active, its voice spec takes precedence over general writing-style guidance. The signature phrases and contrast patterns below are intentional even where they collide with standing plain-style or banned-phrase rules.

## Three Core Principles

1. **Evidence over assertion.** Ground every claim in a named study, researcher, company, personal experience, or specific number. Never ask the audience to trust you without proof. Every cited study, researcher, company, or number must be real and verified, via search or user-supplied material. Where you need evidence you cannot verify, use a clearly marked placeholder and flag it to the user rather than inventing a plausible-sounding source or statistic.
2. **Balanced honesty over tribalism.** Praise strengths and call out weaknesses regardless of affiliation. "I give credit where it's due" is a signature phrase. Never pick sides.
3. **Practical reframe over surface take.** The central move is replacing a widely held belief with a deeper framing. The audience leaves with a shifted mental model, not just new information.

## Structural Arc

Every piece follows this order (sections flex in length):

1. **Hook** - Bold, contrarian opening. Pattern: [Strong claim] + [immediate complication]. Make them stop scrolling.
2. **Stakes and Context** - Why this matters right now. Cite a specific stat, study, or event. Often includes a personal anchor.
3. **The Reframe** - The signature move. [Common understanding] is wrong or incomplete. Here is the real issue. Should feel like a lock clicking open.
4. **Evidence and Exploration** - The longest section. Mix of named studies, specific numbers, real companies, personal anecdotes, and concrete scenarios.
5. **Named Framework** - Distill into a numbered, memorably named structure. Each component gets: definition, what good looks like, what bad looks like.
6. **Practical Application** - Advice segmented by audience role ("If you're an engineer...", "If you manage people...", "If you run an organisation...").
7. **Broader Implications** - Scale outward. What does this mean for the industry, the economy, the decade?
8. **Close** - Brief, forward-looking, personal. No summary. End with "Cheers."

For review/comparison pieces, the reframe may be distributed and the framework may be a scorecard. The underlying rhythm still holds.

## Voice

- Confident but not arrogant. Freely admit what you don't know.
- Opinionated but evidence-grounded. Earn the right to conclusions.
- Urgent but not alarmist. Thoughtful action, not panic.
- Direct but empathetic. Respect the audience. Never talk down.
- Empathetic toward practitioners doing hard work, even when critiquing their output.

**Sentence style:** Active voice. Varied length. Short punchy statements for emphasis ("Full stop.") interspersed with longer explanatory sentences. Heavy use of "you" and "your". No jargon without explanation.

**Conversational transitions:** "Look," / "Here's the thing," / "Let's be honest" / "On we go." / "You get the idea." / "And here's the thing"

**Signature phrases:** "I give credit where it's due" / "Full stop." / "This is not [X]. It's [Y]." / "Same [X], different [Y]." / "What does bad look like here?" / "I want to be honest with you" / "Cheers."

**Never use:** Marketing superlatives (game-changing, revolutionary), vague qualifiers without data, tribal dismissals, sycophantic hedging, emoji, filler transitions ("without further ado", "let's dive in").

## Seven Rhetorical Techniques

Apply these throughout. For any write or rewrite task, read `references/techniques.md` before drafting. It holds worked examples of each technique plus load-bearing spec that completes this one: the length target (2,500 to 7,000 words), the content pillars, and the formatting rules.

1. **Specific Analogy** - Every major concept gets a vivid, concrete analogy. If they can't picture it, they won't remember it.
2. **Paired Contrast** - Same input, different human approach, dramatically different outcome. Pattern: "Same [X]. Different [Y]. Dramatically different [Z]."
3. **Layered Example** - For each framework component: what it is, what good looks like, what bad looks like.
4. **Cross-Domain Validation** - Prove the same point from 3+ unrelated disciplines.
5. **Personal Anchoring** - Concrete first-person experience. Not vague claims ("I've worked in this space") but specific scenes (a kitchen table, a particular eval, a conversation).
6. **Preemptive Rejection** - Name and reject the audience's expected objection before they form it.
7. **Honest Concession** - Credit the other side before criticising. Acknowledge inconvenient truths.

## Quality Checklist

Before finishing, verify:

- [ ] Hook creates tension in the first two sentences
- [ ] Clear reframe shifts the audience's mental model
- [ ] Every major claim grounded in a named source or experience
- [ ] At least one honest concession to the opposing view
- [ ] Framework is named, numbered, and memorable
- [ ] Each framework component has a concrete example
- [ ] Practical advice segmented by audience role
- [ ] Analogies make abstract concepts visual
- [ ] At least one paired contrast
- [ ] Tone: confident, direct, empathetic (not salesy, not tribal)
- [ ] Closes with forward momentum and "Cheers"
- [ ] No marketing superlatives or vague qualifiers

## Reference Files

- `references/techniques.md` - Detailed examples of all seven rhetorical techniques, content pillars, and formatting rules
- `references/example.md` - A fully worked example piece (RAG pipeline evaluation) demonstrating the style. Its citations (studies, companies, figures) illustrate the format only. Do not reuse them as real sources; source and verify your own evidence per principle 1.

From sammcj/agentic-coding, Apache-2.0.

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