Mine Your Old Writing for Your Own Patterns
Added 2026-11-05
The problem is rarely this piece; it is what you do in every piece.
These are pieces I wrote before: [paste two or three short ones and note the occasion for each]. Find my patterns: 1) tally the openings, sentence shapes, and transitions I reuse, and flag the ones that have become crutches; 2) point out where I am vague — hedges, passive voice, abstract nouns — with one example each; 3) find what my better writing has in common: which topics and structures bring out my clearest writing; 4) pick two passages where I trailed off before saying the thing, and rewrite them; 5) give a three-item revision checklist for the next piece; 6) say which of these patterns are actually style and should stay.
Site original
Chinese original
How to use
Habits that resist a single edit only show up when you compare pieces.
Try tweaking it
- Ask for three openings in different tones, then pick one.
- Replace "make it better" with concrete limits: length, reader, facts to keep.
What you should get
- A publishable draft, not an outline
- A short changelog: what changed and why
Common mistakes
- Letting it guess the facts, so plausible-looking sources get invented.
- Dumping the whole text with just "polish it" — the result still has no point.
How to check the output
- The conclusion comes first; deleting the opening paragraph does not break it.
- Every fact, number and quote traces back to the source text.
Where it works
- Good for: turning a rambling draft into a conclusion-first, shorter version.
- Watch out: keep sources and figures verbatim — do not let it invent citations.