Apply communication best practices when generating or reviewing any document,
presentation, report, memo, slide deck, proposal, or email. Use this skill when
asked to write, create, draft, or generate a document or presentation — apply
the principles at generation time, not as an afterthought. Also use when asked
to "review my doc," "look at this deck," "does this make sense," "is this clear,"
"improve this proposal," "check this before I send it," "make this more effective,"
or any request to evaluate whether a document will land with its audience. Use
this skill even when the request seems minor — a "quick look" or a "short memo"
is exactly when these principles matter most.
---
# Document Review
Apply communication best practices when generating or reviewing any business
document — whether the right message reaches the right audience in the right order.
This skill applies the principles from Anil Dash's [Make better documents](https://www.anildash.com/2024/03/10/make-better-documents/).
## Scope
This skill covers **business documents**: presentations, slide decks, proposals,
reports, memos, briefs, one-pagers, and emails. It does not cover UI, web
components, or frontend applications — use the `frontend-design` skill for those.
The design principles here differ from frontend design in important ways:
- **Restraint over expression.** UI benefits from bold aesthetic commitment and
distinctive visual personality. Business documents benefit from getting out of
the way of the content. Most people reading a board deck or a client proposal
are not there to appreciate the typography.
- **The audience can't interact.** A web interface rewards exploration. A
document gets one read, often skimmed, often on a small screen or printed.
Every design choice that draws attention to itself is attention stolen from
the message.
- **Non-designers are both authors and audiences.** UI is built and consumed
with design context nearby. Business documents are built by operators, analysts,
executives, and founders — and read by the same. Complexity that a designer
handles intuitively becomes noise for everyone else.
## Modes
| Mode | When to use | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| **generate** | "write me a proposal," "create a deck," "draft a memo" | Apply all five principles while producing the document; no separate report needed |
| **full-review** | "review this doc," "look at this deck" | Run all five passes on an existing document, produce a structured report |
| **rewrite** | "fix this," "make this better" | Apply all passes and return a revised version |
| **targeted** | "is the ask clear," "check the formatting" | Run only the relevant pass(es) |
| **quick** | "quick look," "does this work" | Run passes 1 and 2 only, flag the top 3 issues |
Default to **generate** when producing a new document from scratch. Default to
**full-review** when given an existing document with no other instruction.
---
## The Five Passes
Apply these in order. Each targets a different failure mode.
### Pass 1 — Audience and Purpose
The most common reason documents fail: they were written for the author, not the reader.
Check for:
- **Missing context**: Does the document assume knowledge the audience may not have?
Flag any jargon, backstory, or acronyms that aren't explained.
- **Buried ask**: Is there a request, decision, or action needed? If so, is it
stated clearly in the first third of the document — not saved for the end?
- **Author-centered opening**: Does the document open with the author's anxieties,
backstory, or credentials rather than shared context? Flag and suggest reordering
to start from common ground.
- **Missing deadline or stakes**: If a decision or response is needed, is the
timeline stated? Is the reason for that timeline explained from the *audience's*
perspective, not just the author's?
Severity guide:
- **CRITICAL** — The core ask or decision is absent or appears only at the end
- **MAJOR** — The audience is unclear; the document would read differently to
different readers
- **MINOR** — Context gaps that could be filled with a sentence
---
### Pass 2 — Structure and Sequencing
Order signals importance. Audiences assume the first thing is the most important.
If it isn't, they'll be confused or dismissive before they reach the part that matters.
Check for:
- **Creation-order sequencing**: Is the document structured in the order it was
*written* (background → analysis → conclusion) rather than the order the
audience needs (conclusion → supporting logic → call to action)?
- **Murder mystery structure**: Does the document build to a reveal rather than
stating the point upfront? Flag any document where the key conclusion or request
appears in the second half.
- **Unannounced ordering**: If the document is ordered chronologically, by category,
or by any logic other than importance, is that explicitly stated? If not, the
audience will hunt for meaning in the sequence.
- **Key information in the wrong channel**: Is anything critical only in speaker
notes, appendices, or footnotes? Central points belong in the main body.
Severity guide:
- **CRITICAL** — The document's conclusion or core request is in the second half
- **MAJOR** — Ordering is non-obvious and unexplained
- **MINOR** — Supporting points could be reordered for better flow
---
### Pass 3 — Formatting Restraint
Over-formatting is the most visible symptom of unclear thinking. When everything
is emphasized, nothing is.
Check for:
- **Emphasis overload**: Are bold, italic, underline, and color being combined
on the same text? Flag any instance of two or more emphasis types on a single
element.
- **Underlines on non-links**: Flag every underline that isn't a hyperlink.
Underlines exist to signal clickability; using them decoratively confuses readers.
- **Color proliferation**: Count distinct colors in use (excluding images). More
than two is almost always a problem. More than three is always a problem.
- **Border clutter**: Flag tables and sections with heavy borders. White space
separates content more clearly than lines.
- **Filler visuals**: Flag images, icons, or clip art that aren't specific to
the content's message. A blank space is better than a stock photo.
- **Formatting inconsistency**: Do headings, titles, or labels vary in size,
weight, or color across the document without clear reason? Flag inconsistencies
that will read as meaningful to an audience even if they weren't intentional.
Severity guide:
- **CRITICAL** — Formatting inconsistencies that will be read as semantic signals
(e.g., random font changes mid-document)
- **MAJOR** — Overuse of emphasis that makes it impossible to identify what's
actually important
- **MINOR** — Minor decoration that adds noise without adding meaning
---
### Pass 4 — Wayfinding and Density
Audiences need to know where they are in the story, and how far they have to go.
Check for:
- **No orientation**: Is there any indication of structure — a brief outline,
section headers, or progress markers — for documents longer than one page or
five slides? If not, flag.
- **Unsummarized data**: Does any chart, table, or data display appear without
a title or caption that states what it shows? Readers shouldn't have to interpret
data cold. Flag every chart or table whose title doesn't answer "what does this show?"
- **Unanswerable questions**: Are there open-ended questions in the document
(as headers or prompts) that can't actually be answered with a choice? Flag
any question that could lead to a philosophical discussion instead of a decision.
Good: "Do we go with Option A or Option B?" Bad: "How do we improve?"
- **Dense, unbroken prose**: Are there paragraphs longer than ~6 lines where
bullet points would make the content more skimmable without losing meaning?
Severity guide:
- **CRITICAL** — Data presented without any interpretive framing
- **MAJOR** — Long documents with no structural signposts
- **MINOR** — Questions that could be made more answerable
---
### Pass 5 — Naming and Versioning
The title is information. Most document names throw it away.
Check for:
- **Generic or auto-generated title**: Does the document have a title like
"Untitled," "Draft," "Meeting Notes," or the name of the person it's addressed
to? Flag and suggest a title that includes: topic, date, and context/owner.
- **Recipient-first naming**: If the document is *for* someone at another
organization, is it named after *them* rather than the author or topic?
They'll search for it by *your* name, not theirs.
- **Version ambiguity**: Does the filename or title use `_v2`, `_final`,
`_final_final`, or sequential numbers without dates? Flag and suggest
date-based versioning.
- **Meeting invites named after participants**: If the document is tied to a
meeting, flag any invite titled "Meeting with [Name]" — it tells the recipient
nothing about what the conversation is for.
Severity guide:
- **CRITICAL** — Untitled or generic title on a document intended for external sharing
- **MAJOR** — Version ambiguity on any document with multiple drafts
- **MINOR** — Suboptimal naming that could make retrieval difficult later
---
## Output Format
### Generate mode
Produce the document applying all five principles as first-order constraints —
not as a post-hoc checklist. Specifically:
- State the conclusion or ask in the opening, not the closing
- Order content by importance to the audience, not by how it was assembled
- Use the minimum formatting necessary: one emphasis type at a time, no decorative
underlines, no more than two colors, white space over borders
- Include structural signposts if the document is longer than one page or five slides
- Give the document a title that includes topic, date, and relevant context
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