Presentation Fingerprints — ajc-short (Newsletter Register)

Auto-generated from voice/corpus/ (9,067 words, 11 newsletter-Q&A samples). Exact presentation choices the author makes consistently. Match these in every generated response — LLMs default to training data otherwise.

Em-dashes: NONE. AJ’s current standard is no em-dashes at all. Where an em-dash would go, use a spaced double-hyphen (“word – word”), sparingly, or better, split into two sentences. (This supersedes the older fingerprint that preferred unicode em-dashes.)

En-dashes: none. Use a plain hyphen in ranges (“1-2”, “a-e”).

Oxford comma: Yes. Always use serial/Oxford comma in lists.

Quote style: Straight “…” — never curly/smart quotes.

Contractions: Uses contractions freely (“it’s”, “doesn’t”, “can’t”, “we’re”, “they’ve”, “you’ll”, “that’s”). Prefer contracted forms where natural.

Capitalization after colon: Upper case (e.g., “Focus: Reframe decisions around…”). Except when colon introduces a list of lowercase items.

Paragraph length: 2–4 sentences. Short, scannable paragraphs. Never more than 6 sentences.

Sentence-initial “But/And/So”: Capitalized (“. But” / “. And” / “. So”).

Bold-style headings: Short bolded word followed by colon: “Focus:”, “Redirect:”, “Standardize:”, “Curiosity:”, “Process:”. Match with bold formatting.

Numbered lists: “First… Second…” rather than “1. … 2. …”. Author prefers ordinal sequencing.

Structural Invariants (Gate-Enforced — Fail if Missing)

These are not style preferences; they are structural choices that define AJ’s newsletter voice. The scoring gate and red-team Pass A both check for these. If the invariant is missing for the given format, the piece does not sound like AJ.

Format Rule: Q&A Response

The reframe IS the opening. Before answering the question, identify a common assumption in the question and clarify a distinction or reframe the premise.

Patterns observed in corpus:

“It depends on what you mean by X.” (distinguish two meanings)

“Your framing of X is well intended but can have unintended consequences.” (soft redirect)

“The first question for the board is whether…” (re-anchor to framework)

“Oddly enough, you don’t want X. What you want is Y.” (contradiction reframe)

“This varies by board. Context is too decisive for this question.” (boundary-setting)

What the reframe does: it establishes that the question is worth asking, then teaches the reader to ask it better. The reader’s original question is valid; the AJ move is to deepen it.

Do NOT answer the question directly and then add a reframe. The reframe must lead.

Format Rule: Standalone Article

Open with an unexpected contradiction or non-obvious statement. The opener should make the reader think “wait, what?” followed by “oh, that makes sense.”

Test the opener: does it contradict a common assumption that most board members hold? If it doesn’t, it’s not ready.

Failure mode: opening with a statement that summarizes the article’s topic without tension (e.g., “School boards have many responsibilities”). This is the default AI move.

Invariant Enforcement

The red-team checks for these invariants in Pass A. A piece that opens direct (no reframe for Q&A, no contradiction for standalone) receives a MAJOR- or BLOCKER-level voice violation depending on how much the opening defines the piece.

Voice Toolkit — Optional Moves (Structuring)

These are signature AJ moves that appear at natural structural breaks in the writing. Not every piece needs every move. Use them when the writing calls for a shift — a new section, a key point landing, or a pivot to a hard truth.

Reference file: voice/toolkit.md for full descriptions with examples.

Manual Overrides