Controlling LLM Prose

Area IX

Technical Communication Formats

Shapes that make information usable

The same facts serve a reader well or badly depending on their arrangement on the page. Lead with what matters, strip everything that does not serve the task, break lines by meaning so version control stays legible, and cast procedures as clean imperatives. Format is not decoration; for working documents it is most of the usability.

  1. Semantic Line Breaks One clause per line

    Break source lines at clause boundaries so diffs and reviews stay clean.

  2. Inverted Pyramid Most important first

    Order a whole document from most to least important so it can be cut from the bottom.

  3. Minimalist Instruction Action first, cut the rest

    Strip instructional prose to the actions a reader must take, removing everything else.

  4. Procedural Imperative Voice Numbered, do-this steps

    Cast procedures as numbered imperative steps, one action each.

Example from this area

From Semantic Line Breaks—Break source lines at clause boundaries so diffs and reviews stay clean.

Before (wrapped at column)The client retries failed requests using exponential backoff, and it honors the Retry-After header when the server provides one.
After (semantic breaks)The client retries failed requests using exponential backoff. [newline] It honors the Retry-After header when the server provides one.