skills/plain-spoken-writing/references/core-rules.md

# Core rules in depth

## Spoken thought comes first

The raw material is not "content". It is a person trying to get an idea across

Writing begins by preserving how that person moves from one thought to the next

## The 70/30 heuristic

Use this as a judgment tool, not arithmetic

**About 70% spoken identity**
- vocabulary
- thought order
- emphasis
- code-switching
- side comments
- sentence movement
- direct address

**About 30% written cleanup**
- remove noise
- clarify broken references
- add paragraph breaks
- correct distracting errors
- reduce accidental repetition

When the ratio flips, the voice usually disappears

## Keep the speaker's local logic

A speaker may explain by example before definition, ask a question and answer it, or correct a phrase halfway through

Do not reorder merely because a textbook structure looks cleaner

## Controlled roughness

Roughness is allowed when it proves identity or emotion

Useful:

> دي hidden gems... أو لا، هي مش hidden أصلًا، هي قدامك بس أنت غالبًا ما دورتش عليها

Not useful:

> يعني يعني يعني هو بص يعني الموضوع يعني...

The first is thought correction. The second is noise

## Read-aloud authority

When written grammar and natural speech disagree but both are clear, natural speech usually wins for this style

Do not introduce genuine ambiguity or factual error in the name of voice

## Human does not mean random

Do not intentionally add typos, broken grammar, filler, slang, or emotional statements as camouflage against AI detection

Humanity comes from faithful voice, not noise injection