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Writing & documents

Writing

This course teaches the judgement behind paid writing tasks: treating length, tone, and format as hard constraints, and never stating a fact the brief did not supply. You learn to match a client's voice from their examples, keep templates and batches consistent, and rewrite dense text without changing its meaning. By the end, you can self-edit against the same standard the operator uses at QC.

6
lessons
~31
minutes
12
exam questions

Free · No paid tier · No certificate fee

After this course

Everything, and what is in it.

The Spec Is the Job

~5 min

Taste is not the standard

Writing feels personal, so new writers assume the goal is to impress. It is not. Every writing delivery is judged against one fixed standard: it matches the requested length, tone, and format, and makes no factual claim the brief didn't supply. Style preference alone is not a dispute ground. That sentence cuts both ways. If your delivery meets the spec, a client who simply would have phrased things differently has no grounds to reject it. And if you miss the spec, no amount of elegant prose saves the delivery. The client bought a specific piece of writing, defined in advance. Your job is to produce exactly that piece, in their voice, from their facts. Impressiveness is what happens when you hit the spec cleanly, not a separate goal.

Requirements are constraints, not suggestions

Read the brief the way you would read a form. Under 100 words means 100 is the ceiling, not the target zone. Around 100 words gives you room, maybe 85 to 115, but 160 is a miss. Format instructions are just as hard: if the brief asks for a heading, two sentences, and three bullet-style feature lines per product, a delivery with flowing paragraphs fails even if it reads beautifully. Tone words like casual or formal are constraints too, and we cover how to pin them down in a later lesson. Before you write anything, pull every requirement out of the brief and list the numbers, formats, and tone words. That list is your contract. Everything you draft gets checked against it, not against your own sense of good.

When the spec is unclear

Briefs are written by busy people and sometimes leave gaps or contradict themselves. You never contact the client; the operator sits between you, and your channel to the operator is the note you attach when you deliver. So sort problems by size. If a contradiction blocks the whole task, say the brief demands a word count its own example ignores, do not silently pick a side. Choose the reading that best fits the client's supplied materials, then state in your delivery note what conflicted and what you chose. If the gap is small, make the safest spec-compliant choice and note the assumption. A stated assumption is a professional judgement. A silent guess that turns out wrong is a QC rejection, and rejections sit on your record.

Remember

  • Deliveries are judged on length, tone, format, and facts, never on the reviewer's taste.
  • Every number and format word in a brief is a hard constraint.
  • Pull the requirements into a list before drafting; check the draft against it.
  • A stated assumption in your delivery note beats a silent guess every time.

Facts You Can Point To

~5 min

The traceability test

The second half of the standard says your delivery makes no factual claim the brief didn't supply. The test is simple: for every factual statement you write, you should be able to point at the line in the brief or the attached materials it came from. Stainless steel housing traces to the spec sheet. Free shipping traces to nothing unless the client said it, so it does not go in. This rule exists because you cannot verify anything yourself. You have never held the product, called the support line, or seen the warranty terms. The client has, and their materials are the record of what they are willing to claim. Writing beyond that record puts words in their mouth, and they are legally responsible for every one.

Describing versus embellishing

Describing restates a supplied fact; embellishing asserts a new one. Stainless steel housing is a description. Industry-leading durability is an invented claim about the whole market. The trap is that embellishment sounds like normal marketing, so it feels safe. It is not. Waterproof, hypoallergenic, bestselling, doctor-recommended, longest-lasting: each of these is a factual assertion someone could test and dispute. You can still write vivid copy inside the rule. Rephrase freely, reorder freely, choose strong plain verbs, and let supplied facts do the selling. A 1.7 liter capacity can become enough for seven cups, because that is arithmetic, not invention. A useful check for any adjective: is this a fact from the materials, or a compliment I added? Compliments that assert facts come out.

Gaps, and where sources end

When a fact you need is missing, the answer is never to fill the gap yourself. Do not copy the field from a similar product, and do not search the web for the answer. The manufacturer's site might describe a different model year, and either way the client did not supply it, so it fails the traceability test. Describe around the gap and flag it in your delivery note. Sources end at the task boundary in the other direction too. Client materials are confidential: do not paste spec sheets or client text into AI tools, translators, or any third-party service unless the brief tells you to, do not keep copies after delivery, and never reuse a client's text as a sample of your work.

Remember

  • Every factual statement must trace to a line in the brief or attached materials.
  • Describing restates a supplied fact; embellishing invents a new one.
  • Marketing adjectives like waterproof or bestselling are factual claims, not decoration.
  • Fill no gaps: not from similar products, not from the web. Flag them.
  • Client files stay inside the task: no AI tools, no copies, no samples.

Matching a Voice That Is Not Yours

~5 min

Examples outrank adjectives

Most briefs describe tone in adjectives: friendly, professional, warm, authoritative. Adjectives are ambiguous. Your friendly and the client's friendly can be two different registers, and only one of them passes QC. When the client attaches examples, existing pages, past emails, a sample description, the examples are the real tone spec, and the adjectives are just a summary of them. If the brief says professional but the attached posts are relaxed and joke occasionally, write relaxed with occasional jokes. When there are no examples, look at anything else the client supplied, even the brief's own wording, and steer to the middle of the adjective rather than your favorite end of it. Tone is a requirement of the standard, which means missing it is a legitimate dispute ground.

Reading a tone profile

You can turn an example into a checkable profile in five minutes. Look at sentence length: mostly under 15 words, or long and layered? Contractions: do they write it's and you'll, or it is and you will? Person: do they address the reader as you, speak as we, or stay impersonal? Vocabulary: everyday words or technical terms? Punctuation habits: dashes, questions, one-word sentences? Formality tells: humor, slang, exclamations, or none of them? Write your answers down as a short profile and keep it beside you while drafting. Now tone is not a feeling you are chasing but six observable habits you can imitate, and later verify. When your draft is done, check it against the profile the same way you check word count against the brief.

The slide-in test

The finished test for tone is substitution. Put a paragraph of your draft next to a paragraph of the client's example and read both aloud. If a stranger could not tell which writer produced which, you matched. If your paragraph stands out, find the habit that gives you away. Usually it is one of three things: your sentences run longer than theirs, your vocabulary is more formal than theirs, or you dropped their contractions under pressure. Fix the habit across the whole delivery, not just the paragraph you tested, because tone drift is systematic. And resist improving their voice. If the client writes flat, correct sentences with no flair, deliver flat, correct sentences with no flair. The moment your writing is recognizably yours, it is off spec.

Remember

  • Client examples are the real tone spec; adjectives only summarize them.
  • Turn an example into a profile: sentence length, contractions, person, vocabulary, punctuation, formality.
  • Test by substitution: your paragraph should slide into their page unnoticed.
  • Never improve the client's voice; recognizably yours means off spec.

Template and Merge-Field Discipline

~5 min

Written for everyone at once

A template is a strange kind of writing: one draft, many readers, none of whom you can see. Every sentence must be true for all of them. A line about your recent demo works only if every recipient had a demo. A reference to a Manila trade show is false for anyone who was not there. So before any detail goes into a template, ask who it will be sent to. If the answer varies, the detail either becomes generic, moves behind a merge field, or comes out. This is the template version of the no-invented-claims rule: a claim that is true for one recipient and false for another is an invented claim for the second one.

Merge-field hygiene

Merge fields are code, not text. The client's email system looks for exact characters, so {{FirstName}} and {{first_name}} are different fields, and only one exists in their system. Copy field names character for character from the brief or the client's example, including braces, capitals, and underscores. Never invent a new field; if the templates need one the brief does not mention, draft without it and suggest it in your delivery note. Then check the grammar around every field. Each sentence has to survive any plausible value, short or long. The line As a {{JobTitle}}, you know hiring is hard reads fine when the value is recruiter and turns ungrammatical when it is Sales Operations. Reread every line imagining the longest and strangest value the sales team might put in.

Six templates, one system

A set of follow-up templates is one product, not six. They share a voice, follow the format the brief sets, and make sense as a sequence: a second follow-up should acknowledge more time has passed than the first, and the final one can close the loop politely. But each must also stand alone, because you cannot know which ones the team will send. Never let template four depend on the recipient having read template two. Vary the openings so a recipient who receives three does not read the same first line three times, while keeping structure and voice identical. Before delivering, read all six top to bottom in one sitting. Sequence problems, repeated phrases, and voice drift are invisible one template at a time and obvious in one read.

Remember

  • Every template sentence must be true for every possible recipient.
  • Copy merge-field names exactly; never invent a field the brief does not define.
  • Every sentence around a merge field must survive the longest, strangest real value.
  • A template set shares voice and sequence, but each email stands alone.

Plain Language, Full Meaning

~5 min

What the rewrite actually changes

A plain-language rewrite has one promise: same facts, easier reading. In practice that means roughly half the words, sentences under about 20 words, everyday vocabulary, and active voice, so the text lands one reading level lower. Everything else is preserved. You are changing the packaging of the information, never the information. That distinction is the whole task. Purchases may be returned within a 30-day window upon presentation of proof of purchase becomes Return items within 30 days with your receipt. Fourteen words became eight, the reading level dropped, and both sentences commit the client to the same policy. If your rewrite is shorter and simpler but commits the client to something different, you have not simplified the FAQ. You have rewritten their policy, which was never yours to touch.

Conditions are facts

The facts most often lost in simplification are not the headline statements but the qualifiers hanging off them. Within 30 days. With a receipt. Unused items only. Except sale items. Usually. Up to. Each qualifier changes what the client is promising, which makes each one a fact under the standard. Refunds within 30 days with a receipt simplified to refunds within 30 days is not shorter writing, it is a bigger promise. The same trap runs the other direction: do not sharpen soft statements into hard ones. We usually reply within one business day must keep its usually, because dropping it converts a tendency into a guarantee. Before delivering a rewrite, list every number, condition, exception, and hedge in the original, then confirm each one survived.

Plain does not mean casual

Plain language is a clarity level, not a tone. An FAQ for a bank can be plain and still formal; an FAQ for a game can be plain and playful. So the tone rules from earlier still apply: match the client's examples, or the voice of the pages they are keeping, unless the brief says the rewrite should also change the voice. Watch two more traps. Jargon sometimes is the fact: if the original names a specific plan tier, legal term, or product name, keep the term and explain it in plain words beside it, rather than replacing it with a looser word. And keep the structure the brief asks for. If the FAQ format is question and answer, plain answers live under the same questions unless told otherwise.

Remember

  • Plain language changes the packaging of information, never the information.
  • Qualifiers are facts: every number, condition, exception, and hedge must survive the rewrite.
  • Never sharpen a soft statement into a promise the client did not make.
  • Plain is a clarity level, not a tone; the voice spec still applies.

Batches, Drift, and the Final Pass

~6 min

Why batches drift

Twelve product descriptions written across one shift are twelve chances to drift. Early items follow the sample closely because you keep checking it. By item eight you trust your memory, and your own habits leak in: openings change shape, sentence rhythm shifts, a feature that was a phrase in item two becomes a full sentence in item ten. No single item is wrong, but the client will paste all twelve onto one page, where the inconsistency is the first thing anyone sees. Treat the batch as one deliverable with twelve parts. Lock the pattern before you scale it: write the first item, check it against the sample and the brief, and only then produce the rest, re-reading the first item and the sample at regular intervals as you go.

What consistency means concretely

Consistency is checkable, not a vibe. Same structure: information appears in the same order in every item, name, key feature, details, close. Same shape: if item one is a heading plus two sentences plus three feature lines, so is item twelve. Same grammar decisions: one tense, one person, features phrased the same way, either all sentence fragments or all full sentences, never a mix. Same conventions: units, capitalization, and number formatting identical throughout, 1.7 L in one item and 1.7 liters in another is drift. Same voice, held to the tone profile from lesson three. A quick test: read items one and twelve back to back, skipping the middle. If they read like the same writer on the same day, the batch holds.

Edit in passes, deliver with a note

Self-editing works when each pass hunts one kind of problem. First a spec pass: word counts counted, format checked element by element, every brief requirement ticked off your list. Second a fact pass: every claim traced to its source line, every flagged gap still flagged. Third a consistency pass across the batch, structure, conventions, voice. Only then polish sentences. This order matters because QC reads in the same spirit: a beautiful description at the wrong length still fails. Then write the delivery note. State any assumptions you made, any gaps or conflicts you found, and anything the operator should check first. Keep it short and factual. A good note turns a rejection into a quick decision. After approval, delete your local copies; the work belongs to the client now.

Remember

  • Lock the pattern with item one, then hold every later item to it.
  • Consistency is checkable: same structure, shape, grammar decisions, conventions, and voice.
  • Edit in passes: spec first, facts second, consistency third, polish last.
  • The delivery note states assumptions, gaps, and conflicts; short and factual.
  • After approval, delete local copies; the work belongs to the client.

Sit the exam

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Twelve scenario questions. Pass at ten. Three attempts a day. The bar is the point.

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