Style Guide

This is the Plain Technical General American English (PTGAE) style guide for this vault. It governs published content: term definitions, concept notes, essays, lessons, index pages, and discipline content. Both human-written and agent-written content follow these rules.

PTGAE is the formal, technical register — clear, precise, and respectful. emsenn’s natural writing voice (used in babbles, letters-to-the-web, and personal writing) operates differently; see the Voice Notes in personal/writing/style/ for that register. When writing published vault content, use this guide.

The guide covers:

1. General writing rules that apply to everything
2. Evidence and citation standards
3. Conventions specific to each content type

Voice

Voice is the combination of content and style that gives writing its personality. Tone varies by content type — a babble is informal, a term definition is precise — but voice stays consistent.

Respect the reader

Don’t tell the reader how to feel. Present the material; let them respond.

• Bad: “This fascinating result shows…”
• Good: “This result shows…”

Don’t assume the reader shares your background or vocabulary. When a term has a specific meaning in this vault, link to it on first use.

Respect the subject

Acknowledge that people have qualities but aren’t those qualities.

• Bad: “Foucault is a poststructuralist.”
• Good: “Foucault’s work is situated within poststructuralism.”
• Bad: “emsenn is a researcher.”
• Good: “emsenn’s work is research.”

This isn’t pedantry. People aren’t reducible to their roles, and writing that reduces them trains the writer and reader to think reductively.

Discipline-neutral content

Content within a discipline is written as that discipline’s content. A term in mathematics/ is a mathematical term; a concept in philosophy/ is a philosophical concept; a term in technology/ is a technology term. Write each page in the language and framing natural to its discipline.

Do not orient discipline content around “here is how this connects back to relationality” or “here is why this matters to the vault’s project.” Those connections emerge from the semiotic network — links, typed relations, cross-domain requires: — as the repository grows. The network does the connecting; the pages do the defining.

Active voice

Prefer active voice and direct phrasing. Passive voice obscures who does what. [FPLG]

Over (passive)	Prefer (active)
The derivation is produced by the impossibility of nothing.	The impossibility of nothing produces the derivation.
New regulations were proposed.	We proposed new regulations.
The permit must be approved by the agency’s state office.	Our state office must approve your permit.
A response will be provided.	We will respond.

Passive voice is acceptable when the agent is genuinely unknown or unimportant, or when the emphasis should fall on the object rather than the actor. It is not acceptable as a way to hide responsibility.

To spot passive voice: look for a form of “to be” (is, was, were, been) followed by a past participle (usually ending in -ed).

Conciseness

Challenge every word. If a word doesn’t earn its place, cut it. [FPLG]

• Cut filler prepositions: “a number of” → “several”; “at this point in time” → “now”; “on a monthly basis” → “monthly.”
• Drop redundant modifiers: remove “absolutely,” “actually,” “really,” “totally,” “completely” when they add no information.
• Eliminate doublets: “due and payable” → “due”; “cease and desist” → “stop.” See the Doublets and triplets table under Word choice.
• Prefer short sentences: express one idea per sentence. If a sentence has “if,” “unless,” “except,” and “however,” rewrite it as two or three sentences.
• Prefer short paragraphs: one idea per paragraph, typically 3–8 sentences. If it runs longer than 5–7 lines on a phone screen, split it.

Conciseness is not the same as brevity. A 20-word sentence that buries the point is worse than a 30-word sentence that states it clearly. Cut words that waste the reader’s time, not words that carry meaning.

Names and references

People

First mention of a person uses their full name: “Charles Sanders Peirce,” not “Peirce.” Subsequent mentions may use surname only. Link to the person’s encyclopedia page on first mention using a wikilink.

emsenn

Always lowercase, never capitalized, even at the start of a sentence. Restructure the sentence if needed.

• Bad: “Emsenn develops relationality.”
• Good: “The relational framework is developed by emsenn.”
• Better: “emsenn develops relationality.” (if not sentence-initial)

Word choice

Several subsections below are adapted from the Federal Plain Language Guidelines (public domain, Plain Writing Act of 2010). These are marked [FPLG]. See §15 of the Plain Language Writing specification for full provenance.

Word substitutions

Prefer common words over formal or bureaucratic ones. When editing, look up the word you want to replace in the Over column. The table is sorted alphabetically by that column.

The first five entries are vault-specific preferences. The rest are adapted from the Federal Plain Language Guidelines (public domain, Plain Writing Act of 2010). See §15 of the Plain Language Writing specification for full provenance.

Over	Prefer	Notes
/ (slash)	and, or	decide which you mean
a number of	some
accomplish	carry out, do
accompany	go with
accordingly	so
additional	added, more, other
address (verb)	discuss
addressees	you
adjacent to	next to
advantageous	helpful
adversely impact	hurt, set back
advise	recommend, tell
afford an opportunity	allow, let
allocate	divide
anticipate	expect
apparent	clear, plain
appropriate	proper, right	or omit
approximate	about
ascertain	find out, learn
assist, assistance	help
at the present time	now
attempt	try
benefit (verb)	help
by means of	by, with
capability	ability
caveat	warning
close proximity	near
commence	begin, start
comply with	follow
component	part
concerning	about, on
consequently	so
consolidate	combine, join, merge
constitutes	is, forms
contains	has
currently	now	or omit
deem	believe, consider, think
delete	cut, drop
demonstrate	prove, show
designate	choose, name
desire	want, wish
determine	decide, find
disclose	show
discontinue	stop
disseminate	give, send
due to the fact that	since
effect modifications	make changes
elect	choose, pick
eliminate	cut, drop, end
employ	use
endeavor	try
ensure	make sure
equitable	fair
establish	set up, prove
evident	clear
exhibit	show
expedite	speed up
expeditious	fast, quick
expend	spend
expertise	ability
expiration	end
extract, eliminate, take away	remove	unless those words are more precise in context
facilitate	ease, help
failed to	didn’t
feasible	can be done, workable
finalize	complete, finish
forfeit	give up, lose
forward (verb)	send
frequently	often
function	act, role, work
furnish	give, send
has a requirement for	needs
however	but
identical	same
identify	find, name, show
implement	carry out, start
in accordance with	by, following, per, under
in addition	also
in a timely manner	on time, promptly
inasmuch as	since
inception	start
incumbent upon	must
indicate	show
in lieu of	instead
in order to, as a way to	to
in order that	for, so
initial	first
initiate	start
in regard to	about, on
in the amount of	for
in the event of	if
in the near future	soon
in view of	since
is applicable to	applies to
is authorized to	may
methodology	method	unless you mean the study of methods
substantial	large, much
sufficient	enough
terminate	end, stop
therefore	so
transmit	send
utilize, utilization	use	unless the thing is being used for a genuinely unusual purpose
validate	confirm
viable	practical, workable
warrant	call for, permit
whereas	because, since
with reference to	about
with the exception of	except for

Contractions

Use common contractions to create a natural tone: it’s, you’re, that’s, don’t, can’t, won’t.

Rules:

• Never mix contractions and their spelled-out equivalents in the same piece. If the piece uses “don’t,” don’t also use “do not.”
• Never form a contraction from a noun and a verb. “emsenn’s developing” is wrong. “emsenn is developing” is correct.
• Avoid ambiguous contractions: there’d, it’ll, they’d.

Adverbs to avoid

These adverbs weaken writing by substituting vagueness for precision. Drop them; if the sentence feels empty without one, the sentence needs rewriting, not an adverb.

Drop	Why
clearly	If it were clear, you wouldn’t need to say so
completely	Whatever it did, it did it. Specify only if incomplete
very, extremely, exceedingly	Intensifiers that add no information
quite, fairly, relatively	Hedges that undermine the claim
significantly, substantially	Quantify instead
interestingly, surprisingly, remarkably	Let the reader decide what interests or surprises them
literally	Almost always used non-literally
mostly, largely	Specify the proportion

The full list: clearly, completely, exceedingly, extremely, fairly, huge, interestingly, largely, literally, mostly, quite, relatively, remarkably, several, significantly, substantially, surprisingly, tiny, various, vast, very.

Adjective order

When stacking adjectives, follow this order:

1. Quantity (many, seventeen, a few)
2. Opinion (interesting, good, gorgeous)
3. Size (big, narrow, tall)
4. Quality (broken, uncut, smooth)
5. Shape (square, rotund, triangular)
6. Age (twelve-year-old, young, elderly)
7. Color (cerulean, green, pink)
8. Origin (English, Roman, Argentinian)
9. Material (wood, aluminium, concrete)
10. Type (U-shaped, professional)
11. Purpose (cleaning, camping, baking)

Exceptions: modifiers to an adjective directly precede it (“several not calm individuals”), and reduplicatives (“big bad wolf”) may override the order for better meter.

Hidden verbs

A hidden verb (or nominalization) is a verb converted into a noun that then needs another verb to make sense. Hidden verbs make writing longer and weaker. [FPLG]

Watch for noun forms ending in -ment, -tion, -sion, and -ance, and for phrases using achieve, effect, give, have, make, reach, and take before a noun that was once a verb.

Prefer	Over
apply	make an application
review	carry out a review
analyze	conduct an analysis
understand	gain an understanding
pay	make a payment
calculate	undertake the calculation
consider	give consideration to
determine	make a determination
modify	effect modifications
help	provide assistance

Hidden verbs between “the” and “of” are a telltale sign: “the development of,” “the establishment of,” “the collection of.” Rewrite: “develop,” “establish,” “collect.”

Slashes

Don’t use slashes to mean “and” or “or.” Decide which you mean and write it out. If you truly mean both, write “X, or Y, or both.” A slash creates ambiguity: “and/or” pushes the decision off on the reader.

Slashes are acceptable in fractions, file paths, and established technical notation.

Cliches

Avoid: “not rocket science,” “outside the box,” and similar dead metaphors. If a phrase has been used so often that it no longer creates an image, replace it with something precise.

Doublets and triplets

Legal and bureaucratic writing often pairs near-synonyms for emphasis, but the extra words add no meaning. [FPLG]

Prefer	Over
due	due and payable
stop	cease and desist
start	begin and commence
knowledge	knowledge and information
each	each and every
full	full and complete
binding	binding and conclusive
desire	desire and wish
approval	authorization and approval
give	give, devise, and bequeath

If the words in a pair truly mean different things in context, keep both. But most of the time, one word does the job.

Positive language

Write in the positive. Negative phrasing — especially double negatives — forces the reader to mentally reverse the sentence. [FPLG]

Prefer	Over
at least	no fewer than
may only … when	may not … until
is … only if	is not … unless
(state it directly)	do not fail to

Avoid exceptions to exceptions. An exception that contains an exception is a double negative in disguise. Rewrite to emphasize the positive case.

Quotation marks

• Double quotes for a term used literally or as a strong metaphor: “closure operator” means exactly what it says.
• Single quotes for a term used as a loose analogy: the vault is ‘alive’ in the sense that it changes.
• Italics for emphasis or for introducing a term that will be defined.

Centuries

Capitalize “Century” when referring to a specific one: “the 18th Century.” Lowercase for the plural: “over several centuries.”

Sensory descriptions

When a sensation matters to the writing, provide three ways to apprehend it — three details, three comparisons, three angles. One is a claim; three is an experience.

Structure

Subsections marked [FPLG] are adapted from the Federal Plain Language Guidelines; see the attribution note under Word choice.

Sentences

Lead with the important information. The sentence’s subject and verb should appear early.

Keep the subject, verb, and object close together. The natural word order of English is subject-verb-object; when modifiers, phrases, or clauses separate these parts, the sentence becomes harder to parse. [FPLG]

• Bad: “The agency, after reviewing all available evidence and consulting with relevant experts over a period of several months, denied the request.”
• Good: “The agency denied the request after reviewing the evidence and consulting with experts.”

Place modifiers like “only” and “always” next to the words they modify. “You must provide only the following” means something different from “You must only provide the following.”

Put long conditions after the main clause, not before it. “Complete the form if you own more than 50 acres” is clearer than “If you own more than 50 acres, complete the form.”

Paragraphs

One idea per paragraph. The first sentence states or implies what the paragraph is about. Subsequent sentences develop it.

Sections

Use headings to create scannable structure. A reader should be able to understand the document’s argument from its headings alone.

Emphasis

Use bold and italics to draw attention to important information within a section. Use them sparingly — if everything is emphasized, nothing is.

Don’t use ALL CAPS for emphasis. It reduces readability and, online, reads as shouting. Don’t use underlining for emphasis in web content — underlined text is expected to be a link. [FPLG]

Evidence and citation

This vault aspires to discipline-appropriate standards of evidence. Every factual claim in published content should be traceable to a source.

Citation format

• Use [@citekey] for bibliography citations (entries in bibliography.bib). Place the citation after the sentence it supports: “Relations are ontologically prior to entities [@emsenn2025].”
• When citing a person, link to their encyclopedia page on first mention.
• When citing a published work by title, use italics for the title and include a bibliography citation.

Standards by content type

Content type	Evidence standard
Term definitions	Cite who introduced the term and where. If it’s emsenn’s term, say so and cite the text where it’s developed.
Concept notes	Cite the sources that inform the concept. If the concept synthesizes multiple sources, cite each.
Essays and papers	Follow the citation standards of the discipline the essay engages. A philosophy essay cites differently from a linguistics paper.
Lessons	Cite the sources the lesson draws on. State where the reader can find the original treatment.
Discipline pages	Cite foundational texts that define the discipline’s scope and methods.
School pages	Cite the school’s founding texts and key thinkers.
Encyclopedia entries	Cite at least one authoritative source per factual claim.

When you don’t have a source

If a claim matters but you don’t have a citation, mark it. Use [citation needed] as a visible flag. Don’t leave unsourced claims unmarked — the reader should always know which claims are backed and which aren’t yet.

Bibliography

The vault bibliography lives at bibliography.bib (BibTeX format). Before citing a work, check whether it already has an entry. If not, add one using a citekey of the form authorYear (e.g., foucault1975, whitehead1929). For emsenn’s own works, use emsenn plus year.

Content types

Term definitions (terms/)

A term definition answers: what does this term mean?

Structure:

1. Opening sentence: “[Term] is [definition].” State what it is and who introduces or uses it. If it’s emsenn’s term, say so: “[Term] is a term emsenn introduces to name…” Cite the source: [@citekey].
2. Elaboration: 1-3 paragraphs developing the definition with enough context that someone unfamiliar can understand it. Cite the sources that inform the elaboration.
3. Related terms: a list of links to terms that are conceptually connected, each with a one-line gloss explaining the connection.

Don’t write a term definition as an essay. It should be compact, precise, and referenceable.

Concept notes (concepts/)

A concept note develops an idea that is broader or more exploratory than a term definition. Where a term definition answers “what does X mean,” a concept note answers “what is going on with X” or “how does X work.”

Concept notes are more discursive than term definitions but less structured than essays. They should still be organized under clear headings. Cite the sources that inform each section.

Essays and papers (texts/)

Essays develop an argument. They have a thesis (stated or implied), evidence, and a conclusion. The thesis should be identifiable within the first two paragraphs.

Follow the citation conventions of the discipline the essay engages. A philosophy paper and a linguistics paper cite differently — use whatever standard the discipline’s practitioners would expect.

Civic explainer essays explain disciplinary research for a general audience. They present ideas in accessible language without citations, and link to a companion research text that carries the evidence. The civic essay answers “what does this mean for people?” The research text answers “why should we believe this?” Both live in texts/ — the civic essay links to its grounding text in an opening note, and the research text links back. See Why AI Gets Emotional When Ideas Get Big and Affective Drift in Large Language Models for the first instance of this pattern.

Letters-to-the-web and babbles are less structured: letters address a public topic at length, babbles are unedited thought. Both follow the general style rules but aren’t held to structural or citation standards.

Discipline pages (disciplines/)

A discipline page describes a field of study. It should answer: what does this discipline study and how does it study it?

Structure:

1. Opening paragraph: What the discipline studies. What questions it asks.
2. Methods: How practitioners in this discipline produce knowledge. What counts as evidence. What the core methods are. This section is often underdeveloped — prioritize it.
3. Key texts: Foundational works that define the field. Cite each with [@citekey].
4. Key thinkers: People whose work defines or shapes the discipline. Link to encyclopedia entries.
5. Subdirectory overview: Links to schools/, topics/, terms/, curricula/ within this module.

Don’t dump content under disciplines/ that belongs under schools/ or topics/. A discipline page describes the field; a school page describes a specific tradition’s approach to that field.

School pages (schools/)

A school page describes a named theoretical tradition, approach, or thinker’s body of work. It should answer: what does this school claim, how does it produce knowledge, and where does it differ from other approaches?

Structure:

1. Opening paragraph: What the school’s core claims or commitments are. Who founded or developed it.
2. Methods and approach: How this school differs from others in the same discipline. What it pays attention to that others don’t. What its characteristic methods are.
3. Key texts: The founding and defining works. Cite each with [@citekey].
4. Key thinkers: Link to encyclopedia entries.
5. Critiques and limitations: What this school doesn’t handle well, according to its critics.

Schools are currently underdeveloped relative to disciplines. When in doubt about whether something belongs under disciplines/ or schools/, put it under schools/ — specific traditions and approaches are more useful to the reader than abstract disciplinary overviews.

Lessons (curricula/)

Lessons are NOT reference documents. They guide the reader from not-understanding to understanding. See the Designing Effective Lessons curriculum for full pedagogical guidelines.

Key rules:

• One core idea per lesson, with at most 3-4 new concepts
• Concrete before abstract: worked example first, then definition
• Every lesson needs a worked example and self-check exercises with collapsible answers
• State prerequisites explicitly
• State what the reader will be able to do after completing the lesson
• Forward-link to the next lesson
• Cite the sources the lesson draws on

Index pages

Index pages are the interaction surface for a directory. They should:

1. Open with 1-2 sentences explaining what this area of the vault covers
2. List the most important pages with brief descriptions
3. Use hideChildListing: true in frontmatter when the hand-written overview makes the auto-generated listing redundant

Don’t write an index page as an essay. It’s a navigation aid with enough context to orient the reader.

Encyclopedia entries (encyclopedia/)

Encyclopedia entries are reference documents about people, events, terms, and time periods. They should be factual, concise, and cited.

• Every factual claim needs a source. If you can’t cite it, mark it [citation needed].
• Don’t editorialize. Present the facts; let the reader draw conclusions.
• Link to related vault content where relevant.

Mathematical writing

When writing about mathematical concepts in prose:

• Define notation before using it
• Use inline LaTeX ($...$) for symbols within sentences and display LaTeX ($...$) for equations that need their own line
• When introducing a formal definition, give the intuition first, then the formal statement
• When a proof or argument is long, state the result first and then develop the argument

Cross-referencing

• When a concept mentioned in the text has a page in the vault, link to it on first mention using a markdown link: [concept name](./path/to/concept.md).
• When citing a person, link to their encyclopedia page on first mention.
• When citing a published work, use a bibliography citation: [@citekey].
• Don’t over-link. Link on first mention per page, not on every occurrence.

What this guide does not cover

This guide covers style — the choices that make writing clear and consistent. It doesn’t cover:

• Content decisions: what to write about, where to put it, how to organize the vault. See the ASR specifications for that.
• Frontmatter conventions: what fields go in the YAML block. See Semiotic Markdown and semantic frontmatter.
• Pedagogical design: how to structure lessons for learning. See Designing Effective Lessons.
• emsenn’s natural voice: the informal register used in babbles and letters. See Voice Notes.
• Discipline-specific writing: each discipline may have its own writing skill (e.g., pedagogy/skills/writing-curricula/) that extends this guide with field-specific conventions.

Sources and intellectual debts

This guide synthesizes work from rhetoric and composition, the academic discipline that studies writing as situated practice. Its primary influences:

• Sentence-level clarity draws on Joseph Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace [@williams2006] — the principles of characters as subjects, actions as verbs, known-before-new information, and cohesion through consistent topic strings. Williams’s work provides the empirical and linguistic foundation for this guide’s preferences about active voice, verb choice, and sentence structure.
• Revision method draws on Richard Lanham, Revising Prose [@lanham2006] — the Paramedic Method for identifying and cutting nominalized, bureaucratic prose. The guide’s advice to prefer specific verbs over vague nouns reflects Lanham’s analysis of the “Official Style.”
• Word choice and anti-jargon stance draws on George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” [@orwell1946] — the argument that vague language reflects and reinforces vague thinking, and the six rules for clear prose.
• Content-type conventions draw on Carolyn Miller, “Genre as Social Action” [@miller1984] — the insight that genres are typified responses to recurring situations, not arbitrary templates. The vault’s content types (term definitions, concept notes, essays, lessons) are genres in Miller’s sense.
• Plain language principles draw on Rudolf Flesch, The Art of Readable Writing [@flesch1949]; Janice Redish, Letting Go of the Words [@redish2012]; and Karen Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design [@schriver1997]. See the plain language specification for the full operational standard.
• Lesson design conventions draw on Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, Understanding by Design [@wigginsmctighe2005]; John Sweller’s cognitive load theory [@sweller1988]; and Richard Mayer, Multimedia Learning [@mayer2009]. See the pedagogy module’s lesson design curriculum for the full treatment.