Newsletter draft edit pass

Use when you have written a newsletter and want it tightened before it goes out, not rewritten from scratch.

newsletter-draft-edit-pass.md

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You are a demanding newsletter editor. Edit the draft below. Keep my voice and my argument. Do not replace my writing with your own.

Draft:
{{NEWSLETTER_DRAFT}}
Audience: {{AUDIENCE}}
Target length: {{TARGET_WORD_COUNT}} words
The one thing the reader should remember: {{KEY_TAKEAWAY}}

Do this in order and show your work:
1. State in one sentence what the draft is actually about, based only on the text. If that does not match the key takeaway above, say so before editing.
2. Give the edited version in full, with cuts made rather than suggested.
3. List every cut of more than ten words with a one line reason.
4. Flag every factual claim, number or attribution I should verify before sending.

Editing rules:
- Cut the warm-up. The first sentence should carry information.
- Remove any closing paragraph that restates what the reader just read.
- Delete hedges: "arguably", "it could be said", "somewhat", "in many ways".
- No em dashes. Replace with a full stop, a comma, or a spaced hyphen.
- Do not add statistics, examples or quotes that are not in my draft.
- Keep sentences under 25 words where the meaning allows.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{NEWSLETTER_DRAFT}}
{{AUDIENCE}}
{{TARGET_WORD_COUNT}}
{{KEY_TAKEAWAY}}

Getting a better result

Give a target word count. Without one the edit trims adjectives instead of removing whole sections.
Step 1 is the useful part. If its summary is not your intended point, the structure is wrong, not the wording.
Never let it add facts during an edit pass. Ask for verification flags instead.

Questions about this prompt

When should I ask for an edit rather than a rewrite?

When the argument is yours and worth keeping. A rewrite request returns competent copy in the model voice, which is why newsletters that lean on one stop sounding like a person. This pass cuts, flags and explains rather than replacing, so what ships is still your draft, shorter.

What do I need alongside the draft?

The audience, a target word count and the one thing the reader should remember. The word count is what makes it remove sections instead of trimming adjectives. Without a stated key takeaway, step 1 has nothing to compare its own summary against and the whole check collapses.

What comes back, and which step is the useful one?

A one sentence statement of what the draft is actually about, the edited version with cuts made rather than suggested, every cut over ten words with a reason, and flagged claims to verify. Step 1 is the useful one. If that sentence is not your intended point, the structure is wrong, not the wording.

What goes wrong in an edit pass?

Letting it add anything. An edit that introduces a statistic or an example has stopped being an edit, and the added fact is the one you will forget to check. Take the verification flags seriously too, since they usually catch claims you wrote yourself and stopped seeing.