Chapter 04 · Section IV · 10 min read
4.4 Rewriting: tone, level, audience
The prompt shapes for changing how text sounds without changing what it says — plus the traps that make rewrites drift into different content.
Rewriting is the deceptively simple task of keeping the content the same while changing the shape — tone, reading level, length, audience. It sounds easy, but “rewrite this” is one of the most under-specified prompts in common use, and the default output tends to be longer, more formal, and slightly different in meaning from the source.
The three levers
Every rewrite prompt should name at least one of these three:
Tone. Friendly, formal, urgent, apologetic, neutral, playful, deadpan. Tone is how the sentence feels.
Level. Reading level (Class-8 student, Class-12, graduate). Level is how hard the sentence is to understand.
Audience. Who the reader is (a customer, a regulator, a colleague, a beginner). Audience implies both tone and level, and adds context.
A “make it more professional” prompt is a level and tone request smuggled inside a vague word — replace it with the three levers.
Tone: from harsh to warm
Before:
Your payment failed. Your account is now suspended pending KYC verification. Upload documents within 7 days or your account will be deleted.Prompt:
Rewrite the message below to keep the exact same information and
timeframes, but change the tone from firm/punitive to warm/helpful.
Rules:
- Do not change any factual details (payment status, KYC step, 7 days).
- Do not add any information that wasn't in the original.
- Same length (±20%). Do not turn a three-sentence message into a five-paragraph letter.
<source>
Your payment failed. Your account is now suspended pending KYC verification. Upload documents within 7 days or your account will be deleted.
</source>The “do not change facts” rule and the length constraint are what prevent drift. Without them the rewrite tends to grow apologies, disclaimers, and encouragements the original didn’t have.
Level: from expert to plain
Prompt:
Rewrite the paragraph below at a Class-8 reading level. A Class-8
student in Nepal:
- Knows common English but not specialist vocabulary.
- Handles short sentences (12–18 words) better than long ones.
- Has not encountered "encryption," "authentication," or "verification"
outside of school.
Rules:
- Replace technical terms with plain-language equivalents or brief explanations.
- Do not oversimplify to the point of losing meaning.
- Do not add "in other words" or teacher-voice explanations. Just rewrite the paragraph.
<source>
Two-factor authentication combines something you know (a password)
with something you have (a one-time code sent to your phone), so that
a stolen password alone is not enough to gain access.
</source>Level rewrites benefit hugely from a model of the audience — a short paragraph describing what the target reader knows and doesn’t. The model has no idea what a “Class-8 student in Nepal” knows without being told.
Audience: from insider to outsider
Prompt:
Rewrite the announcement below for two different audiences.
Audience 1: Internal engineering team.
- Assume they know the system architecture and the acronyms.
- Emphasise the technical decisions and timelines.
Audience 2: General public (customers).
- No jargon. Explain the impact on their experience.
- Emphasise what they need to do (if anything).
Format:
## For engineering
[rewrite here]
## For customers
[rewrite here]
<source>
Effective Kartik 15, we are migrating from a monolithic auth service
to a distributed OAuth 2.0 provider. Existing session tokens will be
invalidated at migration time; clients must re-authenticate.
</source>Same content, two rewrites, one prompt. Cheaper than running two prompts and forces the model to compare — often the “customer” version gets clearer because it can’t reuse the phrases from the engineering version.
The drift traps
Every rewrite prompt has to defend against three common drifts:
Content drift. The rewrite quietly adds or removes facts. Defense: “Do not add or remove any facts. Every claim in the rewrite must be present in the source.”
Length drift. A 40-word source becomes a 150-word rewrite. Defense: give an explicit length target. “Same length ±20%,” or “60–80 words.”
Register drift. A neutral source becomes gushingly friendly. Defense: name the tone precisely, and if it helps, name the anti-tone. “Warm but not gushing. No exclamation marks. Do not use words like ‘wonderful’ or ‘amazing.’”
When to reach for two passes
For high-stakes rewriting (legal, medical, contractual), a two-pass approach works well:
- First pass rewrites the source.
- Second pass (fresh prompt) diffs the rewrite against the source and lists any factual differences.
If the diff shows no factual changes, the rewrite is safe. If it shows changes, either those changes were intended (removing internal jargon) or they need to be reverted.
Check your understanding
Quick check
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