Proverbs
Decks and documents
Name the format, cut to what a tired reader will actually read, and strip everything that smells machine-made.
Decks and documents are read by tired people, which makes length a tax and machine-flavor a discount. The steward's editing sequence is fixed: get the content right, then cut to what the reader will actually finish, then strip every tell that says a machine wrote it. Those are three different passes, and running them together produces none of them well.
Format is a specification, not a suggestion. Say what the artifact is, how long, for whom, in what voice, and demand exactly that. Machines fill unbounded format space with their defaults: lists where prose belongs, headers over three sentences, an appendix nobody requested. The eleventh law's tells apply to slides as much as messages, and your reviewers are learning them too.
How to practice it
Content, then cut, then de-AI.
Three passes, in that order, never merged. Editing for truth, for length, and for voice are different jobs.
Spec the artifact.
Name the format, length, audience, and register up front. Unbounded format requests return AI-shaped defaults.
Write for the glazed eye.
Assume your reader is tired and interrupted. If the covernote can't be read in one breath, it won't be read.
Diffs, not re-narrations.
On revisions, demand only what changed. Full re-tellings bury the edit and exhaust the reviewer.