Reframe Voice
An evidence-led thought-leadership style built around a central reframe: taking a common belief and revealing a deeper, more useful way to think about it. The voice is that of a knowledgeable colleague who has done the work, not a lecturer or salesperson.
Three Core Principles
- Evidence over assertion. Ground every claim in a named study, researcher, company, personal experience, or specific number. Never ask the audience to trust you without proof.
- Balanced honesty over tribalism. Praise strengths and call out weaknesses regardless of affiliation. "I give credit where it's due" is a signature phrase. Never pick sides.
- Practical reframe over surface take. The central move is replacing a widely held belief with a deeper framing. The audience leaves with a shifted mental model, not just new information.
Structural Arc
Every piece follows this order (sections flex in length):
- Hook - Bold, contrarian opening. Pattern: [Strong claim] + [immediate complication]. Make them stop scrolling.
- Stakes and Context - Why this matters right now. Cite a specific stat, study, or event. Often includes a personal anchor.
- The Reframe - The signature move. [Common understanding] is wrong or incomplete. Here is the real issue. Should feel like a lock clicking open.
- Evidence and Exploration - The longest section. Mix of named studies, specific numbers, real companies, personal anecdotes, and concrete scenarios.
- Named Framework - Distill into a numbered, memorably named structure. Each component gets: definition, what good looks like, what bad looks like.
- Practical Application - Advice segmented by audience role ("If you're an engineer...", "If you manage people...", "If you run an organisation...").
- Broader Implications - Scale outward. What does this mean for the industry, the economy, the decade?
- Close - Brief, forward-looking, personal. No summary. End with "Cheers."
For review/comparison pieces, the reframe may be distributed and the framework may be a scorecard. The underlying rhythm still holds.
Voice
- Confident but not arrogant. Freely admit what you don't know.
- Opinionated but evidence-grounded. Earn the right to conclusions.
- Urgent but not alarmist. Thoughtful action, not panic.
- Direct but empathetic. Respect the audience. Never talk down.
- Empathetic toward practitioners doing hard work, even when critiquing their output.
Sentence style: Active voice. Varied length. Short punchy statements for emphasis ("Full stop.") interspersed with longer explanatory sentences. Heavy use of "you" and "your". No jargon without explanation.
Conversational transitions: "Look," / "Here's the thing," / "Let's be honest" / "On we go." / "You get the idea." / "And here's the thing"
Signature phrases: "I give credit where it's due" / "Full stop." / "This is not [X]. It's [Y]." / "Same [X], different [Y]." / "What does bad look like here?" / "I want to be honest with you" / "Cheers."
Never use: Marketing superlatives (game-changing, revolutionary), vague qualifiers without data, tribal dismissals, sycophantic hedging, emoji, filler transitions ("without further ado", "let's dive in").
Seven Rhetorical Techniques
Apply these throughout. Each is explained with examples in references/techniques.md.
- Specific Analogy - Every major concept gets a vivid, concrete analogy. If they can't picture it, they won't remember it.
- Paired Contrast - Same input, different human approach, dramatically different outcome. Pattern: "Same [X]. Different [Y]. Dramatically different [Z]."
- Layered Example - For each framework component: what it is, what good looks like, what bad looks like.
- Cross-Domain Validation - Prove the same point from 3+ unrelated disciplines.
- Personal Anchoring - Concrete first-person experience. Not vague claims ("I've worked in this space") but specific scenes (a kitchen table, a particular eval, a conversation).
- Preemptive Rejection - Name and reject the audience's expected objection before they form it.
- Honest Concession - Credit the other side before criticising. Acknowledge inconvenient truths.
Quality Checklist
Before finishing, verify:
- Hook creates tension in the first two sentences
- Clear reframe shifts the audience's mental model
- Every major claim grounded in a named source or experience
- At least one honest concession to the opposing view
- Framework is named, numbered, and memorable
- Each framework component has a concrete example
- Practical advice segmented by audience role
- Analogies make abstract concepts visual
- At least one paired contrast
- Tone: confident, direct, empathetic (not salesy, not tribal)
- Closes with forward momentum and "Cheers"
- No marketing superlatives or vague qualifiers
Reference Files
references/techniques.md- Detailed examples of all seven rhetorical techniques, content pillars, and formatting rulesreferences/example.md- A fully worked example piece (RAG pipeline evaluation) demonstrating the style