Copy polish

Copy Polish

Improve copy the author already wrote — without taking it away from them. The job is to sharpen clarity, voice, proof, specificity, and the call to action while keeping the author's intent and rhythm. You change only what earns the change. A polish that returns unrecognizable copy has failed, even if the new copy is "better."

This skill is bilingual. English copy gets the Seven Sweeps editorial passes. German copy gets the Lektorat pass, which additionally hunts translationese (calques, Denglisch, Nominalstil, Floskeln) that an English-tuned edit would miss. Detect the language first, then run the matching engine.

When to use this vs. a rewrite skill

Use copy-polish to improve existing copy. If the user has no copy yet and wants something written from scratch, that is a job for copywriting-en or texten-de. If the copy is fine but reads AI-generated, humanizer-en / humanizer-de are the sharper tools. Polish overlaps with all of these and will borrow their rules, but its discipline is minimal, voice-preserving edits, not generation.

Workflow

Run these steps in order. Do not skip step 2 — naming the job out loud is what keeps you from rewriting copy that only needed a trim.

1. Detect the language and load the right engine

• English copy → apply the Seven Sweeps. Read references/seven-sweeps-en.md.
• German copy → apply the Lektorat pass. Read references/lektorat-de.md (it is written in German). The German reference is the anti-translationese engine and is the half most likely to be needed, because German marketing copy is so often translated from English.
• Mixed / bilingual page → polish each language with its own engine; never let English edits leak into the German (or vice versa). Flag any inconsistency between the two versions.

If the brief or the user names a target locale (de-AT, de-CH), note that currency placement, ß/ss, and quotation marks differ; flag it rather than silently applying de-DE rules.

2. Decide refresh vs. rewrite — and say which, explicitly

State the decision before you touch a word. This single sentence prevents the two classic failures: polishing copy that needed a rethink, or rewriting copy that only needed a trim.

• Refresh (the default): the structure and message are sound. Tighten clarity, voice, proof, specificity, and CTAs in place. Most "make this better" requests are refreshes.
• Rewrite: the copy targets the wrong reader, leads with the wrong message, or has no proof to build on. The structure is broken, not just the words. Only escalate to a rewrite when a refresh genuinely can't fix the underlying problem — and flag it to the user first rather than quietly replacing their page.

Write the verdict like: "This is a refresh — the message is right, I'll tighten the hero and add proof to the trust line" or "I'd recommend a rewrite here: the page is all about you, not the reader, and there's no proof to build on. Want me to go ahead?"

3. Read the brand brief if it exists

Look for .claude/brand-brief.md first, then brand-brief.md in the project root (voice adjectives and anti-adjectives, du/Sie, glossary, banned words, proof points). If present, it overrides these defaults — match its voice and respect its banned-words list and glossary. If the brief carries voice samples (Stimmproben), they are your sharpest target: polish toward their sentence length, rhythm, and word choice. If absent, infer the voice from the copy itself and from any 2–3 paragraphs of the author's writing the user supplies, and proceed. Never block on a missing brief.

4. Run the passes, one focused sweep at a time

Make one pass per dimension rather than fixing everything at once — separating the passes keeps each one sharp. The two engines map onto the same conversion goals:

Goal	English (Seven Sweeps)	German (Lektorat)
Read it in one scan	Clarity, front-load	Satzlänge, kein Schachtelsatz, Aktiv
Sound like the brand	Voice & Tone	Register, kein Amtsdeutsch, du/Sie konsistent
Earn each claim	"So what?" + "Prove it"	Nutzen statt Floskel, prüfbare Fakten
Say something specific	Specificity	Floskeln/Worthülsen raus, Zahlen rein
Sound native	(n/a)	Calques & Denglisch raus (Verbalstil, Idiom)
Make the next step easy	Zero risk	starke CTA + Risiko-Reduzierer

Full detail, examples, and the named anti-patterns live in the two reference files. Read the one that matches the copy's language before editing.

5. Present the result so the author can accept or reject each change

Default output:

1. The verdict — refresh or rewrite, in one line.
2. The polished copy — clean, ready to paste.
3. What changed and why — a short list keyed to the passes (e.g., "Hero: cut 'innovative, end-to-end' (filler) → led with the reader's outcome"). Keep the why tied to a pass or anti-pattern so the edit is defensible, not just an opinion.

Surface anything you deliberately left alone ("kept your headline — it already passes the competitor test"), and flag claims you couldn't verify rather than inventing proof. Never fabricate numbers, customer names, or certifications to fill a "Prove it" gap — mark the gap and ask the author for the real figure.

The one test that catches the most filler

Apply the competitor copy-paste test to every hero line, value prop, and trust statement, in both languages: could a competitor paste this exact sentence onto their own site without it becoming false? If yes, the line says nothing specific to you — replace it with a number, a named capability, a mechanism, or a proof point. (German: „Könnte ein Mitbewerber den Satz 1:1 übernehmen?“ → ja = Floskel = streichen.)

Examples

Both examples are original and constructed; they are not copied from any live site.

Example A — English refresh (hero + trust line)

Input

"Our innovative, all-in-one workspace empowers teams of all sizes to seamlessly collaborate in today's fast-paced work environment. We are passionate about productivity and committed to delivering a world-class experience."

Verdict: Refresh. The offer is sound; the copy is all filler and no proof.

Output

"One workspace for your team's tasks, docs, and deadlines — so status lives where the work does, not in Monday meetings. Free for teams up to 10; most teams are set up in an afternoon."

Why: Clarity/Voice cut the AI-corporate tells ("innovative," "seamlessly," "in today's fast-paced work environment," "world-class," "of all sizes"). So what?/ Specificity led with the reader's concrete outcome (status without status meetings). Prove it swapped "passionate and committed" — which any competitor could paste verbatim — for checkable offer facts. The author's plain, declarative rhythm is preserved.

Example B — German Lektorat (translationese removed)

Input

„Unsere innovative, ganzheitliche Plattform ermöglicht die Realisierung von umfassendem Markenschutz und macht am Ende des Tages den Unterschied.“

Verdict: Refresh (Lektorat). Aussage tragfähig; Text ist übersetzt und floskelhaft.

Output

„Wir schützen Ihre Marke vor gefälschten Websites, Phishing und Fake-Profilen – und nehmen Betrugsseiten für Sie vom Netz.“

Why: Verbalstil statt Nominalstil („Realisierung“ → „schützen“, „nehmen … vom Netz“). Floskeln raus („innovativ“, „ganzheitlich“). Calque „am Ende des Tages“ gestrichen; „realisieren“ als Bedeutungslehnwort vermieden. Konkreter Nutzen statt Abstraktion, Gedankenstrich „–“ mit Leerzeichen. Anrede konsequent Sie.

What to preserve

• The author's sentence rhythm and word choice where they already work. If they write short and punchy, don't smooth it into corporate cadence.
• A working headline. If it passes the competitor test and matches the voice, leave it.
• Person and register. Don't flip du↔Sie or formal↔casual unless the brief or an inconsistency demands it; if you do change it, make it consistent everywhere and say so.

Reference files

• references/seven-sweeps-en.md — the seven English editorial passes in depth, each with a before/after; the refresh-vs-rewrite decision; the named anti-patterns (Wall of Features, Corporate Speak, Buried CTA, No Proof, Me-First); the competitor copy-paste test. Read it before polishing English copy.
• references/lektorat-de.md — the German anti-translationese engine (in German, with a table of contents): the calque table (hard rules vs. contested style), the anglicism test + Scheinanglizismen, Verbalstil over Nominalstil, sentence-length / active-voice rules, and the Floskeln blacklist + trust vocabulary. Read it before polishing German copy.

Optional enrichment (not required; this skill works without them): shared/references/ conversion-principles.md for the language-neutral seven core principles, and the humanizer-en / humanizer-de skills when the copy reads machine-generated.