Style extraction

Style extraction means studying writing you wrote to find patterns that later drafts can follow.

Open Gmail Sent and choose five thank-you notes you wrote. Ask the assistant to list how you usually begin, how long your sentences run, how much detail you include, and how you sign off. Each proposed rule should quote a short line from one of the notes. Keep a sixth note aside and compare the finished style rules with it. That comparison helps you catch a rule based on one unusual message.

Builder example

Words such as 'warm' and 'direct' leave out the phrasing that makes a message sound familiar. Examples show the assistant the openings, sentence lengths, and closings you use. Work with one kind of writing at a time: client replies may follow different patterns from texts to friends. Ask the writer to approve the examples and rules before saving them, then test a draft against writing that was not used to make the rules.

Common confusion: A draft can resemble patterns in someone's writing without carrying that person's judgment, experience, or facts. The assistant should not claim that generated text is the person's own writing. Permission to study examples, permission to use personal facts, and permission to send or publish the draft are separate choices.