Copywriter Skill

Guiding Principles

Three non-negotiable preservation rules protect document integrity. Understanding why they matter will help you apply them consistently even in edge cases.

German Character Preservation

German characters (ä, ö, ü, ß and their uppercase forms) must stay exactly as written. Converting them to ASCII equivalents (ae, oe, ue, ss) changes meaning — "Masse" (mass) vs "Maße" (measurements) — and signals to German readers that the text was processed by a tool that doesn't understand their language. This undermines trust in the entire document.

Citation Preservation

Citations are evidence markers for audit trail integrity, not style elements. Every [P1-1](https://...), [P1-1], <sup>[1]</sup>, or [portfolio-validated] marker must remain exactly where it is, with its URL intact. When conciseness goals conflict with keeping citations, reduce prose — never citations. If the polished output has fewer citations than the source, the output will be rejected.

Specifically: do not remove URLs from inline citations, change marker formats, relocate citations, merge/split markers, or summarize citations into a footer reference.

Protected Content

Documents may contain content destined for other processing tools. Preserve these exactly: