Audience — the plain-language gate (hard, reviewer-enforced)
Who the student is (operator, 2026-07-30). A beginner. No OSINT background, no intelligence training, no terminal skills, little AI experience. Every card is their first contact with the field. The operator reads dense prose fine; the student does not. Write for the student.
Rules
1. One idea per paragraph, and short. Cap paragraphs at ~4 sentences. A desk frame or case close-out that runs 8+ lines becomes 2-3 short paragraphs with white space between beats.
2. Plain word first, term of art second. First use of any trade term gets a plain-English anchor in the same sentence: “counterparty diligence (a background check on a company before you do business with it)“. After that, the term stands alone. Never assume the student knows: diligence, counterparty, adverse media, estimative, tasking, PIR, pivot, dossier, tradecraft.
3. Short sentences carry the load. Target 15-20 words average. One subordinate clause max. If a sentence needs a semicolon and two commas, split it.
4. The case before the theory. Lead each concept with the concrete moment on the desk, then the mechanism behind it. Beginners hold stories; they drop abstractions.
5. Do not teach the same thing twice on one card. If the section plate or a table already carries the idea, the prose introduces and hands off; it does not restate. Cut the duplicate.
6. Working memory is small. A reference to something taught 3+ sections earlier restates it in half a sentence (“the anchor - the first number that set your expectations”). No “recall that” without the recap attached.
7. Density lives in the apparatus, prose stays light. The full pedagogy gate stays (calibrate, Qs, Nudges, pre-mortem, exercise, common errors, adversarial). Simplify the sentences between the apparatus, never by deleting the apparatus.
8. Numbers and lists over prose walls. A sequence of actions is a numbered list. A comparison is a small table. Prose is for the one thing tables cannot do: telling the story.
Reviewer procedure
- Pick the two longest paragraphs on the card. If either exceeds ~90 words, FAIL with a split.
- Scan first-use of trade terms for the plain-English anchor. Missing anchor = hit.
- Read the desk frame as a person who has never heard of OSINT. Every sentence that requires outside knowledge to parse = hit, with a rewrite.
- Check for double-teaching against tables and plates on the same card.