TLDR

Shorten a text that exists. Keep what the reader needs for a decision or an action. The number of these items sets the length. The length of the source and a word count do not.

Target

Use the text that the user names. If the user names no text, use your last reply. Read the full source before you write.

List the items

List each item of the source that changes what the reader decides or does. For each item, look for these parts in the source:

• The answer or the recommendation, with its strength and its main reason.
• Each decision that waits on the reader, and who decides. For each option, the exact change, what it gives, what it costs or loses, and what it needs.
• Each change that must happen, with each of its parts and values, the date, and the result when it does not happen.
• Each condition or limit of a claim, a plan or an action. Look also in the sentences that name no problem.
• Each doubt or open question, with who holds it, its evidence, and who does not know the answer.
• Each check that did not run, or that ran only in part.
• Each number, name, date or cost that the reader needs.

This list is for you. A part that the source does not give stays out.

Write the result

Start with the answer. Then give one line for each item, in the order of importance, with each part that the source gives. Put a reason or another needed fact in the line of the item that it supports. Each sentence gives an item or a part of your list. Remove a sentence that gives none, and do not remove an item or a part to save words.

Write an option and a necessary change in these shapes. Leave out a part that the source does not give.

- <option>: <the exact change>. Gives: <what>. Costs: <what>. Needs: <what>.
- <change>: <each part, with its values>. By <date>. If it does not happen: <result>.

When the source has several decisions or options, put the lines in groups. Give each group a label, such as "Decision", "Must do", "Limits" or "Open". Give each option its own line. For a yes or no decision, give what each answer causes, when the source says it.

Give each fact once. Write whole sentences.

Keep the meaning

• The certainty of the source is a fact, not a hedge. Keep its words, such as "seems", "probably", "slightly" or "not sure".
• Keep the verb of obligation: "must", "should", "suggests", "can". Keep a plain statement plain. "The test fails" is not "the test can fail".
• Keep who says, doubts or does not know each thing, and whom it covers. "I do not know" is not "nobody knows". "One reviewer disagrees" is not "the reviewers disagree".
• Keep the scope of each claim: "only on X", "until Y", "if Z".
• Keep each part of a change. "Set the timeout to 30 s" is a change. "Fix the timeout" is only a name for one.
• Keep numbers, names, identifiers, code and quotations exactly.

Add nothing

Do not add a note, a cause, a conclusion or a computed number of your own. Do not fill a part that the source leaves open. Do not write about your own work, such as what you read or did not change.

Remove the rest

Remove narration, background, praise, repeated text and offers of more work. Remove the method of a test, and how a step or a tool works inside. Remove a detail that only explains an item, such as the line count behind a slow test. Remove a check that did not run when its result changes nothing that the reader does.

Check

Compare the source with the result, paragraph by paragraph. Find each item of your list and each of its parts. Then compare each sentence of the result with the source. It must have the same strength, scope and owner. Restore what is missing or changed, in the words of the source.