Agreed at kickoff and attached to the pilot agreement as Schedule A. Its job is to turn "we do not like it" into a specific, fixable sentence, which is the difference between a revision and an argument.
| # | Criterion | Checked against |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | It matches the approved brief. Every H2 in the approved brief is present. The angle is the angle you approved. The word count is within 15% of the budget in the brief. | The approved brief document |
| 2 | It is in your voice. It follows the style guide and the tone of voice profile agreed at kickoff. Banned words and constructions do not appear. No em dashes or en dashes appear anywhere. | Your style guide and banned-word list |
| 3 | It is accurate as far as we can make it. Researched examples and figures link to their sources in the text. A claim that needs your reviewer's sign-off is flagged rather than asserted. | The source links in the article |
| 4 | It has been proofread by a person. A professional editor at Proofed has proofread it, and their tracked changes and comments can be reviewed change by change in Austen. | The track-changes review in Austen |
| 5 | It has been optimised for search and AI answer engines, and both of Austen's scores are delivered with it as they stand. The scores are a guide, not a pass mark: a score below 90 is reported to you, not treated as a failure. | The two scores delivered with the article |
| 6 | It is publishable. Title, meta description, headings, internal links where specified and hero image are present and correct. | The delivered file |
Every one of those is welcome and none of them is a complaint. Each is treated as a new brief, which replaces one of the ten rather than being added to them.
We revise at no charge until the criterion is met. There is no limit on revisions against an unmet criterion.
Filled in at kickoff. These sit on top of the six criteria above and are what criterion 2 is actually checked against.
| Style guide | [document or URL] |
| Tone of voice | [three or four words: e.g. plain, warm, never breathless] |
| Words and phrases we never use | [list] |
| Spellings and capitalisation | [e.g. en-GB, sentence case headings, product name always capitalised] |
| Claims that always need review | [e.g. anything about efficacy, pricing, or a named competitor] |
| Who reviews those | [name, title] |
| Links | [internal link rules, whether external links are allowed] |
| Images | [hero only, or hero plus inline; any house style] |
| Publishing destination | [WordPress, webhook, or files only] |