Writing Brief

What the writing brief is

The writing brief is the Phase 2b output: a structured, actionable list of the specific additions and revisions your content needs to close the structural gaps identified in Phase 1.

Phase 2 has three outputs: the explanation framework (Phase 2a — which concepts should exist for your topic and audience), the writing brief (Phase 2b — what to add or fix), and the page architecture recommendation (Phase 2c — whether the page's scope is correct). The writing brief is the second of these.

Phase 1 — the concept graph and boundary classifications — is free. The writing brief and all Phase 2 outputs require an analysis credit.

Every item in the brief maps to a specific gap in the explanation framework for your topic and audience. Concepts classified as adjacent or excluded are intentionally absent — see "Why some concepts are not in the brief" below.

The opening summary

The writing brief opens with a one-paragraph summary: a diagnosis of the page's structural position. It explains which gaps are most significant, what the core coverage problem is, and what the brief prioritizes for this topic and audience.

Read the summary before starting on the action lists. It frames why the toAdd, toClarify, and toMakeExplicit items look the way they do and gives you a working model of the structural problem before you begin revising.

toAdd

These are concepts that are absent from your content entirely but required by the explanation framework. Adding them closes the largest gaps.

Each toAdd item names the concept, explains why it is required for this audience, and in some cases provides sentence-level guidance on how to introduce it. Start here: absent concepts have the largest impact on the coverage score.

toClarify

These are concepts that are present in your content but weakly integrated: named or mentioned but not explained at the depth required. Clarifying them improves the integration state from weakly_integrated or underexplained to well_integrated.

toClarify items often require expanding an existing section rather than adding new content. The concept exists; the explanation does not.

toMakeExplicit

These are relationships between concepts that your content implies but never states directly. The structural assumption is that an AI system parsing your content is more reliable when connections are stated explicitly, not inferred.

Example: your page explains concept A and concept B separately, but never states that A depends on B, or that B is a consequence of A. Making that relationship explicit is the revision.

sentenceGuidance

For some items, ContentGrapher generates specific sentence-level suggestions: example phrasings, structural patterns, or multi-concept sequences that address several gaps at once.

These are starting points, not copy. Use them to understand the structure of what is missing, then write the actual sentences in your voice.

Priority order

Address toAdd items first — they close the largest gaps. Then toClarify. Then toMakeExplicit. This order reflects impact on the coverage score: absent concepts have more weight than weakly integrated ones, which have more weight than missing relationships.

After revising, re-analyze. The delta view will confirm which gaps closed and surface any that remain.

Why some concepts are not in the brief

Concepts classified as adjacent or excluded in Phase 1 do not appear in the writing brief — not even in the toAdd section. This is intentional: explaining out-of-scope concepts more fully does not improve structural completeness. The solution for adjacent and excluded concepts is a scope decision, not a writing task.

If you see a concept in your concept graph that you expected to find in the writing brief but cannot, check its boundary classification. If it is adjacent or excluded, the brief is correct. See Boundary Classifications for how to act on adjacent and excluded concepts.