Change the Style, Keep the Meaning

preserving meaning

Part of: Tone Rewriter

This is the lesson that makes a tone rewriter trustworthy. Making text sound different is easy. The hard part is making sure it still says the same thing. A rewriter that turns "Ship 3 boxes by Friday" into "Please send some boxes soon" has failed: it changed the meaning while chasing a friendlier tone. Two levers pull against each other The tone lever wants to change words. The meaning lock wants to keep facts. When you push tone too hard, the model starts paraphrasing away specifics: numbers go vague, names get dropped, a firm deadline becomes "soon." Your prompt has to hold the meaning lock firmly while the tone lever moves. Pin the facts in the prompt The fix is to spell out what "keep the meaning" concretely forbids. Vague rules get vague obedience: Spelling out "keep all names, numbers, dates" gives the model a checklist instead of a vibe. Specific constraints are the cheapest reliability you can buy. Verify, don't just hope Even a good prompt slips now and then, so a real rewriter checks its output. The cheapest useful check is the easy-to-extract facts: numbers, dates, and dollar amounts should all survive the rewrite. If the original mentions "3 boxes" and "5pm" but the re

Challenge: Did the Rewrite Keep the Facts?