Editorial workflow
Review an article before publishing
Give an article a final review in focused passes. Check its argument, sources, headings, wording, and links, then compare the revision and review the page in your publishing system.
Direct answer
Review the article in separate passes for purpose, evidence, structure, wording, and links. Resolve unsupported claims and broken instructions first. Then compare the revision with the saved draft and inspect the final page, including downloads and image credits. Automated scores can direct attention; an editor still decides whether the article fulfills its promise.
Check the promise before polishing sentences
Write one sentence that explains what the reader should understand or be able to do after reading. Compare that promise with the draft. Identify missing explanations, repeated material, and sections that belong in a separate article.
The Content Brief Generator can help turn your topic and audience into an editable plan. It does not research the subject or verify the claims. Supply the evidence, examples, and editorial judgment yourself.
Keep a copy of the starting draft so you can review the changes later.
Verify what the article asks readers to believe
Check names, numbers, dates, quotations, and factual claims against their sources. Open cited pages and confirm that each source supports the statement next to it. Distinguish a demonstrated fact from an example, opinion, or estimate.
Pay particular attention to promises in the title and introduction. If the draft claims to answer a question, the body should contain that answer. If an important point remains uncertain, revise the claim or make the uncertainty clear.
Draft: “Set image quality to 70% to make every file 70% smaller.”
Problem: This confuses an encoder setting with a measured saving and promises the same result for every image.
Revision: “Try a quality setting, compare the downloaded file's bytes and visible detail, and adjust if necessary.” A worked example can report its actual source dimensions, output format, settings, and result without presenting one test as a universal outcome.
The same check applies to search advice: replace a promise of rankings or citations with the specific condition the procedure can verify.
Read the heading outline
Read the headings in order, then check the paragraphs under each one. Reorganize material when the sequence is confusing or a heading promises something its section does not provide.
The Heading Structure Checker inspects a pasted outline or HTML for structural findings. It does not read the argument for you. W3C's writing guidance explains how descriptive headings help communicate a document's organization.
Give each editorial check a specific job
| Question | Useful tool | Keep this judgment with the editor |
|---|---|---|
| How much text is in this draft? | Word & Character Counter | Whether the article needs more explanation or less repetition |
| What do English readability formulas report about this sample? | Readability Scorer | Whether the language suits the actual audience |
| Where do sentence patterns deserve review? | Sentence Length Variation Analyzer or Passive Voice Detector | Whether a particular sentence is clear and appropriate |
| What changed between drafts? | Text Difference Checker | Whether edits preserved meaning and corrected the intended problems |
These tools measure or flag particular patterns. They do not determine overall writing quality. English readability formulas and passive-voice heuristics have language limits and can be misleading for short or specialized passages. A long sentence or passive construction may be appropriate in context.
Read the revised passages in full. Keep precise terms when the audience needs them, and explain unfamiliar terms where that helps.
Add links that support the reader
Open each destination and check that it provides what the surrounding sentence promises. Use link text that helps a reader understand the destination, following W3C's advice on meaningful links.
For a larger content collection, Internal Link Suggestion can compare supplied page inventories and target copy locally. Its suggestions need manual review. It does not crawl the live website or verify existing links.
Do not add a link merely because two pages share a phrase. Add it where the destination helps the reader with the next question or a useful supporting detail.
Run the procedure and its downloads
For a tutorial, follow the instructions from a fresh starting state using the example supplied to readers. Confirm that control labels, required fields, and output formats match the current tool. Open downloaded files in an appropriate viewer and check the important values, rather than accepting a successful download as proof that the example works.
Label fictional data, remove private information, and state any relevant limits beside the step they affect. An example that requires an account, paid plan, or external service should say so before the reader starts. If no test was run, describe the instructions as untested rather than inventing a result.
Compare the final revision and preview the page
Use the Text Difference Checker to compare the saved starting draft with the revision. Review removed qualifications, changed numbers, and altered claims as carefully as spelling fixes.
Then inspect the article in the publishing system. Confirm the headings, links, images, credits, and page information. If the title or description changed, the search-copy guide provides a separate drafting check. For image files, follow Prepare website images.
Before you publish:
- The article fulfills the promise made to its intended reader.
- Material claims and quotations have been checked.
- Headings and section order support the explanation.
- Flagged wording has been reviewed in context.
- Links have been opened and assessed manually.
- The final revision and page preview have both been checked.
Decide what blocks publication
Hold the article for an unsupported material claim, an unusable procedure, missing publication rights, or private information in an example. Correct those before spending time on optional polish. Assign an owner to remaining improvements and keep a brief record of what changed.
For an existing article, preserve its original publication date and show an updated date when the revision is substantive. Fixing a typo does not make an old article new. Google's people-first content guidance specifically challenges changing dates to appear fresh when the content has not substantially changed.
Help building a reliable publishing system
If publishing means repeating the same manual steps, a clearer content model or editor workflow may help. Explore content platform development for archives, collections, and publishing systems.
Primary sources and further reading
W3C's writing guidance supports the advice on headings and meaningful links. The tools methodology explains how measurements and editorial heuristics should be interpreted. Individual tools disclose their formulas, language limits, and processing boundaries.