docs/superpowers/specs/2026-09-02-about-and-blog-design.md

@@ -73,6 +73,8 @@ Applied to About and every post. Recorded here so the voice does not drift.
 - State limits before someone else finds them. Every post that presents a
   metric says what it does not show.
 - No mission statements, no "passionate about", no invented team.
+- No em dashes. One of the clearest tells of machine-written prose, which is
+  the exact problem this work exists to fix.
 - Short sentences. The existing code comments in this repo are already written
   this way; the prose should match.
 

nextjs-app/app/(frontend)/about/page.tsx

@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ export default function AboutPage() {
       <div className={styles.prose}>
         <p className={styles.lede}>
           I&apos;m a parent in south-west London. When we started looking at
-          primary schools, I found the information I needed was all published —
+          primary schools, I found the information I needed was all published,
           and almost impossible to hold in one place.
         </p>
 
@@ -68,11 +68,11 @@ export default function AboutPage() {
         </p>
 
         <p>
-          What I do have is the problem itself — I&apos;m going through primary
-          admissions right now — and a working knowledge of data, which is what
-          I do for a living. That combination is enough to take published
-          figures and present them honestly. It is not enough to tell you which
-          school is right for your child, and this site never tries to.
+          What I do have is the problem itself. I&apos;m going through primary
+          admissions right now, and I work with data for a living. That
+          combination is enough to take published figures and present them
+          honestly. It is not enough to tell you which school is right for your
+          child, and this site never tries to.
         </p>
 
         <h2 className={styles.subheading}>Where the numbers come from</h2>
@@ -96,9 +96,10 @@ export default function AboutPage() {
         <p>
           A school is not its results. The figures here describe one year group,
           on a handful of days, measured in a way that suits national statistics
-          rather than your child. A small cohort makes percentages swing wildly
-          — in a class of thirty, one pupil is more than three points. Results
-          say nothing at all about whether a child will be happy somewhere.
+          rather than your child. A small cohort makes percentages swing wildly.
+          In a class of thirty, one pupil is worth more than three points.
+          Results say nothing at all about whether a child will be happy
+          somewhere.
         </p>
 
         <p>
@@ -113,8 +114,8 @@ export default function AboutPage() {
         <h2 className={styles.subheading}>If something&apos;s wrong</h2>
 
         <p>
-          Tell me and I&apos;ll fix it. Genuinely — if a figure looks wrong, or
-          a page gives a misleading impression of a school, I want to know.
+          Tell me and I&apos;ll fix it. If a figure looks wrong, or a page gives
+          a misleading impression of a school, I genuinely want to know.
           It&apos;s the fastest way this gets better.
         </p>
 

nextjs-app/blocks/Callout.ts

@@ -16,8 +16,8 @@ export const Callout: Block = {
       type: 'select',
       defaultValue: 'caveat',
       options: [
-        { label: 'Caveat — what this does not show', value: 'caveat' },
-        { label: 'Note — useful aside', value: 'note' },
+        { label: 'Caveat: what this does not show', value: 'caveat' },
+        { label: 'Note: useful aside', value: 'note' },
       ],
     },
     { name: 'body', type: 'textarea', required: true },

nextjs-app/docs/PUBLISHING.md

@@ -1,12 +1,12 @@
 # Publishing to the blog
 
 The blog is Payload CMS, running inside the Next.js app. There is no separate
-service and no second deploy — writing a post is done in the browser and takes
+service and no second deploy. Writing a post is done in the browser and takes
 effect on the live site within seconds.
 
 ## Signing in
 
-`https://www.schoolcompare.co.uk/admin` — one account, no registration. If you
+`https://www.schoolcompare.co.uk/admin`, one account, no registration. If you
 need the account seeded on a fresh environment, run against the container:
 
 ```bash
@@ -24,29 +24,29 @@ password there.
 | Field | Notes |
 |---|---|
 | **Title** | The `<h1>` and the browser tab. |
-| **Slug** | The URL segment, in the sidebar. **Never change it after publishing** — it is the canonical URL, and changing it breaks every existing link and discards the page's accumulated search signal. |
+| **Slug** | The URL segment, in the sidebar. **Never change it after publishing.** It is the canonical URL, and changing it breaks every existing link and discards the page's accumulated search signal. |
 | **Published at** | The date shown on the post and in the feed. |
 | **Excerpt** | Max 200 characters. Shown on the index *and* used as the meta description, so write it as a standalone sentence rather than a teaser. |
 | **Hero image** | Optional. Becomes the social share image; without one, the site's generated card is used. |
 | **Content** | Rich text. `/` inserts a block. |
 
-**Save as draft** while you're working — drafts are not public. **Publish** when
+**Save as draft** while you're working; drafts are not public. **Publish** when
 it's ready.
 
 ### The callout block
 
 One custom block, `Callout`, with two tones:
 
-- **Caveat** — what a number does *not* show. This is the one that matters: it
+- **Caveat**: what a number does *not* show. This is the one that matters. It
   is how a post states a limitation in context rather than burying it in a
   closing paragraph.
-- **Note** — a useful aside.
+- **Note**: a useful aside.
 
 ### Images
 
 Every image requires alt text; the editor will not let you save without it.
 Uploads go to a Docker volume on the host, which is backed up separately from
-Postgres — an image is not reproducible from the pipeline the way school data
+Postgres. An image is not reproducible from the pipeline the way school data
 is.
 
 ## How publishing reaches the live site
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ is.
   so a new post appears immediately.
 - `/blog/[slug]` is cached after its first request. Publishing or editing fires
   a `revalidatePath` from the collection's `afterChange` hook, which drops that
-  cached copy — so edits appear immediately too.
+  cached copy, so edits appear immediately too.
 
 If a change doesn't show, it is far more likely the post is still a draft than
 that the cache is stale.
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ that the cache is stale.
 These rules are why the blog exists. A post that ignores them makes the site
 read more machine-generated, not less.
 
-- **First person singular.** "I built", "I found" — never "we provide".
+- **First person singular.** "I built", "I found", never "we provide".
 - **Concrete over general.** "When we were looking at schools in Wandsworth"
   beats any amount of stated warmth.
 - **State limits before someone else finds them.** Every post that presents a
@@ -73,10 +73,14 @@ read more machine-generated, not less.
   human wrote it: generated content does not volunteer its own weaknesses.
 - **No mission statements, no "passionate about", no invented team.** There is
   one person here.
+- **No em dashes.** They are one of the clearest tells of machine-written
+  prose, which is the whole problem this blog exists to fix. A full stop, a
+  colon, a semicolon or a pair of commas does the job and reads as though a
+  person chose it.
 - **Short sentences.**
 - **Never publish a surname, an employer, or a child's name.** The site's author
   is "Tudor". See `/about`.
 - **Never invent a figure**, even illustratively. On a site whose whole
   proposition is official data, a made-up number attached to a real school is
-  the one thing it cannot do — and no illustrative intent survives being
+  the one thing it cannot do, and no illustrative intent survives being
   screenshotted.