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Review Process

Four review layers that took the manuscript from drafted to publishable: automated quality audits, a 10-dimension strategic assessment, a 4-phase editorial workflow, and cross-chapter contradiction detection. Combined: 469 issues caught and resolved, 26 contradictions standardized, zero critical issues remaining.

Contents

  • Review Philosophy -- Why "review the chapter" is the most dangerous instruction you can give an AI. The 4-layer review stack (automated audits, thematic review, editorial review, cross-chapter detection), why sequencing matters (mechanical first, strategic second, prose third, consistency last), and the division of labor between AI (volume and pattern detection) and humans (judgment). The practical payoff: 469 issues caught that would have shipped otherwise.

  • Big Themes Review -- A 10-dimension assessment that evaluates a manuscript the way a publisher's acquisitions editor would: market positioning, audience clarity, argument strength, framework quality, example diversity, technical depth, narrative arc, actionability, voice consistency, and completeness. Scored as Critical Fix / Important / Minor / No Issues. What it caught: 0 critical, 3 important (example over-reliance, startup audience underserved in Part III, technical depth inconsistency), 2 minor.

  • Editorial Workflow -- The 4-phase process: developmental editing (structure and argument), line editing (240 issues -- voice, kill list, rhythm, specificity), copyediting (188 issues -- grammar, terminology, formatting), and final verification (15 critical issues -- dead URLs, orphaned footnotes, stale frontmatter). The publish-review skill that orchestrates the phases with pre-scan deduplication, fact verification protocol, and post-review grep verification.

  • Contradiction Detection -- Five types of contradictions (stat conflicts, terminology drift, advice contradictions, example inconsistency, framework conflicts), three detection methods (grep scanning, pre-scan deduplication, full manuscript review), and the 4-step resolution process (identify, verify against primary sources, standardize everywhere, use primary mention with back-references). Found and resolved 26 contradictions in a single pass -- including numbers that changed between research sessions.

Key Takeaways

  • Different types of problems hide at different levels of abstraction. A citation audit won't catch a stalled narrative arc. A grammar pass won't catch cross-chapter stat conflicts. Each problem type needs its own lens.
  • The editorial review phase is the longest (4-8 hours per chapter) and the one where the quality gap between "AI-written" and "published" actually closes. Don't rush it.
  • Contradictions aren't a risk at book scale -- they're a certainty. Run cross-chapter scans every 3-4 chapters, not just at the end.

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