BLUF

Purpose

Find the most important idea in the supplied writing and judge whether the reader encounters it at the earliest point that best serves the piece.

Treat BLUF as an importance-and-placement test, not a rule that every piece must state its thesis in the first sentence. Account for audience, purpose, format, narrative strategy, persuasion, and comic timing.

Read ../../references/context-contract.md and load the relevant project, publication, assignment, audience, and format context before judging placement.

Preserve the writer's ownership of the thesis. Surface a stronger latent lede as a candidate, not as permission to rebuild the piece around a new argument.

Establish The Scope

Identify:

• The unit under review: full piece, post, section, paragraph, or sentence
• The intended reader
• The unit's job: inform, recommend, persuade, explain, instruct, entertain, or narrate
• The amount of attention and prior knowledge the format reasonably allows

Read the full supplied artifact before judging its opening. Do not infer the bottom line from the introduction alone.

For a long piece with subheads, check the whole-piece BLUF first, then perform a lightweight section scan. For a supplied selection, judge that unit unless broader context is required to determine its purpose.

If no audience is named, assume an intelligent, interested first-time reader with no unstated context.

Extract The Three BLUFs

Distinguish among:

State when the layers align.

Do not mistake the most vivid sentence, broadest claim, or cleverest phrase for the latent lede. A latent lede must better capture the artifact's consequence, argument, finding, action, or reader payoff.

If several plausible bottom lines compete, surface them as choices requiring writer judgment.

Determine The Placement Mode

Use the artifact's function to determine what "up front" should mean.

Do not apply a universal paragraph or word-count threshold. Judge delay relative to the artifact's length, reader, and function.

Run The Placement Tests

Stop-Reading Test

Stop at the end of the natural preview:

• Subject line and first sentence for an email or memo
• First beat for a short post
• Headline, dek, and opening sentences for an article
• Opening movement for an essay or narrative
• First sentence for a section or paragraph

State what a reader would believe the artifact is about and what they would miss by stopping there.

Alignment Test

Compare the declared and delivered BLUFs.

Check whether the headline, opening, body, and ending agree about the important idea. Flag an opening that is clear but foregrounds the wrong thing.

Delay Test

Inspect everything that appears before the delivered or latent BLUF.

Keep material that creates necessary context, tension, trust, comprehension, narrative force, persuasive leverage, or comic timing.

Flag material that mainly records the writer's warm-up, supplies background before relevance, repeats setup, or postpones a point already ready to land.

Every delay must earn itself.

Hierarchy Test

Check whether the material following the BLUF supports, develops, qualifies, or applies it in a useful order.

Do not require descending importance when chronology, causality, suspense, or instructional sequence better serves the reader.

Compression Test

Express the delivered BLUF in one or two sentences.

If it cannot be expressed without joining unrelated claims, diagnose a split or unclear center rather than merely moving a sentence earlier.

Choose A Verdict

Add a secondary diagnosis only when useful:

• Intro drift — The opening describes an earlier version of the piece rather than the piece as written.
• Premature BLUF — The point appears early but before the reader has the minimum context needed to understand or trust it.
• Local burial — A section, paragraph, or sentence hides its own contribution.
• Repeated BLUF — The writing keeps re-announcing the point instead of developing it.

Report The Diagnosis

For articles, essays, or substantial sections, use:

## BLUF Check

**Scope:** [Full piece / section / post / paragraph / sentence]

**Verdict:** [Front and center / Delayed but earned / Buried / Wrong lede / Unclear or split]

**Declared BLUF:** [What the opening foregrounds]

**Delivered BLUF:** [What the artifact actually supports or concludes]

**Latent lede:** [Stronger idea found later, if present]

**Current location:** [Exact paragraph, section, or quoted sentence]

**Best location:** [Where the important idea belongs]

### Placement Diagnosis

[Explain what earns its place before the BLUF, what delays it unnecessarily, and how the current order affects the reader.]

### Smallest Effective Move

[Move, cut, promote, combine, reframe, or preserve.]

### What To Protect

[Scene, tension, voice, qualification, joke, or context that should survive the change.]

Omit the latent-lede and protection fields when they do not apply.

For a short post, paragraph, or sentence, compress the output:

**Verdict:** [Verdict]

**BLUF:** [Most important idea]

**Placement:** [Where it is and where it belongs]

**Smallest move:** [Specific recommendation]

Quote the relevant language and identify its exact location. Do not give a generic instruction to "get to the point."

Revise Only When Asked

Diagnose and recommend placement by default.

When asked to fix the artifact:

1. Preserve the writer's intended claim and voice.
2. Try the smallest structural move first: promote an existing sentence, move a paragraph, cut warm-up, tighten the bridge between hook and point, or reframe the opening emphasis.
3. Rewrite the opening only when rearrangement cannot solve the problem.
4. Adjust transitions created by the move.
5. Do not introduce stock announcements such as "This article argues" or "The bottom line is."
6. Flag any proposed thesis change for writer judgment before rebuilding the piece around it.

Boundaries

• Use cw-hook to generate an attention-getting opening. A strong hook can still bury or misrepresent the lede.
• Use cw-thesis when the central claim itself needs to be generated or sharpened. BLUF judges the hierarchy and placement of ideas already present.
• Use cw-tracks to remove scaffolding, discovery narration, and writerly warm-up throughout a draft. BLUF focuses on where the important idea belongs.
• Use cw-dev-edit for a comprehensive review of argument, structure, stakes, evidence, and payoff. BLUF is a narrower placement lens.
• Use cw-reader to report the lived sequence of confusion, resistance, or lost attention. BLUF makes an editorial judgment about importance and order.
• Use cw-final-pass for a publication-readiness verdict. A BLUF check can happen at any stage and on incomplete material.

Principles

• Put reader value before writer chronology.
• Distinguish attention from importance.
• Treat a clear but secondary opening as a placement failure.
• Protect deliberate suspense, persuasion, humor, and narrative timing when they earn the delay.
• Do not confuse directness with formulaic thesis announcements.
• Prefer the smallest move that reveals the piece already present.
• Keep consequential thesis choices with the writer.