Rules for PowerPoint

# Voice rules for PowerPoint

30 rules apply on the PowerPoint surface, 25 declared, 0 measured, 5 inherited and 0 proposed, and 5 rules have not yet been confirmed by the author for this surface. No rule on this surface has yet been measured from attested writing, so this profile is the author's stated preferences and not a measured fingerprint.

## Never violate

- No emoji. Not in copy, not in headings, not in commit messages.
  Declared, enforced as a house rule in his codebase.
- Sentence case everywhere. No all-caps strings and no uppercase text styling.
  Declared, enforced as a house rule in his codebase.
  Exception: The resume surface is exempt for section headings only: the author's own master resume sets PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE, EDUCATION & AWARDS and PERSONAL in all caps, and the template convention wins there. Resume body bullets stay sentence case.
- Every number, quote and factual claim carries its source. An interpretive read is labelled a computed read, never dressed as a sourced fact.
  Declared, enforced as a house rule in his codebase.
  Why: The non-negotiable house rule. A claim without provenance does not ship.
  Exception: On the resume surface numbers ship without inline citations. The provenance duty still holds, it just lives off the page: every figure must be attested in the author's work record or a prior resume, and a figure with no attestation does not go on the page.
  Exception: On the interview_answer surface a spoken answer carries no inline citation. The provenance duty holds off the page: every figure must be attested in the resume bullet catalogue or in a prior interview answer, and the two are separate sources, so a fact attested only in a prior answer is sayable but is known to be absent from the resume.
- Never invent a figure, a name, a citation or a confidence level. An honest gap is stated as a gap.
  Declared, enforced as a house rule in his codebase.
  Why: Repeatedly enforced across his codebase: a missing structure is an honest visible gap, a fabricated one silently corrupts everything downstream.
- Every slide title states the conclusion, not the topic, and carries the number that proves it.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
  Why: A topic title makes the reader do the work. He reads a topic title as amateur, and read a reviewer complaint about missing insight as a demand for sharper conclusions, not for bare labels.
  Good: Breadth is the one axis rivals cannot buy, 78 of 137 classes against Enamine's 52
  Avoid: Reaction class coverage comparison
- Bold the lead phrase of each bullet and weave it grammatically into the unbolded remainder, with no punctuation break between them.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
  Good: **Chemify alone scores strong on both make axes** while every rival spikes on one and collapses on the other
  Avoid: **Make axes:** Chemify is the only strong performer.
- No terminal period at the end of a bullet.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Black font everywhere. No coloured text.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- No coloured boxes, fills or decoration. The only section-header treatment is a thin black horizontal line placed under the header text, never above it.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
  Exception: Orange CUSTOMER-FACING / INTERNAL chips at (0, -0.29) are real furniture on the Chemify template and are kept.
- Slide title 28pt and unbolded, maximum two lines. Section header 16pt. Body and bullets 14pt. Shorten copy to fit rather than shrinking the type.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
  Why: The large sizes are deliberate. They force lower density, so copy gets shortened rather than the type getting smaller.
- Set internal margins to zero on all four sides of every text box.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Use the font the template actually runs, not the theme default. On the Chemify deck that is Century Gothic even though the theme reports Calibri.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
  Why: Reading the theme is not enough. Every run in the Chemify deck overrides the theme font.
- Every source used on a slide is cited in a footnote on that specific slide.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.

## Default, depart only with a reason

- Avoid the em dash. Use a comma, or split the sentence, or use "and". Depart only where the em dash genuinely earns its place, and say why.
  Declared, stated by the author himself, changed in the local delta layer by delta 4, 6.
  Why: Stated by the author as a hard rule for decks, and repeated as a house rule.
  Good: Breadth is the one axis rivals cannot buy, 78 of 137 classes against Enamine's 52
  Avoid: Breadth is the one axis rivals cannot buy — 78 of 137 classes against Enamine's 52
  Exception: This rule is about the EM dash used as a sentence connector. An EN dash joining a numeric range or a relational compound is a different character doing a different job, and replacing it changes the meaning, so "Phase 1-3" is a span and "Phase 1, 3" is two phases. Leave those alone.
  Exception: Downgraded from never-violate on 2026-07-28. In an internal share deck the author deliberately rewrote complying lines to use an em dash, so treat this as the strong default for CEO-facing work and depart with a reason elsewhere.
- Avoid the semicolon. Use a comma and "and", or start a new sentence. Depart only where two clauses genuinely belong in one sentence, and say why.
  Declared, stated by the author himself, changed in the local delta layer by delta 5, 7.
  Why: Stated by the author alongside the em-dash rule.
  Exception: Downgraded from never-violate on 2026-07-28. The author added four prose semicolons while editing an internal share deck, each one replacing a compliant construction, so this is the strong default rather than an absolute.
- Keep the visible sentence short and punchy, and push the supporting detail into a trailing parenthetical, usually "(e.g., X, Y)".
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
  Why: Stated by the author as the way to keep a dense line readable.
- Lead with the conclusion and the commercial consequence. Put method and technical detail after it.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Within one list, every bullet opens with the same grammatical form. Pick present-tense verbs or noun phrases, then hold it across that list.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Bulletize most body text. Prefer indented bullets over prose, especially when each line is short.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Charts earn their place by carrying the synthesis, never as decoration. Compress a chart to about three quarters of slide width and put a "what this means" insights rail on the right.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Avoid naming an internal system, tool or codename. Say what was done, not which of our tools did it. Depart only where the customer already knows the tool by name, and say so.
  Inherited, an extrapolation from another surface that the author has not confirmed, extrapolated for this surface, never stated by him, still awaiting the author's confirmation.
  Why: A customer has no idea what MIRA is, and naming it spends their attention on our plumbing rather than on their problem.
  Good: Screened 6,351 funded biotechs against your chemistry
  Avoid: MIRA screened 6,351 funded biotechs against your chemistry
- Only put a claim on a customer slide if it is settled. A provisional read, a caveat about method, or a number still being validated belongs on an internal slide.
  Inherited, an extrapolation from another surface that the author has not confirmed, extrapolated for this surface, never stated by him, still awaiting the author's confirmation.
  Why: Internal work is allowed to be honest about being unfinished. A customer reads a hedge as either doubt about the claim or doubt about us.
- Lead every claim with what the customer gets. Our capability is the reason it is true, not the headline.
  Inherited, an extrapolation from another surface that the author has not confirmed, extrapolated for this surface, never stated by him, still awaiting the author's confirmation.
  Good: Makeability assessment keeps discovery targeted and transfers the savings to you
  Avoid: Our makeability assessment engine scores every route against an in-stock catalogue
- Name rivals and their weaknesses plainly, and carry the uncertainty with the claim. An internal reader needs the real state, including what is not yet known.
  Inherited, an extrapolation from another surface that the author has not confirmed, extrapolated for this surface, never stated by him, still awaiting the author's confirmation.
  Why: The hedging that would undermine a customer slide is exactly what makes an internal slide usable, because the reader is deciding what to do next.
- Label an interpretive derivation as a computed read, and say what would change the conclusion.
  Inherited, an extrapolation from another surface that the author has not confirmed, extrapolated for this surface, never stated by him, still awaiting the author's confirmation.

## Preferences

- Prefer a clause that carries itself over the "X: Y" colon-as-separator pattern. This is a preference, not a default, and his own writing uses the colon freely.
  Declared, stated by the author himself, changed in the local delta layer by delta 8.
  Exception: A colon introducing a genuine list is fine.
  Exception: Code, file paths, and key-value data are not prose.
  Exception: Downgraded from strong to soft on 2026-07-28. His attested MediSure deck uses the pattern 81 times in 2619 words, so on the evidence it is not a rule he follows. Weigh it, do not enforce it.
- Aim for about ten slides in the main story. Less is more. A longer readable appendix is acceptable as backup.
  Declared, stated by the author himself.
- Open a line telegraphically. Drop the leading article and any scene-setting words, and start on the noun that carries the claim.
  Declared, stated by the author himself, changed in the local delta layer by delta 2.
  Why: Visible across his edits as a consistent opening move, independent of the compression finding, because he does it even where the line barely gets shorter.
- Cut hedges, intensifiers and trailing explanatory clauses. Say the thing once and stop.
  Declared, stated by the author himself, changed in the local delta layer by delta 3.
  Why: He repeatedly deletes qualifying words that add no claim, and amputates trailing clauses that explain what the sentence has already implied.
- On revision, cut about a fifth of the words. Across two independent draft-to-final pairs the edit made the line shorter far more often than longer, and the net word count fell every time.
  Declared, stated by the author himself, changed in the local delta layer by delta 10.
  Why: This is the only finding that replicated across both usable edit pairs, and it is the one least sensitive to who held the pen, because the decision to compress is an editorial judgement either way. It is not currently a rule. The nearest seed rules govern deck length and parenthetical detail, neither of which says what to do when revising an existing line.

## How to report what you applied

State that you used the PowerPoint voice surface and repeat the honesty note above verbatim.
Do not say the output was style matched, voice matched or modelled on the author's writing. No rule here was measured from his text, so the accurate claim is that you followed his stated rules.
If you departed from a rule, say which rule and why, rather than leaving the reader to find it.