Reader decision and paragraph-scope check

Identify the exact recommendation or story, intended reader, action, consequence, page purpose, author, and evidence date. Pass when personal voice serves a defined decision. Review a low-impact stylistic passage. Fail when the content requires readers to accept the author’s status before receiving an answer, when personal narrative obscures material conditions, or when the paragraph makes individualized claims about readers the writer does not know. Store the pre-edit version for accountable comparison.

Evidence: Government Digital Service

Sentence-role and traceability check

Label each material sentence as sourced fact, documented experience, inference, advice, constructed example, or uncertainty. Add source or experience record, assumption, confidence, and correction owner. Pass when another editor reaches the same categories. Review a split sentence before publication. Fail when citation placement makes inference appear factual, when merchant claims are labeled neutral evidence, or when an example is written as a real result. Category clarity is a production control even if readers never see the labels.

Evidence: Society of Professional Journalists

Experience identity and detail check

Verify who performed the task, product and version, date, access relationship, setup, duration, observation, failed attempts, and scope. FTC guidance requires endorsements to reflect actual opinion and experience. Pass when first-person wording matches the record. Review a clearly labeled demo or short trial. Fail “we tested” with no owner, documentation review presented as use, a single event generalized as usual performance, or retrospective creation of a test to defend an earlier unsupported statement.

Evidence: Federal Trade Commission

Inference, certainty, and authority check

For each conclusion record supporting facts, reasoning rule, alternative explanation, affected circumstance, and disconfirming observation. Compare grammar with evidence and author expertise. Pass when certainty is proportional and advice stays within authority. Review a low-consequence provisional judgment. Fail universal superlatives, guarantees, causal language without design support, safety or regulated conclusions without qualified review, or “in my opinion” used to shield an objective product claim from substantiation.

Evidence: Google Search Central; Federal Trade Commission

Story relevance, accessibility, and privacy check

State which criterion, mechanism, limitation, or next action the anecdote changes. Edit for plain language, length, accessibility, respectful context, and consent or anonymity of other people. GOV.UK’s content role emphasizes user need, accuracy, relevance, accessibility, and clarity. Pass when the story carries decision information no simpler form conveys as well. Review a removable flourish. Fail personal data exposure, status performance, unrelated biography, or a vulnerable person’s experience used as commercial persuasion without appropriate permission.

Evidence: Government Digital Service

Authorship, outside input, and commercial-connection check

Name who researched, drafted, experienced, reviewed, and controlled the verdict. Record affiliate commission, free product, sponsorship, employment, merchant edits, and outside-provided content. Pass with accurate byline and clear disclosure near the recommendation. Review routine factual contact. Fail hidden incentive, ghostwritten personal voice, merchant veto over findings, a team byline borrowing one person’s experience, or disclosure isolated where readers cannot connect it to the endorsement.

Evidence: Federal Trade Commission; Society of Professional Journalists

Who, how, why, uncertainty, and correction check

Explain creator basis, production method, editorial purpose, untested elements, missing observations, safe current assumption, correction route, and material revision. Google’s framework makes these questions useful trust cues. Pass when unknowns change advice and readers can verify the method. Review a nonmaterial missing detail. Fail performative humility followed by absolute instruction, silent error removal, unverifiable expert language, or a method note that claims tests and review absent from the working record.

Evidence: Google Search Central; Society of Professional Journalists

Voice-drift and derivative-content check

Compare title, article, snippets, email, social posts, video script, byline, disclosure, and later AI-assisted rewrites. Pass when all derivatives preserve fact, experience, inference, conditions, identity, and uncertainty. Reopen after contributor change, sponsor request, product update, correction, or reader misunderstanding. Fail a short version that drops the limitation, a new persona no author owns, or a sales CTA that turns a conditional judgment into certainty. A pass authorizes this version, not every future remix.

Evidence: Google Search Central; Society of Professional Journalists

Sources and further reading

These references informed this article. A source supports a claim; it does not imply endorsement of TenMultigure or any future product reference.

  1. Creating helpful, reliable, people-first contentGoogle Search Central · Accessed August 10, 2026

    Grounds creator, method, purpose, experience, expertise, and uncertainty transparency across the final publication gate.

  2. FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People Are AskingFederal Trade Commission · Accessed August 10, 2026

    Provides honest-experience, claim support, typicality, and material-connection checks for personal recommendations.

  3. What each role does in a service teamGovernment Digital Service · Accessed August 10, 2026

    Supplies reader-need, relevance, clarity, accessibility, accuracy, and multidisciplinary review criteria for stories and advice.

  4. SPJ’s Code of EthicsSociety of Professional Journalists · Accessed August 10, 2026

    Adds independent authorship, outside-source, advertising-separation, accountability, context, and correction safeguards.

Reviewed for clarity and evidence

Reviewed by TenMultigure Editorial Review. See an error or a source that has changed? Tell the editorial team.

Review method: AI-assisted desk research with editorial checks. Reviewed ; next scheduled review . Built eight voice-and-trust gates across role labels, experience, reasoning, story relevance, authorship, incentive, method, correction, and derivative drift, with explicit pass and fail conditions.