Two famous passages rewritten in the register of ASD-STE100 (Simplified Technical English, https://www.asd-ste100.org), the aerospace industry's controlled language for maintenance documentation.
These are exhibits for the paper Follow Your Strengths: Writing Papers with LLMs (https://github.com/timm/how2rite). The standard gives useful discipline (short sentences, active voice, one meaning per word), yet full compliance produces very terse sentences. The rewrites below are unambiguous, procedural, and lifeless; a research paper should borrow the discipline and stop well short of this endpoint.
To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause—there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th'unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all...
- Make a decision.
- Condition A: you continue to live. You accept damage from bad luck.
- Condition B: you do not continue to live. You use a knife to stop the problems.
- Death is equivalent to sleep. This is an advantage.
- CAUTION: Sleep can cause dreams. The dream content after death is not known.
- This unknown data prevents the decision in Step 1.
- Result: personnel accept known problems. Personnel do not select unknown problems.
- Refer to the list of known problems: delay in the courts, incorrect behavior by officials, refusal by a partner.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
- In 1776 the founders started a new country on this continent.
- The country has two design requirements: all persons are free, all persons are equal.
- A war is in progress. The war is a test of the design.
- This location is part of that war.
- Dedicate part of this location as a cemetery for the dead personnel. This action is correct.
- NOTE: The dedication in Step 5 is not possible. The dead personnel completed the dedication.
- The public will not remember this speech. The public will remember the work of the dead personnel.
- Personnel who are alive must complete the unfinished work.
- Do the work so that the country continues. Do the work so that the government of the people continues.