Topic guide

What gets quoted

The lines that make it onto the page. Short. Specific. Surprising. Or all three. If your line is generic, it dies in the editing pass.

Quotes survive the editing pass when they are short (under twenty words), specific (named numbers, named events, named outcomes) and surprising (an angle the reader has not heard before). Generic statements ("we are committed to growth") die. Specific ones ("we will hire 400 engineers in Manchester this year") live.

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