Completing your first draft is an important milestone, but it’s only the beginning. Before rushing into edits or handing your draft to an AI tool to “fix it,” it’s essential to step back and critique your work.
Think of this as putting on your editor’s hat – you’re not just looking for grammar or spelling errors, you’re assessing structure, messaging, clarity and purpose. AI can be a powerful collaborator in this process, helping you spot gaps, inconsistencies and readability issues you might otherwise overlook.
Step 1: Clarify your focus
Before critiquing, ensure you’re clear on three key points:
- Purpose – Why was this content written? Can you summarise it in one sentence?
- Target audience – Who will read this content? Understanding your audience guides tone and style.
- Intended action – What should readers do after reading?
Optional considerations include word count, tone, style, SEO and referencing.
AI can help clarify focus with complex prompts such as:
- “Analyse this draft and summarise its purpose in one sentence, then explain whether the messaging aligns with the intended audience and suggest improvements if needed.”
- “Identify the key action the reader is expected to take and provide three alternative ways to make it clearer and more actionable.”
- “List any content, tone, or style inconsistencies with the target audience, including readability or complexity issues, and recommend corrections.”
- “Assess whether the draft meets its stated objectives and highlight sections that may need reframing to align with purpose, audience and intended action.”
- “Generate a set of five critical questions an editor should ask to evaluate whether the draft effectively communicates its purpose to the intended audience.”
Step 2: Read for the big picture
Read the draft from start to finish without editing.
Ask yourself: does it meet its purpose, is it relevant for the audience, are there gaps or redundancies?
AI can support this by summarising key points, highlighting inconsistencies and generating insightful questions. Complex AI prompts for this step include:
- “Summarise the draft’s main points and identify areas where arguments are weak, inconsistent or repetitive, providing detailed recommendations for restructuring.”
- “Highlight paragraphs that do not contribute to the overall purpose, and propose how to remove, merge or rewrite them for clarity and impact.”
- “Provide a list of sections that could benefit from more examples, evidence or explanation, explaining why these additions would strengthen the content.”
- “Evaluate whether the draft flows logically from introduction to conclusion, flagging transitions or structural issues and suggesting improvements.”
- “Generate a table of strengths and weaknesses in terms of messaging, relevance and reader engagement, prioritising the most critical issues first.”
Step 3: Identify missing elements
Missing content is a major reason drafts fail. Look for claims without evidence, concepts needing explanation and missing examples, statistics or references.
AI can flag gaps and suggest improvements with prompts like:
- “Identify all statements or claims that lack supporting evidence or references, and suggest credible sources to substantiate them.”
- “Highlight gaps in the logic or argumentation, explaining why these are problematic and proposing content that could fill the gaps.”
- “Detect areas where examples, case studies or statistics could improve clarity or persuasiveness, and generate potential content ideas.”
- “List concepts or terms that may be unclear to the target audience and recommend additional explanations or simplifications.”
- “Suggest subtopics or points that would make the draft more comprehensive, explaining how they contribute to achieving the purpose.”
Step 4: Check accuracy and credibility
AI can identify statements that may need verification, but the final responsibility lies with you. Complex prompts for this step include:
- “Flag statements that may conflict with current clinical guidelines, peer-reviewed evidence or best practices, and provide suggestions for corrections or supporting references.”
- “Identify claims that could be misleading or ambiguous to the target audience, and recommend clarifications or adjustments.”
- “Generate a list of additional peer-reviewed sources, guidelines or authoritative references that could strengthen the draft’s credibility.”
- “Analyse each factual statement for accuracy and potential bias, noting where verification or citation is required.”
- “Evaluate whether the draft adheres to ethical and professional standards for medical content, highlighting areas of concern and suggesting improvements.”
Step 5: Assess readability and clarity
Even correct content can be hard to read. Evaluate sentence length, jargon, paragraph flow and structure. AI can assist with prompts such as:
- “Highlight sentences that are overly complex or difficult to read, and rewrite them in plain language while preserving meaning.”
- “Identify jargon, technical terms or acronyms that may confuse the audience and suggest simpler alternatives or definitions.”
- “Assess paragraph and sentence flow, flagging awkward transitions and recommending ways to improve coherence.”
- “Generate a plain-language summary of each paragraph to test clarity and identify areas that need simplification.”
- “Evaluate overall readability scores and sentence length variation, and propose adjustments to improve engagement and comprehension.”
Step 6: Evaluate tone and messaging
Tone must be professional, consistent and appropriate for your audience. AI can flag inconsistencies, but you make the final judgment. Try prompts like:
- “Analyse the tone of the draft for consistency, professionalism, inclusivity and appropriateness for the target audience, suggesting corrections where needed.”
- “Identify sentences or phrases that may come across as too casual, authoritative or biased, and propose alternative phrasing.”
- “Check messaging for alignment with the draft’s purpose and intended action, recommending adjustments to improve clarity and persuasiveness.”
- “Highlight any sections that may inadvertently convey insensitivity, stereotypes or assumptions, and suggest revisions.”
- “Assess tone consistency across the entire draft and provide a ranked list of changes needed to achieve a uniform professional voice.”
Step 7: Summarise critique and plan edits
Create a structured plan after reviewing your draft:
- Major changes – missing content, structural issues, factual errors
- Minor edits – clarity, readability, tone
- Verification – references or sources
AI can summarise suggested edits and generate a checklist to guide your workflow efficiently.
Using AI effectively
Treat AI as a collaborator, not a replacement. Use it to scan, summarise and highlight issues. Verify every factual claim manually. Iterate after edits to check clarity, tone and consistency.
By combining your expertise with AI, you can critique your first draft more efficiently and produce content that is accurate, clear and engaging.
Feeling confused about AI and looking for support? Check out my free responsible use of medical writing and AI course here.
