The writing studio
The studio is where research notes grow into the documents an organization puts its name to: briefs, reports, testimony or public comments and one-pagers, as well as research notes themselves. Every one of them is written in the same editor, cited the same way and reviewed the same way as a research note. The studio adds templates, comments, suggested edits, writing together, a citation-support check before review, more export formats and publishing.
The studio is part of the Evidence & Content Studio. Open it from Research in the main navigation.
Who can do what
| Role | Comment and suggest edits | Accept or reject a suggestion | Check citations | Confirm a citation | Edit templates | Publish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reader | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Researcher | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Project lead (in their project) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Owner | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Readers see the comments, suggestions and check results; they change nothing. Everything stays inside the workspace until an editor publishes it.
Document types and templates
New note on the Research page opens New document, which asks for a title, a document type and a template. The type is what the document is (it appears on exports and on the public page: "Brief · Harbor Neighbors"); the template is the outline it starts from.
Five templates are built in, one per type:
| Template | Outline |
|---|---|
| Research note | Question, What the sources show, Open questions |
| Brief | Summary, Background, What the record shows, Recommendation |
| Report | Executive summary, Introduction, Findings, Method and sources, Conclusions |
| Testimony or public comment | Who is commenting and on what, Our position, The evidence, Our request |
| One-pager | The issue, What the record shows, What we ask |
Templates on the Research page lists them all. Editors add the organization's own there: a document type, a name, a short description and its sections, one per line (Add template). Start a document opens New document with that template chosen. Archive retires an organization template; it is no longer offered, and a document already started from a template never changes with it.
Starting from an excerpt (Start a new note on a document) works the same way: the excerpt is linked to the new document, ready to cite.
Comments
Open Comments to ask a question or note a problem. Select a passage first to make the comment about it: the comment quotes the passage, so the thread still makes sense after the text changes. Reply under a comment to discuss it; Resolve closes the thread once it is dealt with (Reopen brings it back). A comment's text never changes, and nothing is deleted: resolved threads are one click away.
The document's author is notified of each new thread, and everyone in a thread of each reply.
Suggested edits
A suggestion proposes a change without making it. Select the text to change, open Suggestions, write the replacement (leave it empty to suggest deleting the text), optionally say why, and choose Suggest edit. The text you select must appear once in the document; select a longer passage if it repeats.
Anyone who can edit the document can Accept a suggestion, which writes a new revision in their name with the change applied ("Accepted a suggested edit" in History and in the export's appendix), or Reject it. The person who suggested it can Withdraw it. A suggestion whose text has since changed can no longer be accepted; suggest it again on the current text. Citations and unsupported marks around the change are kept. The author is notified of each suggestion.
Writing together
When the workspace's collaboration service is running, everyone with the document open edits the same draft live: you see each other's cursors and names above the editor ("Editing together"). Changes are shared as you type, but a revision is still written only when someone chooses Save revision, in the name of the person who saved. Readers, and everyone while the document is in review, follow along read-only.
Without the collaboration service (a development machine, say) the studio works as before: one person's unsaved edits are their own, and a save that would overwrite someone else's revision is refused.
The citation-support check
Before review, every citation is checked against the excerpts it cites. Submitting a document for review runs the check on the submitted revision; Citation check → Check citations now runs it on request (save your edits first). The AI reads each cited sentence next to its excerpts and gives one of three verdicts:
| Verdict | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Supported | The excerpts say what the sentence says. |
| Weak | The excerpts are related but say less, or something narrower (a rule for some lots, not every lot). |
| Not supported | The excerpts do not say it, or say something different (another date, another figure). |
Each verdict comes with a one-line reason. The verdicts are advice: they never change the document. A sentence the check calls supported is ready to publish. A weak or unsupported citation, or one the check could not judge, needs an editor's confirmation: on the Citation check tab, read the reason, say why the citation holds if you like, and choose Confirm. Otherwise fix the text or its citation and save; a new revision is checked again on its next submission, and confirmations never carry over to a new revision.
When AI is unavailable, the check is recorded as "Not checked (AI unavailable)" and every citation waits for a confirmation. An answer that fails the platform's validation is set aside ("Answer set aside") the same way. The check sees only the cited sentences and their excerpts, never the rest of the workspace.
Review
Review works as for research notes (Research notes, Review): an editor who did not write the document approves it or asks for changes. Approval does not need every citation resolved; publishing does.
Exports
Export now offers four formats of the same reviewed (or draft, clearly labelled) revision: PDF, Web page (HTML), Word (DOCX) and Markdown. Each carries the numbered sources and the appendix "how this document was made": revisions, accepted AI paragraphs and suggestions, the review record and the citation check. Preview shows the HTML. The file is made in the background; the list of exports shows when it is ready to download. See Exports.