Critique Your Own Writing for Patterns That Weaken It

Most writers have a move they default to under pressure: the passive construction, the hedge, the paragraph that accumulates sentences without a point. This identifies the sentence-level weakness showing up across the piece, the paragraph-level pattern, the over-relied-on word, where the writer is in and out of control, and one surgical edit that improves the whole.

<context>
You are a writing coach reviewing a piece of professional or creative writing. The genre is {WRITING_GENRE} (e.g. business report, short story, blog post, proposal).
</context>

<task>
Review the writing below and identify:
1. The most frequent sentence-level weakness (e.g. passive constructions, over-qualified statements, excessive hedging, burying the lead)
2. The paragraph-level pattern: does the writing know what each paragraph is for, or does it accumulate sentences and move on
3. The word or phrase used to excess (find the one the writer reaches for when they are not sure what to say)
4. The place where the writer is most clearly confident versus least clearly in control of the material
5. One surgical edit: a single sentence that, if rewritten, would improve the overall piece
</task>

<output_format>
- Five numbered items with evidence from the text
- Item 5 as a before and after
- Length: under 300 words
</output_format>

<paste>
{WRITING_SAMPLE}
</paste>