Discipline 04 · Sounding
Measure depth before you publish
Sounding is a margin-first review. We mark drift from your mooring, repeated phrases that dull the line, and claims that sound full but carry no cargo.
Margin symbols we use
- △ Drift
- Sentence has wandered from the bearings rail. Usually fixable with a tighter verb.
- ○ Echo
- Phrase repeated within three paragraphs. One instance must go or change register.
- □ Hollow
- Claim with no evidence attached. We ask for the footnote, not the adjective.
- — Hold
- Line is sound. Do not edit further; further editing will only shallow the draft.
Sounding turnaround table
| Pg | Document | Depth | Return |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Landing strip | Shallow | Two studio days |
| 4–12 | Product narrative | Mid | Four studio days |
| 13+ | Annual letter | Deep | One week with midpoint call |
What we measure
We measure language alignment, not impressions. A sounding compares published copy to the heading document line by line. We note unauthorised superlatives, product names used inconsistently, channels that skipped review, and internal mail that leaked public claims early. Corrections are assigned with owners and dates. The next sounding verifies fixes — not approximations.
Soundings can be uncomfortable. They are meant to be. Drift is easier to see from a side street than from inside a busy marketing org. We deliver findings in chart notes format: numbered, dated, without blame language, with clear next actions.
Sounding outputs feed the next month's channel calendar. If social published three unauthorised variants of the product name, the calendar adds explicit naming lines and a review gate. If sales decks reintroduced deprecated claims, we notify enablement owners named in the governance doc. Soundings are archived so you can see drift reduce over quarters — qualitatively, not as a scoreboard.
Submitting a draft for sounding
Send one document per sounding, not a folder. Acceptable formats are PDF or Word with track changes disabled — we mark the margin ourselves. Include the mooring reference number in the subject line and attach the bearings handover paragraph if one exists. Do not send Figma links, Notion pages, or Google Docs with live comments; export to a fixed file so the draft we sound is the draft you intend to publish.
Margin symbols follow a fixed legend beyond the four marks listed above. A double triangle (△△) means the paragraph has drifted from the mooring and from the bearings rail — both fixes are required. A circled echo (○ with a dot) marks a phrase that appeared in your last three soundings unchanged; we will ask you to retire it. A hollow square with a diagonal (□/) flags a claim your legal team approved in an earlier product cycle but that no longer appears in current product specs. The hold dash (—) is rare; when you see it, copy the line exactly into your CMS and touch nothing else. Returned documents include a cover note listing symbol counts so editors can prioritise without reading every margin.