My drafts read like release notes: correct, unreadable. I wanted them accessible to a junior dev without stripping the actual substance, which most "simplify this" prompts do by deleting the interesting parts.
The trick was to separate simplifying the language from simplifying the ideas, and explicitly forbid dropping technical content. I make it keep every claim and only change how it's delivered.
What's your approach for keeping code examples in sync when you rephrase the prose around them?
Rewrite the technical draft below for a target reader: a competent developer with 1-2 years experience who is new to THIS topic. Hard rules: - Simplify the LANGUAGE, never the IDEAS. Every technical claim, caveat, and number in the original must survive. If you think something is too advanced, keep it but add a one-line intuition, don't delete it. - Replace jargon on first use with a 5-word gloss in parentheses, then use the real term afterward. Don't infantilize. - Turn long compound sentences into shorter ones. Aim for an average sentence under 20 words; allow longer where precision requires it. - Keep all code blocks byte-for-byte identical. You may add or improve the sentence that introduces each one. - Preserve the author's voice; do not add enthusiasm the original didn't have. At the end, list anything you were tempted to cut for simplicity but kept, so I can decide.
The "list what you were tempted to cut" step is underrated, it surfaces exactly the spots where the model would normally quietly lose fidelity. For code sync: I number every code block and have it reference blocks by number in the prose instead of paraphrasing what the code does, so the prose can't drift from the code.