Editorial.

Citation discipline.

Every assertion of legal doctrine, procedure, or case outcome in an IXSOR analytical piece is grounded in a primary or named secondary source. Statutes are cited by section. Cases are cited by reporter and pinpoint where reasonably available. Bar opinions are cited by issuing authority and number. Court rules are cited by jurisdiction and rule. The standard is brief-rigor: a reader who wanted to verify any specific claim should be able to do so by following the source link or running the citation through a primary-source database.

No claim attributed to "experts," "studies," "analysts," or other unnamed authorities. No vague hedging where a specific source could be cited. If a position is contested, the contestation is stated, not papered over.

Primary-source-link policy.

Hyperlinks in IXSOR pieces point to primary sources. Cornell Legal Information Institute for federal statutes and rules. Court websites for opinions. State bar websites for ethics opinions. ABA for Model Rules and formal opinions. Government and academic publishers for white papers and reports.

Hyperlinks do not point to commercial competitors of IXSOR (other AI consultancies, vendor sites, sponsored content). Hyperlinks do not point to AI vendors selling tools mentioned in the analysis. The link policy is editorial independence, not link economy.

Journalistic register.

IXSOR pieces are written in a third-person observational register. The writer attributes claims to named sources, the court record, or the documentary trail. The writer does not narrate personal experience as evidence. First-person voice and lived-experience anecdote belong in op-eds and bylined columns; they do not appear in IXSOR analytical pieces.

Where the analysis takes a position, the position is stated, supported with sources, and contextualised against competing positions. Hedging language is used sparingly and only where the underlying doctrine is genuinely unsettled.

Vocabulary standards.

IXSOR pieces avoid a specific list of words and phrases that have come to function as markers of generic AI-generated writing or low-effort generalist commentary. The list is maintained by an automated pre-publish audit. Current banned forms include:

• Filler verbs: delve, leverage, foster, navigate, harness, unlock, embrace, embark
• Filler adjectives: robust, comprehensive, nuanced, multifaceted, intricate, vibrant, pivotal, fundamental
• Filler nouns: landscape, tapestry, realm, journey, ecosystem, paradigm
• Throat-clearing transitions: Furthermore, Moreover, Additionally (at sentence start)
• Throat-clearing openings: "It is important to note", "It is worth noting", "Notably,"
• Em-dashes: replaced with commas, periods, colons, parentheses, or semicolons

The list is not aesthetic preference. Each form is documented in Wikipedia's Signs of AI writing article (maintained by WikiProject AI Cleanup) as a marker that AI detection systems and trained editors flag. The standard reflects that the prose should read as written by a careful human, not produced by a statistical process.

AI-assist disclosure.

IXSOR pieces are produced by Dan Hughes. Some research and drafting steps are accelerated by AI tools (search, summarisation, draft outlines, citation lookup). Every claim in every published piece is verified by a human reviewer against primary sources before publication. No AI-generated text passes into a published IXSOR piece without that verification step.

The author byline is not a brand artefact. It identifies the human who is editorially responsible for the piece. Corrections, retractions, and reader correspondence go to that human.

Corrections policy.

If a published IXSOR piece contains a factual error, the error is corrected and the correction is noted at the bottom of the piece, dated, with the substance of the correction. Corrections are not silent edits. The original assertion is replaced; the fact of the correction is preserved.

Reader-reported errors are taken seriously. Email [email protected]. We do not promise to correct opinion or interpretation; we do promise to correct demonstrable factual error and to add context where reader feedback identifies a material gap.

What we do not publish.

• Legal advice. IXSOR is not a law firm. Every analytical piece carries a disclaimer to that effect.
• Promotional content for AI vendors. We do not have referral or affiliate arrangements with any AI tool vendor.
• Sponsored analysis. We do not accept payment to write favourably about any product, firm, or position.
• Anonymous opinion. Every piece carries a named author and a verifiable bio.
• Unverified claims. If we cannot source it, we do not publish it.

Updates and revision history.

This document is reviewed quarterly. Substantive revisions are dated. Current version: 2026-05-06. Stewards welcome external comment on the standards themselves; please direct that to [email protected].