Revise a draft with an agent
Improve an existing draft step by step: find the problems first, fix the structure with a plan, polish with agents, review every change, check every citation, and save back to Word.
You have a draft — your own, a co-author’s, or a first pass from the Full Draft Writer — and it needs to get better without losing its citations or your voice. This tutorial revises it with agents step by step: find the problems, fix the structure, polish the prose, review every change, and check every citation before you save it back to Word.
Before you start
- You have a project open. If not, see start a thesis or your first project.
- Any feedback you’ve received — supervisor comments, reviewer notes — is to hand.
1. Open the draft
Drag the draft into your project. A Word .docx opens with its headings, footnotes, tables, and citations intact. Add the sources the draft cites to your library, so agents can check and keep those citations.
2. Start a named session
Start a new chat for the revision, so it begins with a clean context, and rename it — for example “Revision: Chapter 2”. Then pick how much control you want with the chat’s mode:
- Approve — you approve the agent’s actions as it goes. A good choice for an important chapter.
- Autopilot — routine edits run straight through; riskier actions still ask first.
Each chat keeps its own mode. See manage sessions.
3. Find the problems first
Ask for a diagnosis before any edits, so you decide what’s worth fixing:
Read this chapter and list the five biggest problems — structure, argument, clarity, and evidence — with the paragraph each one is in. Don't change anything yet.If you have feedback, bring it in:
Here is my supervisor's feedback: [paste]. For each point, say where it applies in the chapter and how you would address it. Don't change anything yet.4. Fix the structure with a plan
Big changes — reordering sections, rebuilding an argument — deserve a plan you approve first. Turn on plan mode with Shift+Tab in the chat box (or type /plan) and ask:
Restructure the Discussion so each paragraph builds on the last and the limitations come before the conclusion. Keep every claim and citation.Nothing changes until you approve. Ask for changes in chat, or click Edit on the plan card, then Approve & run.
5. Run an agent on the right part
For polishing, use a specialist agent from Agents. Point it at the right amount of text:
- A passage: select it first, so the agent works on just that part.
- The whole document: select nothing, and the agent works on the entire document.
Agents that suit a revision:
| Agent | Use it to |
|---|---|
| Trim | Cut 10–35% while keeping the evidence, conclusions, citations, and structure. |
| Change Tone | Shift the register — for example, more formal for a journal — with no new ideas added. |
| Conciseness, humanizing, plain language | Tighten wordy prose, fix text that sounds machine-written, or explain it for a wider audience. |
| Methodology review | Check the methods for gaps before a reviewer finds them. |
Choose a light MODE for a quick pass and a deeper one for a thorough rewrite. For one-off edits, chat works too: select a paragraph and ask “Tighten this to about 120 words without changing the claim.”
6. Review every change
The bar above the chat box shows how many files the session changed. Expand it to see each one, then:
Look at each change
Open a file’s changes and read them in place.Keep or undo
Keep or undo a single change, everything in one file, or use Keep all and Undo all.Keep typing safely
If you edited a paragraph after the AI did, undoing the AI’s change leaves your typing alone — and an undo can itself be undone.
7. Try another direction safely
- Fork it. Choose Fork from here on a message to try a bolder version in a new chat. The original session stays exactly as it was.
- Rewind it. Use Rewind to before this message to restore the files, the conversation, or both.
- Restore a version. Right-click the file and choose Restore version… to compare and bring back an earlier draft.
8. Check the citations
Revision can loosen the link between a claim and its source. Run Claim Check: it fetches each cited source and flags claims the source doesn’t support, with a stronger source from your library where there is one. Then make sure the reference list still matches:
Make the reference list match exactly what I cite in the text: remove anything I no longer cite and add anything that's missing.9. Read it fresh and save
Start a new chat for a final, independent read — it isn’t attached to the edits it just made:
Give me feedback on this chapter as a supervisor would: what works, what's still missing, and the three most important fixes left.When you’re happy, save back to Word (.docx). Your revisions are applied to the original structure, with formatting intact.
Revise the same way every time?
Turn your routine into your own agent with/createagent — for example, a “Chapter polisher” that trims, checks transitions, and flags uncited claims. See custom agents.