A 12-Step Pre-Publication Review for AI Drafts
What you’ll learn
- Why article creation, mechanical checks, and human approval must be separated
- A twelve-step process covering claim extraction, citations, URLs, numbers, and structural checks
- How to prevent the creating AI from approving its own draft and reserve publication decisions for people
Decide Whether an AI Draft Is Ready Through a Staged Review
Publishing AI-assisted articles safely requires separate stages for structural and link checks, editorial review of facts and bilingual fidelity, and approval by a person who accepts publication responsibility. Clean formatting does not prove that fact review, author-experience review, or publication judgment is complete. On this site, the AI that creates a draft does not approve it; readiness is decided through twelve review stages.
This article follows the process from checking citations and numbers to comparing Japanese and English meaning and approving publication. Separating automated checks from decisions by authors and editors makes it clear whose review is still outstanding.
Responsibilities for Automated Checks, Author Verification, and Publication Approval
Passing format checks does not establish that an article’s meaning or evidence is correct. A reference page address (URL) opening successfully and its content supporting the claim are separate checks. The author verifies whether personal experience matches what actually happened.
| Review area | What automated checks establish | What a person decides |
|---|---|---|
| Article format | Date and URL settings, headings, and bilingual structure | Readability and alignment with the article’s purpose |
| Citations and links | URL availability and matching citation numbers | Whether the source supports the claim and remains current |
| Author experience | Statements that need verification | The author’s confirmation of experience and observations |
| Publication | A list of unresolved items and check results | Necessity, conclusions, timing, and final approval |
The AI that creates the draft does not approve it for publication. passed means publication has been approved; needs_review means human review remains. This is like separating a draft writer from the final editor. Completing format checks leaves meaning, experience, and publication responsibility to be verified.
Apply this division of responsibility through the following twelve stages: automated checks narrow down possible problems, the editor and author verify meaning and evidence, and the publication approver makes the final decision.
The Review Workflow Starts with Purpose Definition and Ends with Publication Judgment
The Author Defines the Article’s Purpose, Claim, and Type
Before asking AI to create a draft, a person decides who the article is for, what it should communicate, which experiences or opinions to include as the author, and how much external information to cover. This decision becomes the basis for draft quality and the later review criteria.
Confirm whether the article is a documentation page or a blog post. Review standards differ by type. For documentation, source-backed accuracy is the top priority. For blog posts, which may include the author’s experience and interpretation, review involves distinguishing between the experience portions and the factual portions.
Read the Entire Article Through Once from the Beginning
Do not edit at this stage. Get a sense of the overall flow of the article and mark any sections that seem to need verification. Editing and verification at the same time makes it easy to miss things.
Extract Claims That Need Verification
From the body, extract sections that contain specific numbers, statistics, statements based on outside information, or assertions that would affect reader judgment if wrong. These are claims that require fact-checking.
Decide Whether Citation Is Needed
Determine whether each extracted claim is the author’s personal experience or opinion, or an external fact or statistic. If the claim relies on an external fact or statistic as its basis, a reference is required. The author’s experience or opinion does not require citation, but it still requires author confirmation.
Confirm That Reference Numbers Match the Body
In articles that contain references, confirm that the [1], [2], and similar numbers in the body correspond to the correct numbers in the reference list at the end of the article. Mismatched numbers prevent readers from tracing the source.
Confirm That URLs Exist
Open reference URLs in a browser and confirm that the pages actually exist. AI can generate URLs that do not exist. If the page cannot be found, find a working source that supports the same claim. If no source can be confirmed, remove or narrow the dependent statement as well as removing the reference.
Confirm That Calculations and the Basis for Numbers Are Correct
If the article contains calculations or values calculated from other numbers, confirm that the calculations are correct. Ratios and percentages are particularly important to verify.
Remove or Qualify Unverified URLs, Numbers, and Experience Claims
Fix the problems found while checking claims, citations, reference numbers, URLs, and calculations. For a URL that cannot be confirmed, a number whose original source cannot be found, or an experience the author cannot confirm, remove the statement or rewrite it with narrower wording.
Check Structure and Bilingual Meaning
Automatically check the date and page-address settings at the start of the article, headings, citation numbers, references, and review status. Correct any reported problems and check again.
When Japanese and English versions exist, an editor also compares the meaning of their facts, numbers, conditions, exceptions, and conclusions. If the Japanese source is ambiguous, correct it first and synchronize the English. Matching heading and table counts does not replace this meaning check.
Check Duplication and Internal Links
Compare the article with existing articles in the same language and list possible overlaps. Do not delete candidates automatically: an editor checks each article’s purpose and unique explanation. Confirm that internal links open real pages on the website, as well as checking that article files exist.
Check Readiness for the Publication Approver
Gather the results of the preceding checks, then have an editor confirm the following conditions before publication.
- The title does not contain imperative or provocative expressions
- The body does not include unverified claims about the author’s background or achievements
- No Critical publication-blocking review issues remain
- An approver other than the article creator has been identified and the necessary review material is ready
Publish After Human Review
List unresolved items and check results for human review. A person reviews the article body, evidence, duplicate candidates, and author-experience claims. Only when the article can be approved should the approval ledger record the reasoning and evidence, and the article move to passed.
Summary: Separate the Article Creator from the Publication Approver
The purpose of this review process is not to stop AI-assisted work. It is to make the boundary of AI-assisted work explicit. Structural consistency, links, settings at the start of the article, and comparison between the operations described in the article and the actual system can be automated. People decide whether an article should be published, whether the author’s experience is accurate, and whether a similar article is worth keeping as a separate piece.
Keeping new articles at needs_review separates article creation from publication approval. The AI that creates the draft prepares a well-structured draft, and a person takes responsibility for approving publication. That division is the basis for quality control when increasing the number of AI-assisted articles.
First, decide whether each of the twelve checks belongs to automated validation, an editor, or a publication approver. Even when automated checks pass, author-experience claims, the value of keeping a similar article, and publication approval still require human judgment.