Read emphasis in agent explanations

An emphasized verb catches your eye. By the end of the paragraph, you remember a different action taking place elsewhere, although the sentence never mentioned it. Attention has become an extra assertion in your reading.

For an agent's explanation, begin with the whole proposition: what the sentence says happened. Then find its focus, the part given particular attention. Reading that focus means considering why this part matters here while retaining the claim around it.

These passages and their fictional Jane Doe are invented. Read them as prose on the page; leave the actions they describe unperformed. For Markdown itself, turn to the .md file introduction.

Read past the emphasized word

Imagine this sentence within an explanation:

Jane Doe revised the ending.

Before interpreting the emphasis, say the complete claim quietly: Jane Doe revised the ending. Keep the person, action and object together. Stopping at revised would leave you with an action detached from who did it and what it concerned.

The emphasis falls on revised. The sentence still includes Jane Doe and the ending. Giving the verb attention does not erase those surrounding words or substitute another action for the one stated.

A retelling such as "Jane Doe replaced the ending" changes the action. The example says revised; replacing the ending would be an extra claim. Return from that retelling to the verb actually present.

Notice a temptation in your reading: you may begin supplying an earlier activity against which revised would stand out. That activity remains your suggestion. The sentence gives a revision; it leaves any earlier activity undescribed.

Return to the entire sentence when that suggestion begins to feel like part of the passage. You can retain attention on revised without adding an earlier episode. The emphasized word belongs to the claim you have, even while it prompts you to wonder about a contrast.

Shift the focus without changing the wording

Compare a separate invented sentence with the attention placed elsewhere:

Jane Doe revised the ending.

Here, ending receives the emphasis. Jane Doe still revised the ending. The same person, action and object remain expressed, but the object now draws your attention.

Read the pair in their displayed order: revised receives attention in the earlier example; ending receives it in the later example. The comparison concerns what each sentence brings to attention. It supplies neither an additional action nor a different object that was acted upon.

You might privately wonder what else could have received the revision. Leave that possibility unnamed in your account of the event. An emphasized ending does not establish that another passage was changed, considered or left alone.

Use this mental shift to distinguish focus from assertion. You have moved your attention across the sentence while keeping its words. Read the original again afterward, so your imagined emphasis does not take the place of the emphasis you received.

The examples remain ordinary quoted prose. Enclosed passages have their own discussion in the code-block article; this reading concerns the words within the sentence.

Keep a suggested contrast tentative

Focus can raise an expectation of surrounding prose that explains a contrast. Read that surrounding prose when it is present. When it is absent, resist composing it on the agent's behalf.

With revised emphasized, an earlier activity might come to mind. With ending emphasized, another part of the writing might come to mind. Those are avenues for interpretation. Neither imagined possibility becomes an event merely because it makes the emphasis feel natural.

Distinguish what you can point to from what you are supplying. The action named in the earlier example is revised. The object named in the later example is ending. You can identify those points of attention directly; a particular competing action or passage needs additional wording.

An emphasis may remain partly unexplained after this reading. That is a reasonable place to stop. Retaining the stated event gives you an account of the sentence even when the reason for drawing attention to a word remains open.

Carry the claim and focus into your retelling

Try a retelling of the earlier example: "Jane Doe revised the ending, with attention on the revision." For the later example: "Jane Doe revised the ending, with attention on the ending."

The retellings follow the examples' order and preserve the event each states. What changes is the part receiving attention. Neither retelling adds another passage or an earlier activity.

Compare your own reading with those limits. Have you retained who acted, what happened and what it concerned? Have you described the emphasis without naming an alternative as fact? These are questions about your account of the sentence, rather than actions within the imagined scene.

If you keep that account separately, Markdown naming guidance discusses the file name. The account itself can stay brief: the expressed event, its focus, and any unresolved reason for that focus.

Finish by rereading the paragraph as received. Let its other sentences supply any contrast they actually state. Where they leave alternatives open, your interpretation can leave them open too. Emphasis directs attention within an assertion; reading it does not require adding another assertion beside it.

Where Sashmark fits

A desktop v1 for Sashmark remains planned, with Markdown reading and text editing as its purpose. Sashmark continues to be in development and excludes internal AI.