Free tool
Four-Beat Self-Check.
A short hunt through your own draft. Find the line that carries each of the four beats, inspect what you found, and see which beat is missing and which single fix would help most.Bring a draft to hunt through
It stays in this browser tab and is not sent anywhere. A reload clears it, so keep your own copy of a long piece. No draft to hand? Try the sample.How it works
Step by step.
- 1. Bring a draftPaste yours or use the sample. It stays in your browser tab and is not sent anywhere. The limit is 20,000 characters, so paste the section you want checked if the piece is longer.
- 2. Say what the piece is forA guide changes what the reader does. Commentary changes what the reader thinks. The hunt is for the first kind, and stops for the second rather than failing a piece that is working.
- 3. Hunt the four beatsFor each beat you tap the line in your draft that carries it, then inspect your find with three either-or questions. Each beat is graded as you go, and a four-slot track fills in. If a beat is not in your draft, say so.
- 4. Read the scorecardYou get a grade for each beat, where your beats landed from top to bottom, any order problem, a verdict and your next move. You can copy it as text.
What it does not do
- It does not read or grade your writing. You do the judging, and the tool applies the same rules to your answers every time.
- It does not write the missing beat, suggest a hook or rewrite anything.
- It does not say a piece is good. A passing verdict only says the structure is there.
- It does not save your draft or your answers. There is no account, and a reload clears everything.
Questions
Is my draft sent anywhere?
No. The check runs in your browser and nothing is sent, stored or saved. The page is counted in the site's page-view analytics like every page, and that records visits, not content.Why do I have to find the beats myself?
Deciding whether a sentence names a belief a real reader holds, or whether a mechanism follows from it, is a judgement about meaning. A script that guessed would hand out confident grades you would then overrule, so the judging stays with you and the rules do the rest.Is there a version that grades the draft for me?
Yes. The Four-Beat Checker on GitHub is a set of instructions for a language model, and it quotes a line for each beat and grades it. It is free, and it carries its own licence. This page is a different thing with the same four beats.What if I cannot find a beat?
Say it is not in your draft. A missing beat is a useful answer, because it points straight at the fix.What counts as a guide?
A piece that exists to change what the reader does: a how-to, a guide, an explainer that ends in an action. News roundups, comparisons, listicles and commentary are different shapes, and this check is not for them.Why four beats?
They are the shape I write guides to: the wrong question the reader arrived with, the escape hatch that answers it, who actually uses it, and what the reader does next.Is it free?
Yes. No signup, no email capture and no catch.The thinking behind the four beats is in the Content Strategy articles. The version that grades a draft with a language model is the Four-Beat Checker on GitHub. If you would rather have the content system built and run for you, the products page sets out how.