Argument ledger
An argument ledger is a running record, kept while a long document is drafted section by section, of what the draft has already claimed, which terms it has defined and what it has promised to come back to — handed to the writer before every later section so the document builds on itself instead of drifting.
- Keeps
- Claims, terms, promises
- Updated
- After every section
- Used
- Before every later section
- Applies to
- Reports, theses, books
Why long drafts drift
Ask a model for a page and it holds together. Ask for forty and something quieter goes wrong. Each section reads fine on its own; the document does not. Chapter six defines a term chapter two already defined, slightly differently. Chapter nine argues the opposite of chapter three without noticing. The introduction promises a treatment of costs that never arrives.
None of this is a writing problem. The sentences are fine. What failed is memory: by the time chapter nine is written, chapter two is no longer in view, and nobody is keeping track of what it committed the document to. When a person writes a long document, they are that record — which is why they re-read earlier chapters before writing later ones.
Pasting summaries of earlier chapters back in is the usual workaround, and it misses exactly the things that matter. A summary keeps the gist and drops the commitments: the precise definition, the claim the rest depends on, the “we return to this in part three”.
What the ledger keeps
- The ledgers are updated after every section, not re-read from the whole draft.
- A term is marked defined where it first actually appears in the text.
- An illustration, not a real run.
Chapter two is finished. What it committed the book to is recorded, and handed to chapter nine before a word of it is drafted.
- The charter — the thesis, the reader and the voice, agreed when you approve the outline. Every section is written against it.
- Claims — what each finished section actually argued, so later sections build on it rather than re-arguing or contradicting it.
- Terms — each term and the section that defined it, so it is not defined a second time, differently.
- Promises — what the draft said it would come back to, and where, so the payoff is written when it is due.
After every section the ledgers are updated; before every section the writer is handed what it has to build on. At the end, the whole draft is reviewed against them for broken promises and claims that pull against each other, and the fixes come back as changes you accept or reject.
What it is not
- Not a fact check. The ledger keeps a draft consistent with itself. Whether a claim is true of the world is a separate question; the sources you give it, and your own reading, answer that.
- Not version history. It records what the draft means so far, not how the file changed.
- Not for short pieces. A short article is written as one document and does not need it. The ledger appears once a piece is long enough to be written in sections.
The charter comes first, in the outline you confirm. Everything written after it is checked against it.
From the blog: How to write a thesis chapter with AI without losing the argument
Common questions
How do I stop an AI from contradicting itself in a long document?
Give it a record of what it has already committed to. In MindMax, long documents are written section by section against a ledger of claims, defined terms and open promises, updated after each section and handed to the next, with a final review for contradictions and promises never kept.
Is this the same as giving the AI a summary of earlier chapters?
No. A summary keeps the gist and loses the commitments — the exact definition, the claim later chapters rely on, the promise to return to a topic. The ledger records those specifically.
Does the ledger check facts?
No. It keeps the draft consistent with itself. Whether a claim is true is answered by the sources you provide and your own review.
Do I see the ledger?
The charter is part of the outline you approve. For a long piece, the working files — the charter, the list of terms with where each was first defined, and the chapter reviews — are written into your folder as ordinary Markdown.