If you work with words and texts

In short. Words is a quiet place to write beside a text Desk holds: King Lear, the letters of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, a set of climate migration documents, or a Texas AI bill through its versions. You write a paragraph. Desk reads it and sets beside it the passages of that text that sit nearest. Nothing is written for you.

The questions you might be asking

• What does it actually do with my paragraph?
• Is anything rewritten, summarised or suggested?
• What is kept, and by whom?
• Can I show someone how my writing developed, without showing them my words?

What runs for you today

Words is in private beta, behind a password. You can ask for access from the password page ("Contact us").

• Write beside a text. Type or paste. Each line break starts a new paragraph.
• Read a paragraph. Press ⌘ Return. Desk reads each sentence, clause by clause, for who does what and what is said about them, then sets the five passages nearest your paragraph beside it. They are the text's own words, with their citation.
• Keep notes. Quote a passage with its citation, note on it, or note on your own words. Notes stay with you.
• Save a signed history. Save downloads your whole desk as a file: every paragraph, every reading, every note, sealed and signed with your browser's key. Each save follows the one before, so the history is in order.
• Share without your words. A gem carries the shape of your reading, which paragraphs were read and how they followed one another, and none of your words or notes.
• Talk in a room. Members can invite other members to a room beside a draft and leave remarks.

Words, step by step →

What reaches our server

When you read a paragraph, its text goes to the server, is read, and is not kept. When you post a remark in a room, the remark is kept in that room with where it was made, never the words of your draft. Inviting someone shares your paragraphs with the room, served only to you and the members who join. Gems given to a room are kept there too; they carry no words. The full list is in What is kept, and where.

If you read policy

The Texas H.B. 3512 card holds the bill's five versions, from Introduced to Enrolled, read from the Legislature's own files, each source file frozen with its fingerprint. You can write your own paragraph and see which sections of the bill sit nearest it, read the bill section by section, and keep what you quote with its version and section.

What it won't do

It won't interpret your writing, score it, or say what it means. It won't tell you whether a passage is "related" in any sense beyond the reading it shows. It takes pasted text, not Word, PDF or text files. And it needs a laptop or larger screen.

Go deeper: Rooms, members and gems · Words we use