In late August 2026, I pitched a story about AI used to write Korean government reports and an opinion piece about disability access to city AI services. Both were declined in early September. Rereading what I had sent, I began to separate tidy prose from a convincing reason for me to write the piece.
The proposal kept explaining the article
The second pitch was an op-ed on city AI and accessibility. It opened with policy language, explained the argument and its fit with the publication, and included the topics the outlet covered. A concrete case supporting my judgement never became the centre of the proposal.
I also looked again at the numbers. A precise-looking figure is difficult to assess if the reader cannot tell what was counted, where it came from or how it supports the claim. The pitch had an argument, a proposed solution and credentials, yet gave too little space to a problem I had actually worked on.
The change began before sentence editing. I decided to start with cases and material I could responsibly explain, then work out what they could support. For a reported story, that means identifying who I can ask and what I can find out. For an opinion piece, it means showing how my judgement follows from a case I have examined. Missing reporting cannot be filled with an imagined scene or personal experience.
Making scattered work readable
Alongside this change, I began bringing my work together on Woong Works. A list of paper and tool names would not explain the problems I had tackled, what I had made or checked, or what was available to inspect. Keeping the files was only part of making the work accessible to a new reader.
A public-data correction can link the changed entry to the evidence for it. A released tool needs an account of its scope, and a stopped experiment needs an explanation of the decision to stop. Selecting that material and writing through each project became the work of this site. Rather than placing the rejected proposals in a portfolio unchanged, I started rewriting the work itself so that a reader could follow it.
I still ask whether somebody else could send a draft unchanged after replacing the name. If it lacks the facts needed to explain my own work, that is where I want to revise before adding more polished prose.