Checking facts, offers and dates before you send

Reading for typos isn't a fact check. A fact check means taking each claim in the draft, one at a time, and finding the record or source that shows where it's true. With an AI tool, there's no skipping it.

Why this step exists

These tools are pre-trained to predict the next word.¹ Wikipedia's entry on the problem describes AI output that states falsehoods as though they were true.²

The business pays for these mistakes, not the tool. A tribunal ordered Air Canada to pay damages to a customer and honour a policy that a support chatbot had made up.² A newsletter isn't a support chatbot, but the lesson carries over. What you publish counts as what you said.

In Australia, the competition regulator expects a business to have proof for every claim in its ads.³

Intent doesn't change that. The regulator says it makes no difference whether a business means to mislead.³ Rules differ elsewhere, so check your own country's official source.

Mark every fact

Print the draft or copy it into a document. Highlight anything a reader could act on or argue with, such as a price, a date, a promise or a claim about results. Then work through the groups below.

Prices and costs

Check each price against your current price list, not last month's email. The regulator names information on prices among the things that must be accurate. It also warns about prices shown without GST or other costs included.³ If your country adds tax or fees at the till, say so. Include the currency if you have readers abroad.

Offers and conditions

Write the full terms yourself and compare. Does the draft say "free" while a condition applies? Does it say "sale" when the price isn't temporary? A smoother sentence can leave the fine print out, so put it back.

Dates and times

Check the day of the week against a calendar for the right year. Then start times, end times and time zones. Dates and times are easy to get wrong, so check them. Ask whether "next week" will still make sense on the day people read it. Use full dates in the text.

Opening hours and locations

Compare with your door sign and your website. Public holidays and one-off closures are where drafts go wrong, because the tool can't know about them.

Delivery and shipping

The regulator lists shipping options and delivery times among the information that must be accurate.³ Check cut-off dates and what's actually available in each area.

Claims about quality or results

Look for words such as "proven" or "safest", and for any claim that something works. If you can't show the evidence, remove the claim. This is where the draft is most likely to have drifted from anything you told it.

Names, awards and quotes

Delete any named person, award, review or customer quote you didn't supply yourself. Tools can produce convincing but false details of this kind.

Ask a second person

Writers miss their own errors. Smooth text makes it worse. Ask a colleague to read it cold. Give them your notes and ask them to find anything the notes don't back. Then ask where they'd stop reading.

The mechanical checks

Last, do the dull jobs.

• Click every link and make sure it goes where the words say.
• Send a test to yourself and read it on a phone.
• Check the sender name, the contact details and the unsubscribe link work. The regulators' pages on those are listed under consent and unsubscribe rules.
• Check any image has the right description and shows what the text says.

Can't check a fact before the send time? Cut it. A shorter newsletter that's right beats a longer one with a mistake you have to correct in the next issue. Wording comes later, and fixing a stiff draft has its own page.