# The Ideal Authoring Mark Disappears into Writing by Bryant McGill > “The ideal authoring mark is large enough to preserve meaning and small enough to disappear inside the act of writing.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *The Argument in Miniature, 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Original authored source:** [[projects/The Argument in Miniature - How I Write Quotations, Paragraphs, and Reusable Prose|The Argument in Miniature]], “Atomic Markdown and the two surfaces of a sentence” (September 27, 2026). - **Exact wording:** “The ideal authoring mark is large enough to preserve meaning and small enough to disappear inside the act of writing.” - **Context:** The quotation defines a design constraint for executable authoring syntax: enough structure to preserve semantics without overwhelming composition. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Project:** [[projects/The Argument in Miniature - How I Write Quotations, Paragraphs, and Reusable Prose|The Argument in Miniature]] - **Project:** [[projects/Dual-Render Authorship and the Atomic Markdown Double-Brace Grammar|Dual-Render Authorship]] - **Project:** [[projects/XDO - Executable Markdown and Portable Workflows|XDO]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Atomic Markdown|Atomic Markdown]] - [[wiki/Markdown|Markdown]] - [[wiki/Semantic Markup|Semantic Markup]] - [[wiki/Formal Grammar|Formal Grammar]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “The ideal authoring mark is large enough to preserve meaning and small enough to disappear inside the act of writing.” — Bryant McGill, The Argument in Miniature, 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bryant-mcgill-authoring-mark-disappears-writing ```