Source-grounded AI writing
Every AI step accountable to passages from your library—not empty chat.
Source-grounded writing means AI assistance is tied to specific text from references you imported. Flowing is built around that idea—and with local evidence, polish and continue writing already show a clear edge over generic platforms: better context fit, tighter review narrative, and revisions that respect where you are in the manuscript.
Key facts
- Flowing is a desktop writing app—not a browser chat window with no library.
- Prepare → Write → Recall → Ask with context → Polish → Continue writing is the core loop.
- Keyword recall matches draft terms to passages across your imported PDFs.
- Context chips attach draft or library passages to each AI request.
- Continue generates new discourse; polish optimizes existing discourse—they are not the same task.
- Polish targets discourse function (argument flow, claim calibration)—not synonym swapping.
What “grounded” means here
Grounding is not a marketing label—it is a constraint on what the model is allowed to treat as evidence. In Flowing, that evidence comes from your local PDF library and the passages you explicitly attach. The model may still err in interpretation, but it cannot cite a paper you never imported unless you paste it in yourself.
That is the difference from “empty chat,” where the model freely draws on parametric knowledge and may confabulate sources that sound right.
Two principles behind polish and continue
Continue writing generates new discourse—e.g., introduce representative studies after a claim, then synthesize. Polish optimizes discourse you already wrote—organizing evidence, calibrating claims, fixing scope drift. Deep polish with accuracy review is closer to academic revision than “make it sound better.”
Flowing’s prompt design follows: prefer improving a paragraph’s discourse function over improving its wording. A successful suggestion makes your argument easier to follow—not merely more elegant.
The six-step workflow
Prepare by importing reference PDFs. Write in rich text or LaTeX with live preview. Recall surfaces relevant library passages for keywords in your draft. Ask with context for synthesis or clarification on attached passages. Polish rewrites paragraphs with basis-backed suggestions. Continue writing extends your thread with cited evidence—not boilerplate.
Each step keeps the manuscript and your sources in one workspace, so you spend less time switching between PDF reader, chat tab, and editor.
When to choose source-grounded writing
Choose this approach when the deliverable will be reviewed for accuracy—journal submissions, theses, grant proposals, and literature reviews. Skip it when you only need unstructured brainstorming with no citation obligations.
Flowing is optimized for the first case. See our literature review and fake citations guides for field-specific workflows.