Writing posts: the editor, the AI writer, facts & citations
A post in Steeren is a single document you can write however you like. Type it out by hand in the editor, hand the topic to the AI writer and get a full draft back, or do both - generate a draft, then edit it in place until it's yours. This article walks through the lifecycle a post moves through, what you can write versus generate, how the AI writer researches and cites its claims, and how the built-in fact-checker helps you trust what's on the page.
The post lifecycle
Every post moves through a handful of states. Only published posts are visible to visitors, and the public site always serves the version you last published - never the draft you happen to be editing.
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Idea | A placeholder - you've jotted a title or topic, but there's no body yet |
| Draft | Being written or edited; not visible to anyone but you |
| Review | A finished draft waiting for you to read it. This is where AI-generated posts land |
| Scheduled | Set to go live automatically at a time you picked |
| Published | Live on your site |
| Archived | Retired and out of the way |
A few behaviors are worth knowing because you'll rely on them every day:
- Publishing is always a manual click. The AI writer never publishes for you - a generated post stops at Review so you can read it first. The one hands-off path is scheduling: if you set a post to go live at a future time, Steeren publishes it for you when that time arrives.
- Editing a published post doesn't change the live page. Your edits stay in the draft. Visitors keep seeing the last version you published until you publish again.
- Unpublishing takes a post offline immediately. The public URL stops resolving right away, and the post drops back to a draft. Its history is kept, so nothing is lost.
- You can restore a previous version. Steeren keeps a history of every published version. Restoring one brings it back as your working draft; publish again to make it live.
[!NOTE] A generated post never goes straight to your site. It waits in Review until you've read it and clicked Publish. If you want a post to go out on its own, schedule it - that's the only way it publishes without you in the loop.
Writing by hand, generating, or both
There's no hard line between hand-written and AI-written posts. Everything is editable in the editor, and most of it can also be generated for you.
| Part of the post | Write by hand | Generate with the AI writer |
|---|---|---|
| The body | Yes, in the editor | Yes - a full draft from a topic |
| Title, slug, excerpt | Yes | Drafted for you; override anything you like |
| SEO details | Yes | Drafted for you |
| Citations and sources | Add or edit them yourself | Filled in from the writer's web research |
| Facts to check | Mark claims yourself | Marked for you as the writer drafts |
| Components (CTAs, callouts, images, widgets, etc.) | Add or edit by hand | The writer can add images, widgets, and CTAs |
| Cover and inline images | Upload from your library | Generated for you after the draft is saved |
You can mix these freely. A common workflow is to generate a draft to get past the blank page, then go through it in the editor - tightening the prose, swapping an image, adding a CTA, fixing a number the fact-checker flagged.
The AI writer
Hand the writer a topic (and an optional briefing - a sentence or two steering the angle, audience, or anything you want it to cover) and it researches, drafts, and hands back a finished post in Review. As it works, you'll see its progress live so you're never staring at a spinner wondering what's happening.
Behind the scenes the writer reads your brand context - your company profile, who you sell to, your products, and your writing voice - so the draft sounds like you rather than generic copy. If the post belongs to a campaign, that campaign's voice and notes are layered on top. It then researches the topic on the web, writes the draft, pulls in sources for the claims it makes, marks the claims worth checking, and adds any images, widgets, or CTAs you asked for.
The knobs you can set
When you generate a post (one at a time or in a batch), four settings let you shape what comes back:
| Setting | Options | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Length | Short / Medium / Long | Aims the draft at a shorter, standard, or in-depth article. It's a target, not a quota - the writer won't pad to hit a word count. |
| Research effort | Low / Medium / High | How hard the writer digs. Higher effort means more web research and a more carefully reasoned draft; lower effort means a faster, more lightly-sourced one. |
| Always include a widget | On / off | Guarantees the draft includes at least one interactive widget. |
| Minimum CTAs | 0-3 | Guarantees at least this many calls-to-action, placed at natural decision points in the prose rather than bolted onto the end. |
[!TIP] If a draft feels thin or under-sourced, raise the research effort and regenerate. If you just want a fast first pass to edit yourself, lower it.
It won't repeat your existing posts
When you generate or regenerate a single post, the writer checks what you've already published and deliberately steers toward a fresh angle, audience, or depth - so you don't end up with two posts saying the same thing. It's a nudge, not a wall: a regeneration assumes you genuinely want to rewrite that post, so it'll still proceed. (When you generate a whole batch at once, Steeren is stricter and skips angles that overlap too closely with what's already live.)
Citations and sources
There are two different ways a link can appear in a post, and they behave differently. Knowing which is which saves a lot of confusion.
Footnote citations come from the writer's web research. When the writer states a statistic, a quote, or a specific claim it found while researching, it attaches a numbered footnote citation to that sentence. Those are the chips and the source list you see at the bottom of the post. If several sources back the same claim, they group onto the same sentence.
Normal markdown links stay inline links. If you (or the writer) write a regular [text](https://example.com) link, it renders as an ordinary clickable link in the text. It is not pulled into the footnote list. The two are separate on purpose: footnotes are for sourcing a factual claim, inline links are for deliberate hyperlinks - a resource, one of your own pages, a related post.
[!WARNING] If you're writing by hand, don't type your own "Sources" or "References" section or hand-number footnotes like
[1]. Add a real source through the sources panel and let Steeren number it for you. A source with no link still works - it just shows as plain text instead of a clickable footnote.
[!NOTE] Once in a while a footnote shows source text that isn't clickable. That happens when Steeren removes a link it couldn't verify - usually a research link that pointed to a page that doesn't actually exist. Rather than break the footnote, it keeps the text and drops just the link.
Facts and verification
Facts and citations are different things. A citation says "this claim came from this source." A flagged fact says "this is a checkable claim - let's verify it independently."
As it drafts, the AI writer marks the specific, verifiable claims in your post - a statistic, a date, a research finding, a named quote - usually a handful per article. Opinions, recommendations, and vague statements aren't marked, because there's nothing to check.
You can then run a fact-check, either on the whole post or on a single claim. An advanced AI verifier researches each marked claim on its own and gives it a verdict:
| Verdict | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Verified | Reliable sources clearly confirm the claim - right number, right name, right context |
| Contradicted | Reliable sources directly contradict it. (A stat that's "confirmed" but with a different number counts as contradicted, not verified.) |
| Unconfirmed | The verifier looked and found nothing conclusive either way |
| Unverified | The claim hasn't been checked yet - your cue to run a fact-check |
After the writer finishes a draft, it kicks off a fact-check automatically, so a generated post usually arrives with its claims already checked. You can re-run the check any time - on the whole post or one stubborn claim - after editing.
Each verdict comes with a confidence level (high, medium, or low), a source, and a sentence or two explaining the reasoning, so you can see why the verifier reached its conclusion.
[!IMPORTANT] Fact-check verdicts are for your eyes only. Visitors never see them - they just read the claim as a normal sentence. The verdicts, confidence, and reasoning show up in the editor for you, and nowhere on the live post.
[!NOTE] A verdict never changes your post. The verifier reports what it found; acting on it - correcting a number, cutting a claim, or leaving it as-is - is always your call. A contradicted or unconfirmed verdict doesn't block you from publishing, but it's worth a look before you do.
FAQ
Why didn't my generated post auto-publish? It never does. The writer leaves it in Review for you to read and click Publish. The only hands-off path is scheduling a post to go live at a set time.
I edited a published post but the site still shows the old version. Your edits live in the draft. Visitors keep seeing the version you last published until you publish again.
The writer added a link but it's not in my sources list - is that a bug? No. Normal inline links stay inline by design. Only claims the writer found through web research become footnote citations. The two are deliberately separate.
A footnote shows source text but isn't clickable. Its link was removed because Steeren couldn't verify it pointed to a real page. The footnote text stays so the citation doesn't break.
Can I mark facts in a post I wrote by hand? Yes - mark the claims you want checked, then run a fact-check on the post.
A claim came back Unconfirmed - is that a failure? No. It means the verifier searched and couldn't find clear evidence either way. The claim is flagged for you to look at, but it doesn't stop you from publishing. (That's different from Unverified, which just means the claim hasn't been checked yet.)
Will my fact-check verdicts show up on the live post? No. Visitors see the claim as a normal sentence. The verdicts are editorial-only and stay in the editor.