Academic Writing Skills

Academic Writing Skills for Claude Code

中文版

This collection of skills grew out of my day-to-day paper-writing workflow and has been iteratively refined over time. It may still have shortcomings or rough edges; if needed, please fork it and adapt it yourself.

I have recently been writing my dissertation, so I will keep improving latex-thesis-zh based on actual usage. Note: paper-audit review reports are for reference only; please verify and evaluate them yourself.

Post-writing polish and validation for academic papers: format checks, bibliography search and verification, grammar analysis, de-AI editing, and experiment narrative review. Focused on improving existing drafts, not writing papers from scratch.

Recommended models: Claude Opus 4.6 · Fable 5.1 · GPT 6 Astra · Gemini 4 Argon · Gemini 3.8 Flash · DeepSeek V4 Pro

Recommended platforms: Claude Code · Codex · OMP (Oh My Pi)

Install

Install the repository with skills:

npx skills add bahayonghang/academic-writing-skills

Then open an applicable tool in your manuscript project and ask for the task in natural language. The root README is only a routing guide; the authoritative usage details live in each SKILL.md file and in the docs site.

The LaTeX loaders reject includes outside the project root. For installation alerts and E-INCLUDE-BOUNDARY, see the installation guide.

Choose A Skill

Skill	Use When	Main Inputs	Source Of Truth
cover-letter	Generate, optimize, align-check, preflight, or journal-fit-check a submission cover letter against an existing LaTeX manuscript.	.tex, optional .md or .tex letter draft	cover-letter/SKILL.md
paper-audit	Run reviewer-style critique, submission gates, blocker triage, revision roadmaps, journal-style reports, or re-audits.	.tex, .typ, .pdf	paper-audit/SKILL.md
latex-paper-en	Work on existing English LaTeX conference or journal papers: compile, formatting, grammar, logic, sections, references, figures, tables, pseudocode, title, translation, or de-AI polish.	.tex	latex-paper-en/SKILL.md
latex-thesis-zh	Work on existing Chinese LaTeX theses: compile diagnostics, GB/T 7714 references, chapter structure, bilingual captions and rendered figure/table layout, evidence-faithful abstracts, summaries, literature synthesis, engineering-application chapters, results analysis, Chinese inter-sentence expression, de-AI polish, and paragraph/subsection polish with revision checks. Point-by-point thesis review responses, revision forms, and coverage/evidence checks.	.tex; PDF/TXT/MD review reports	latex-thesis-zh/SKILL.md
typst-paper	Work on existing English or Chinese Typst manuscripts: compile/export diagnostics, venue formatting, references, grammar, logic, tables, pseudocode, title, translation, or de-AI polish.	.typ	typst-paper/SKILL.md
bib-search-citation	Search, filter, preview, export, or create LaTeX/Typst citation snippets from a local BibTeX or BibLaTeX library.	.bib	bib-search-citation/SKILL.md
paper-writing-studio	Polish or translate academic prose with an explicit Nature, IEEE, Elsevier, or neutral profile; report venue conflicts and missing evidence instead of guessing.	prose text, optional venue, journal, or domain	paper-writing-studio/SKILL.md
latex-defense-zh	Build a Chinese PhD/master thesis defense or pre-defense Beamer deck with speaker notes from an existing XeLaTeX thesis repository; extraction is read-only, and a fidelity quality gate checks figures, numbers, equations, tables, and publications against the thesis.	thesis LaTeX repository	latex-defense-zh/SKILL.md

Opt-in checks only report local candidates: check_consistency.py --governance requires --custom-terms, --abbreviation-style is independent, and check_style_zh.py --degree-wording is off by default; without these flags the previous output stays unchanged. College number, equation, table-body, and Chinese-caption checks use --school yanshan-ee-2025 on check_style_zh.py, check_format.py, check_tables.py, and check_references.py. The default and --school generic add no candidates, and there is no bare yanshan alias. Citation placement, repeated-citation pages, college bibliography prompts, and review progression density run only behind explicit flags: check_references.py --author-cite and --repeat-cite are independent and may combine with --school; verify_bib.py --college-details is legal only with --standard gb7714 or gb7714-2025; analyze_literature.py --progression-density may combine with --section and is mutually exclusive with --intro-citations. Without these flags the previous output stays unchanged. Same-chapter table, body, and chapter-summary final values are compared only by analyze_experiment.py --cross-surface. --section may narrow the chapter. --cross-surface-terms FILE is valid only with that switch and replaces only the metric or evaluation-set list. Candidates are [Script], Info/P3, and Meaning-Check: NEEDS-LLM, with a local position and no corrected number. Without --cross-surface the previous output stays unchanged, and the existing --results-analysis codes stay independent. The graduate-school checklist is --template yanshan. The 2025 college checklist is --template yanshan-ee-2025. The two coexist. 111 statuses are not 111 compliant items. A partial checker does not PASS a compound item, and MODULE or NEEDS-LLM still needs human review. Method-expression labels, a weakness written as an advantage, a pronoun left without an antecedent after a deleted preview, abstract quotation marks, and formula symbols in a title or chapter-arrangement line are LLM-only readings on the existing logic, claim-forward, abstract, and structure modules. They add no script code, no threshold, and no new module.

Use the format-specific writing skills when you want source edits or polish. Use paper-audit when you want reviewer-style diagnosis without rewriting the source. Use bib-search-citation when the target is the bibliography library itself.

Typical Prompts

Compile my English LaTeX paper with latexmk and explain the first blocking error.

Check the introduction for logic gaps, citation stacking, and AI-like phrasing.

Run a paper-audit gate on main.tex and separate blockers from polish issues.

Search references.bib for recent Mamba forecasting papers with code and return LaTeX and Typst citation snippets.

Align-check this cover letter against main.tex and report unsupported claims only.

Safety And Outputs

• The skills are for improving and validating existing academic material. They should not invent experiments, citations, policies, or unsupported claims.
• Citation keys, DOI, arXiv IDs, URLs, and local .bib matches are provenance fields, not proof that a paper supports a manuscript claim.
• Online checks are optional. When current venue rules or external metadata matter, verify them from the original source before treating them as binding.
• Source-editing suggestions should preserve LaTeX and Typst syntax and mark required evidence as pending instead of filling it in.
• Audit and helper-script outputs may be JSON, Markdown reports, or diff-comment style findings with severity and priority.

Example finding shape:

% <MODULE> (Line <N>) [Severity: Critical|Major|Minor] [Priority: P0|P1|P2]: <Issue summary>
% Before: <original text>
% After:  <suggested text>
% Rationale: <brief explanation>
% [PENDING VERIFICATION]: <if evidence or metrics are required>

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• uv for running the bundled Python helpers
• TeX Live or MiKTeX with latexmk and chktex for LaTeX workflows
• XeLaTeX plus CJK fonts for Chinese LaTeX documents
• Typst CLI for Typst workflows
• pymupdf (PyMuPDF) for PDF audit workflows; optional pymupdf4llm for enhanced extraction (both lazily imported)
• Node.js and npm or just only when building the docs site locally

Repository Layout

academic-writing-skills/
├── academic-writing-skills/
│   └── <skill>/
│       ├── SKILL.md          # Skill entrypoint, triggers, routing, contracts
│       ├── scripts/          # Optional executable helpers
│       ├── references/       # Optional source-of-truth guidance
│       ├── examples/         # Optional example prompts or workflows
│       ├── templates/        # Optional output templates
│       ├── evals/            # Optional evaluation cases
│       └── agents/           # Optional agent metadata
├── docs/                     # Documentation site
├── tests/                    # Pytest coverage for contracts and helpers
├── ref/                      # Supporting reference repositories or material
├── .trellis/                 # Project workflow and guidance
├── README.md
└── README_CN.md

Do not rely on the root README for module internals. Open the relevant SKILL.md, references/, and docs page when a workflow needs exact routing, flags, or output contracts.

Documentation

Full documentation is in docs/ and docs/zh/.

Run locally:

just docs

Build the static site:

just doc-build

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Keep changes scoped to the relevant skill, update tests or docs when behavior changes, and run just ci before submitting when feasible.

License

Academic Use Only — Not for commercial use.