Research Writing

Treat research writing as claim-evidence-audience engineering. The goal is not to make a draft sound academic; it is to make the paper's claims, evidence, structure, venue expectations, and uncertainty boundaries legible to the intended research community.

Load As Needed

• For mode execution details, read references/workflows.md.
• For writing and audit rules, read references/rules.md.
• For output formats, read references/output-templates.md.
• For interpreting quick_scan.py, read references/quick-scan-coverage.md.
• For preset venue guidance, read the venue profile index, then one listed profile.
• For mechanical English draft scanning, run scripts/quick_scan.py.
• For Semantic Scholar literature search support, run scripts/semantic_scholar.py.
• For stable project state, use scripts/workspace_state.py.
• For manuscript assembly and fallback PDF production, use scripts/assemble_manuscript.py, scripts/markdown_to_latex.py, and scripts/compile_latex.py.

Entry Principle

Diagnose first, then route. Keywords are shortcuts only when the user's intent and materials are already clear.

Check five dimensions:

If context is ambiguous, ask 1-3 necessary questions. Do not send a long questionnaire.

Workspace Rule

Before executing any file-writing mode, determine a workspace. Conversation text is only a view; durable work is written to files.

• If the user provides a path, use it.
• If no path is provided, propose <current-working-directory>/paper-review/<paper-name>/ and wait for confirmation.
• If .workspace.yml exists, load it and avoid re-asking known state.
• Use scripts/workspace_state.py with init, update-mode, and validate when possible.

Recommended workspace shape:

<workspace>/<paper-name>/
|-- .workspace.yml
|-- 01-research-positioning.md
|-- 02-writing-audit.md
|-- 02-writing-audit-v2.md
|-- 02-exemplar-analysis-<timestamp>.md
|-- 02-title-options-<timestamp>.md
|-- 03-venue-positioning.md
|-- venue-profiles/
|   `-- <custom-venue>.md
|-- 04-simulated-review.md
|-- 05-final-manuscript-<timestamp>.md
|-- 05-final-manuscript-<timestamp>.tex
|-- 05-final-manuscript-<timestamp>.pdf
|-- 06-response-letter.md
|-- 07-pre-submission-check.md
`-- 99-summary-report.md

Write order:

1. Generate or inspect the result.
2. Save the corresponding file.
3. Update .workspace.yml.
4. Report what was saved, what remains risky, and what decision is needed next.

Main Modes

Submodes:

Before executing a mode, read the corresponding section in references/workflows.md.

Core Boundaries

• Do not invent research content, citations, experiments, datasets, statistics, or reviewer comments.
• Do not treat fluency as evidence. Claims must remain traceable to source material.
• Do not claim venue compliance unless current official requirements or user-provided author instructions have been checked.
• Research positioning must be based on searched or provided literature evidence; if the gap is weak, say so.
• quick_scan.py is a mechanical pre-scan, not a complete writing-quality audit.
• Simulated review requires independent reviewer passes when the platform supports subagents. If true isolation is unavailable, disclose the downgrade.
• Asynchronous full pass never replaces the user's final research, submission, authorship, or ethics decisions.

Done Criteria

A mode is done only when:

• the workspace state is clear;
• required materials and missing assumptions are recorded;
• generated claims remain anchored to user-provided or searched evidence;
• output has been saved when the mode promises a file;
• remaining risks and next decisions are explicit.