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Agent skill

Research Writing

by scholay in scholay/skills

Draft and maintain academic papers from verified corpus evidence, manage bibliography, and produce output in any target format.

MITAuto-check passedResearch & Science

Install Research Writing

skills CLI
$ npx skills add scholay/skills --skill research-writing -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install scholay/skills research-writing --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/scholay/skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/research-writing .claude/skills/research-writing && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
research-writing
GitHub stars
141
Token cost
~1.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
735 words
Files
4 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
5
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Draft and maintain academic papers from verified corpus evidence, manage bibliography, and produce output in any target format.

  • Works in 6 steps: Build the chapter outline before drafting → Draft from grouped evidence → Manage bibliography in parallel → …
  • Outlining chapters
  • SKILL.md covers The core problem, Core principle, Workflow and Formatting rules for Chinese…, plus 2 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Research Writing is an agent skill from scholay/skills. Draft and maintain academic papers from verified corpus evidence, manage bibliography, and produce output in any target format. Use when outlining chapters, mapping evidence to arguments, drafting or revising sections, managing citations, placing figures, or running integrity checks before building output.

Its SKILL.md is about 1.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 4 other files, including reference files (for example `references/bibliography-management.md`, `references/figure-workflow.md` and `references/proposal-conventions.md`).

It sits in Research & Science, covering Citation management. The repository describes itself as: Open academic AI skills maintained by Scholay. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Outlining chapters
  • Mapping evidence to arguments
  • Revising sections
  • Managing citations

Example prompts

  • “/research-writing”

Workflow steps

6 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.

  1. Build the chapter outline before drafting
  2. Draft from grouped evidence
  3. Manage bibliography in parallel
  4. Place figures purposefully
  5. Run an integrity check before every output build
  6. Produce output in your target format

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit cd61bd9. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Research Writing loads about 1.3k tokens when it runs, and up to ~4k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 81 tokens; SKILL.md has 735 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~81
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.3k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from scholay/skills at commit cd61bd9, republished under its MIT licence (© scholay). 735 words, ~1,339 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/research-writing/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 3 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
research-writing
description
Draft and maintain academic papers from verified corpus evidence, manage bibliography, and produce output in any target format. Use when outlining chapters, mapping evidence to arguments, drafting or revising sections, managing citations, placing figures, or running integrity checks before building output.

Research Writing

The core problem

Two failure modes are common in AI-assisted academic writing:

  1. Writing from memory: using AI to draft paragraphs without grounding claims in verified source evidence. Produces fluent but unchecked text.
  2. Leaking the workflow: letting internal process terms (corpus, slice, source card, OCR pipeline) appear in the final document. The paper should read as the researcher's scholarly analysis, not as a description of how it was produced.

This skill addresses both.

Core principle

Write from verified evidence, not from memory. Every claim in the paper should trace back to at least one evidence slice at reviewed or quote_ready level. Every figure should trace back to a reviewed image slice.

The paper is the output of the research system. It should not expose how the system works.

Workflow

1. Build the chapter outline before drafting

For each chapter or section, define:

  • The central question or argument this section answers
  • The evidence slices that support the argument (from your evidence matrix)
  • The figures or tables that illustrate it
  • The citekeys required

Do not start drafting paragraphs before this mapping is clear.

2. Draft from grouped evidence

For each subsection:

  1. Gather the evidence slices assigned to it
  2. Identify what they collectively show
  3. Write synthesis paragraphs in your own analytical voice
  4. Insert citations inline as you draft — do not leave "[CITE]" placeholders

On citations: insert a citation only when the supporting slice is at least verification_status: checked. For direct quotations, quote_ready: true is required.

3. Manage bibliography in parallel

Keep one master bibliography file. One source gets one citekey.

Citekey rules:

  • ASCII only
  • Format: AuthorYYYYKeyword (e.g., Smith2019vernacular)
  • Once a citekey appears in any draft, treat it as frozen — changing it later breaks citations silently

Add to the bibliography as you add citations to the draft, not at the end.

Verify bibliography integrity regularly:

  • Every inline citation resolves to a bibliography entry
  • Every bibliography entry is actually cited somewhere (no phantom references)
  • Every cited slice can be traced to a source object
4. Place figures purposefully

A figure earns its place by serving a specific argumentative role. Place it after the paragraph that establishes why it matters, not before.

For each figure:

  • Use the canonical source page image or a crop of it, not a screenshot
  • Crop exactly one figure element — not a full page, not a region containing multiple independent figures
  • The caption states the scholarly source and page
  • Keep a record of: source image path, crop coordinates, output filename, and why this is a single figure element
Show full SKILL.md (312 more words)Show less
5. Run an integrity check before every output build

Before compiling or exporting:

  • Every major claim has a citation
  • Every citation resolves in the bibliography
  • Every figure has a documented source trail
  • No internal process terms appear in the body text
6. Produce output in your target format

The manuscript source (LaTeX, Markdown, Word, etc.) is canonical. All exports (PDF, DOCX, HTML) are derivatives.

If you generate a manuscript snapshot for app-layer reading or collaboration, treat it as read-only — edits belong in the canonical source, not in the snapshot.

Formatting rules for Chinese academic prose

(Skip this section if not writing in Chinese)

  • Page locators: keep them in footnotes or endnotes, not inline in body text
  • Abbreviations: spell out every abbreviation on first use: 中文含义（Full Term, ABBR）
  • Term lists: use a table for more than 3–4 term correspondences, followed by a prose paragraph that interprets the table
  • Alarm vocabulary: avoid "濒危" (endangered), "亟待抢救" (urgently needs rescue) and similar terms unless directly supported by a cited source

Rules

  • Write only from evidence at reviewed level or above. Do not draft claims you cannot immediately trace to a slice.
  • Do not introduce a claim without a citation trace. Unsupported claims belong in notes/ until evidence is found.
  • Do not expose internal workflow terms in the body text: corpus, slice, SLC-, SRC-, source card, OCR, agent. These belong in comments, notes, and working documents.
  • Do not place a whole source page as a figure. Crop one meaningful figure element.
  • Do not change a citekey once it appears in any draft file.
  • The manuscript snapshot is read-only. Canonical edits go into the source file.
  • Run bibliography integrity check before every build.

References

  • Read references/bibliography-management.md for citekey rules, deduplication procedure, and bibliography sync workflow.
  • Read references/figure-workflow.md for the full figure extraction, cropping, and captioning procedure.
  • Read references/proposal-conventions.md for doctoral proposal rhetorical structure and common mistakes to avoid.

© scholay, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 3 other files (references) in research-writing of scholay/skills.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/bibliography-management.md
  • references/figure-workflow.md
  • references/proposal-conventions.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit cd61bd9

Compare with similar skills

Research Writing next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Research Writing compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Research Writing this skillscholay/skills141—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Content Research Writerweapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss1.9k25 repos~3.5kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
Systematic Review ScreenerImbad0202/academic-research-skills51k—~8.4kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence
NetworkxzLanqing/codex-claude-academic-skills4.7k15 repos~3.2kAutomated safety check: PassBSD-3-Clause
Literature Reviewneflibata-feng/MyArxiv-Agent12620 repos~5.9kAutomated safety check: NotesMIT
Openalex Databaseneflibata-feng/MyArxiv-Agent12612 repos~3kAutomated safety check: PassCustom licence

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Categories

Questions about Research Writing

What does Research Writing do?

Draft and maintain academic papers from verified corpus evidence, manage bibliography, and produce output in any target format. Research Writing is an agent skill from scholay/skills. Draft and maintain academic papers from verified corpus evidence, manage bibliography, and produce output in any target format.

When should I use Research Writing?

Research Writing fits situations like: outlining chapters; mapping evidence to arguments; revising sections; managing citations.

How do I install Research Writing in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add scholay/skills --skill research-writing -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (research-writing in scholay/skills) into .claude/skills/research-writing in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Research Writing in Codex?

Run `npx skills add scholay/skills --skill research-writing -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (research-writing in scholay/skills) into .agents/skills/research-writing in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Research Writing in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add scholay/skills --skill research-writing -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/research-writing, .gemini/skills/research-writing, .github/skills/research-writing and .opencode/skills/research-writing in your project.

What does Research Writing need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Research Writing is instructions for the agent only.

Does Research Writing access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Research Writing safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Research Writing use?

Research Writing is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Research Writing use?

About 1.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.4k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 2.7k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Research Writing?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Research Writing: Content Research Writer (weapp-tailwindcss/weapp-tailwindcss, 1.9k stars), Systematic Review Screener (Imbad0202/academic-research-skills, 51k stars), Networkx (zLanqing/codex-claude-academic-skills, 4.7k stars) and Literature Review (neflibata-feng/MyArxiv-Agent, 126 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Research Writing?

scholay (a GitHub user) maintains it in scholay/skills, which has 141 GitHub stars. The repository holds 5 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on June 17, 2026.

Source: scholay/skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.