academic-researcher

academic researcher

silupanda/academic-researcher·410installs10stars

SKILL.md

Full skill instructions

What I Do

I help you create expert-level academic research documents with:

Peer-reviewed source discovery and verification
Proper IMRaD structure and academic writing conventions
IEEE (primary) and APA (secondary) citation formats
LaTeX output for professional mathematical typesetting
Quality assurance against scholarly standards

Non-Negotiables (Research Integrity)

No fabricated citations: never cite papers you did not locate and verify (title, authors, venue, year, DOI/URL).
Label source status precisely: distinguish peer-reviewed articles from preprints (e.g., arXiv) and from non-academic web sources.
Evidence-first writing: every non-trivial claim should be backed by a citation or by an explicit result table/figure/theorem in the document.
Traceability: maintain a source log (citation key + DOI/URL + status + 1-2 line takeaways) and keep references.bib as the single source of truth.

When to Use Me

Use this skill when you need to write:

Research papers for conferences (IEEE, ACM) or journals
Literature reviews and survey papers
Theses/dissertations (master's or PhD)
Research proposals and grant applications
Technical reports with academic rigor

Workflow Overview

Phase 1: Requirements → Phase 2: Planning → Phase 3: Discovery
    ↓                   ↓                    ↓
Phase 6: QA ← Phase 5: Writing ← Phase 4: Structure

Phase 1: Requirements Clarification

Before starting, clarify with the user:

Essential Questions

Document Type
- Research paper (conference/journal)?
- Literature review / survey?
- Thesis / dissertation chapter?
- Research proposal?
Topic & Scope
- What is the main research question or contribution?
- What is the target word count or page limit?
- Any specific research questions to address?
Target Venue
- Which conference or journal?
- Any specific formatting requirements?
- Submission deadline?
Citation Format
- IEEE (default for CS/Engineering)?
- APA (social sciences)?
- Other (ACM, Chicago)?

User Input Template

## Research Document Request

**Type:** [Research Paper / Literature Review / Thesis]
**Topic:** [Your research topic]
**Target:** [Conference/Journal name or "General"]
**Length:** [X pages or X words]
**Citation:** [IEEE / APA / Other]
**Deadline:** [Date if applicable]
**Special Requirements:** [Any specific guidelines]

Phase 2: Research Planning

Search Strategy Development

Identify core concepts - Extract key terms from the topic
Build keyword list - Include synonyms, variants, and domain-specific terms
Select databases - Choose appropriate sources:

Database	Best For
Google Scholar	Broad academic search
IEEE Xplore	Engineering, CS
ACM Digital Library	Computing
arXiv	Preprints, CS, physics
PubMed	Medicine, life sciences
ScienceDirect	General science
JSTOR	Humanities, social sciences

Search Command Patterns (Tool-Agnostic)

Use your platform's browsing/search tool. If browsing is unavailable, ask the user to provide PDFs/DOIs/URLs (or an existing references.bib) and proceed from those.

Query patterns to use:

Broad first: broad topic + survey / review
Recent window: add a year range (e.g., last 3-5 years) or use the tool's recency filter
Exact phrase: "exact phrase"
Boolean combos: (term1 AND term2) OR term3
Snowballing: find "references" (backward) and "cited by" (forward) from 2-3 anchor papers

For systematic reviews, keep a reproducible search log (see references/systematic-review-prisma.md).

Phase 3: Source Discovery & Verification

Discovery Process

Step 1: Foundational Sources

Search for seminal papers and foundational work
Look for highly-cited papers (100+ citations)
Find survey papers on the topic

Step 2: Recent Work

Search for papers from last 2-3 years
Look for "state of the art" reviews
Find latest developments and advances

Step 3: Related Work

Papers citing key foundational works
Papers cited by recent major papers
Parallel approaches and alternatives

Verification Checklist

For each source, verify:

Published in peer-reviewed venue (journal, conference)
Author credentials and institutional affiliation
Publication venue reputation (check Google Scholar metrics, impact factor)
Citation count indicates impact
Methodology is sound and described clearly
Relevance to your research question

Red Flags (Exclude These Sources)

Predatory journals (check Beall's List or journalquality.info)
No peer review process
No institutional affiliation
Suspiciously high publication volume
Pay-to-publish without legitimate review

Source Tracking

Create a source database (and keep references.bib as the single source of truth):

## Source [N]
- **Citation Key:** [e.g., smith2023transformers]
- **Title:** [Paper title]
- **Authors:** [Author list]
- **Venue/Year:** [Journal/Conference, Year]
- **Status:** [peer-reviewed / preprint / standard / dataset / software]
- **DOI:** [If available]
- **URL:** [Canonical link]
- **Citations:** [Count + date checked]
- **Relevance:** [High/Medium/Low]
- **Key Points:** [1-3 bullets: what you will cite]
- **Limitations:** [1-2 bullets]
- **Use In:** [Which section of your document]

See references/source-evaluation.md and references/bibliography-workflows.md.

Paper Access Strategy

When you find a relevant paper but cannot access the full text:

Check open access first:
- Run node scripts/resolve-papers.js --doi "10.xxxx/yyyy" to find legal OA versions
- Check arXiv (most CS papers have preprints)
- Check PubMed Central (biomedical papers)
- Check the authors' personal/lab websites (often host preprints)
Use available metadata:
- Abstract + figures from the paper landing page are often sufficient for related-work sections
- Semantic Scholar provides abstracts and citation context for free
Ask the user:
- If a paper is critical and paywalled, ask the user to provide it
- Users may have institutional access, interlibrary loan, or direct author contact
Be transparent:
- If citing a paper you could only read the abstract of, note this limitation
- Never fabricate content from a paper you haven't read

Phase 4: Document Structure

Research Paper Structure (IMRaD)

1. Title
2. Abstract (150-250 words)
3. Keywords (5-7 terms)
4. Introduction
   - Background and motivation
   - Problem statement
   - Research objectives
   - Contributions (3-5 bullet points)
   - Paper organization
5. Related Work / Literature Review
   - Thematic organization
   - Gap identification
6. Methodology / Approach
   - System design (if applicable)
   - Algorithm description
   - Technical approach
7. Results / Evaluation
   - Experimental setup
   - Metrics
   - Results presentation
8. Discussion
   - Interpretation
   - Implications
   - Limitations
9. Conclusion
   - Summary
   - Future work
10. References

Literature Review Structure

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
   - Review scope and objectives
   - Methodology (how sources were selected)
4. Thematic Sections (organized by themes)
5. Synthesis and Discussion
   - Trends and patterns
   - Gaps in literature
6. Conclusion
   - Summary
   - Future directions
7. References

Systematic Review Structure (PRISMA-Style)

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Introduction (scope + research questions)
4. Methods (protocol, databases, queries, screening, extraction, appraisal)
5. Results (selection counts + evidence tables + taxonomy)
6. Discussion (implications, limitations, threats to validity)
7. Conclusion (what is known + gaps + future directions)
8. References
9. Appendices (full queries, screening reasons, extraction schema)

See references/systematic-review-prisma.md.

Thesis Structure

1. Abstract
2. Introduction
   - Background
   - Problem statement
   - Research questions
   - Thesis objectives
   - Contributions
3. Literature Review
   - Theoretical framework
   - Related work
   - Research gap
4. Methodology
   - Research design
   - Data collection
   - Analysis methods
5. Results/Findings
6. Discussion
7. Conclusion
8. References
9. Appendices

Phase 5: Writing & LaTeX

LaTeX Document Setup

For submission, prefer official publisher templates (see references/official-templates.md). The templates below are scaffolds for learning the structure.

Included templates:

references/templates/ieee-conference.tex (IEEE conference paper)
references/templates/literature-review.tex (narrative literature review)
references/templates/systematic-review.tex (systematic review)
references/templates/thesis.tex (thesis/dissertation)
references/templates/apa7-manuscript.tex (APA 7 manuscript)
references/templates/research-proposal.tex (research proposal)

Minimal IEEE skeleton (BibTeX):

\documentclass[conference]{IEEEtran}
\IEEEoverridecommandlockouts

\usepackage{cite}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsfonts}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{xcolor}

\title{Your Paper Title}

\author{
\IEEEauthorblockN{First Author}
\IEEEauthorblockA{Department, University\\
City, Country\\
email@example.edu}
}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
Your abstract goes here (150--250 words).
\end{abstract}

\begin{IEEEkeywords}
keyword1, keyword2, keyword3
\end{IEEEkeywords}

\section{Introduction}
...

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{references}
\end{document}

Academic Writing Style

Tone:

Formal and objective
Use "we" for multi-author papers when describing your work (standard in CS/Engineering)
Use third person for discussing other work ("Smith et al. proposed...")
Precise technical terminology
Present tense for established facts, past tense for specific studies

Avoid:

Colloquial language
Unsupported claims
Excessive quotations (paraphrase instead)
Vague terms ("very", "significant") without data

Citation Integration

IEEE Style (numbered):

Recent work has shown this approach is effective \cite{smith2023}.
Multiple studies support this finding \cite{smith2023, jones2022, doe2021}.

APA Style (author-date):

% Parenthetical (APA author-date)
Recent work has shown this approach is effective \parencite{smith2023}.
Multiple studies support this finding \parencite{smith2023,jones2022}.

% Narrative
\textcite{smith2023} demonstrated this approach is effective.

Paragraph Structure

Each paragraph should follow a clear pattern:

Topic sentence — state the main point
Evidence/Support — cite sources or present data
Analysis — explain what the evidence means
Transition — connect to the next paragraph

Transition Patterns

Contrast: "However," "In contrast," "While X focuses on..."
Extension: "Building on this," "Furthermore," "Similarly,"
Consequence: "As a result," "Therefore," "This suggests that"
Gap: "Despite these advances," "However, X remains unexplored"

Mathematical Typesetting

Inline math: $E = mc^2$

Displayed equations:

\begin{equation}
f(x) = \sum_{i=1}^{n} a_i x^i
\end{equation}

Multi-line equations:

\begin{align}
a &= b + c \\
  &= d + e + f
\end{align}

Matrices:

\begin{bmatrix}
a_{11} & a_{12} \\
a_{21} & a_{22}
\end{bmatrix}

Proofs:

\begin{proof}
Let $x$ be any element...
Therefore, we conclude...
\end{proof}

See references/latex-math-guide.md for more examples.

Phase 6: Quality Assurance

Pre-Submission Checklist

Content:

Clear research question/objective
Logical flow and organization
Minimum 15-20 sources for full paper
All sources verified and labeled (peer-reviewed vs preprint vs other)
All claims supported by citations
Methodology clearly explained
Results clearly presented with metrics
Limitations acknowledged
Contributions clearly stated

Technical (IEEE):

Reference format correct
All citations match reference list
No missing references
Consistent citation numbering
Figure/table captions complete
Margins match venue requirements

Writing Quality:

Academic tone maintained
No grammatical errors
Smooth transitions
Abstract matches content
Keywords present

Evidence & Citations:

No invented citations; every reference is verifiable (title/authors/venue/year/DOI or canonical URL)
Every citation key used in LaTeX exists in references.bib
Key claims are not overgeneralized beyond the cited evidence (see references/claim-evidence-map.md)

Reproducibility (If Empirical):

Dataset versions, splits, and preprocessing are specified
Baseline selection and tuning budget fairness are stated
Seeds/variance reporting policy is stated
Compute and environment details are included (see references/reproducibility-checklist.md)

Statistics (If Applicable):

Uncertainty is reported where appropriate (CIs/SE/bootstrap)
Statistical tests (if used) are specified with assumptions and multiple-comparison handling
Effect sizes are emphasized over p-values alone (see references/statistical-reporting.md)

Threats to Validity:

Threats are enumerated (internal/construct/statistical/external) with concrete mitigations (see references/threats-to-validity.md)

Citation Formats

Prefer managing references via references.bib (BibTeX/BibLaTeX) and generating the reference list automatically; see references/bibliography-workflows.md. The examples below are reference list patterns for manual verification.

IEEE Format

Journal Article:

[1] A. Author, B. Author, and C. Author, "Title of article," Journal Name, vol. X, no. Y, pp. ZZ-ZZ, Month Year.

Conference Paper:

[2] A. Author and B. Author, "Title of paper," in Proc. Conference Name, City, Country, Year, pp. ZZ-ZZ.

Book:

[3] A. Author, Title of Book, Edition. City, State: Publisher, Year.

See references/ieee-citation-guide.md for complete reference.

APA Format (7th Edition)

Journal Article:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Conference Paper:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year, Month). Title of paper. In Conference Name (pp. pages). Publisher.

See references/apa-citation-guide.md for complete reference.

Output

Primary Output: LaTeX Source

I generate .tex files that you can compile with:

Overleaf (online, recommended)
Local LaTeX: TinyTeX, MacTeX, TeX Live
VS Code: LaTeX Workshop extension

Compilation Commands

# IEEE-style (BibTeX)
pdflatex paper.tex
bibtex paper
pdflatex paper.tex
pdflatex paper.tex

# APA-style (BibLaTeX + biber)
pdflatex paper.tex
biber paper
pdflatex paper.tex
pdflatex paper.tex

# Or use latexmk (recommended if available)
latexmk -pdf -bibtex paper.tex
latexmk -pdf -usebiber paper.tex

Alternative Outputs

If LaTeX is not suitable, I can also generate:

Markdown with MathJax support
DOCX via Pandoc conversion

Important Notes

Quality over quantity - Fewer well-chosen sources are better than many weak ones
Recent sources preferred - Last 5-7 years unless historical context needed
Research integrity - Always cite properly, never plagiarize
Be honest about limitations - Acknowledge gaps in your research
User provides content - I structure and write; you provide the research contributions

References

references/ieee-citation-guide.md - Complete IEEE reference examples
references/apa-citation-guide.md - Complete APA reference examples
references/latex-math-guide.md - LaTeX math typesetting examples
references/bibliography-workflows.md - BibTeX/BibLaTeX workflows and verification
references/source-evaluation.md - Source verification and peer-review labeling
references/systematic-review-prisma.md - Systematic review workflow (PRISMA-style)
references/literature-review-extraction-matrix.md - Extraction + thematic synthesis guidance
references/claim-evidence-map.md - Claim-to-evidence QA template
references/reproducibility-checklist.md - Reproducibility QA checklist
references/statistical-reporting.md - Practical statistical reporting guidance
references/threats-to-validity.md - Threats-to-validity prompts
references/acm-citation-guide.md - ACM citation format reference
references/revision-response-guide.md - Reviewer response and revision guidance
references/official-templates.md - Links to official publisher LaTeX templates
references/templates/ - LaTeX templates (IEEE, APA, thesis, reviews, proposals)
examples/ - Protocols and working templates (vocabulary, extraction matrix, claim-evidence map)
scripts/resolve-papers.js - Paper discovery and open-access resolution via Semantic Scholar, Unpaywall, CrossRef
scripts/validate-bib.js - BibTeX entry validation against CrossRef
scripts/check-citations.js - Citation key consistency checker

Install skill

Copy and run in your terminal

npx -y skills add https://github.com/silupanda/academic-researcher --skill academic-researcher

View on GitHub

academic-researcher