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/scholarly-writing-refiner

Polishes academic English paragraph by paragraph, reviewing grammar, word choice, voice, coherence, and sentence structure. Outputs revision suggestions alongside polished text. Triggered by phrases like 'polish this paragraph,' 'check the grammar,' 'rewrite in academic

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claude-code-guide
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$ npx -y skills add zebbern/claude-code-guide --skill scholarly-writing-refiner --agent claude-code

How it fires

How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.

  • Fires itselfAuto-invocation. Claude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.Auto-invocation is when the right skill fires by itself at the right moment, driven by a FLOW.md router and a hook, instead of you invoking it by name. It is the difference between a skill being installed and a skill actually getting used.Read the full definition →
  • You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
  • Slash command/scholarly-writing-refiner

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Polishes academic English paragraph by paragraph, reviewing grammar, word choice, voice, coherence, and sentence structure. Outputs revision suggestions alongside polished text. Triggered by phrases like 'polish this paragraph,' 'check the grammar,' 'rewrite in academic

SKILL.md

scholarly-writing-refiner.SKILL.md
name: scholarly-writing-refiner
description: "Polishes academic English paragraph by paragraph, reviewing grammar, word choice, voice, coherence, and sentence structure. Outputs revision suggestions alongside polished text. Triggered by phrases like 'polish this paragraph,' 'check the grammar,' 'rewrite in academic English,' or keywords like manuscript editing, SCI polishing, and journal submission editing."
license: MIT

Scholarly Writing Refiner — Academic Paper English Polishing Knowledge Base

Helps users review and polish English papers paragraph by paragraph according to international academic journal standards. Covers grammar correction, academic word choice optimization, voice normalization, coherence strengthening, sentence variety, and more. Outputs revision suggestions along with the polished text.

Quick Start

Users only need to provide: 1. **Text to polish**: One or more paragraphs of English paper content 2. **Paper type** (optional): Journal article / Conference paper / Thesis or dissertation / Review article 3. **Target journal/field** (optional): e.g., Nature, IEEE, AAAI, Medicine, Computer Science, etc. 4. **Polishing focus** (optional): Comprehensive polish / Grammar only / Word choice only / Coherence only

Example: > "Polish this Introduction for me. The target venue is NeurIPS, and I'd like the language to sound more natural with better logical flow."

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1. Review Dimensions Overview

Polishing is carried out across 5 dimensions. Each dimension is rated independently with specific revision suggestions:

| Dimension | Label | Review Focus | |-----------|-------|-------------| | Grammar | Grammar | Subject-verb agreement, tense, articles, prepositions, clause structure, punctuation | | Word Choice | Word Choice | Academic register, precision, collocation, avoidance of colloquialisms | | Voice | Voice & Tense | Active/passive voice selection, tense consistency | | Coherence | Coherence & Cohesion | Intra-paragraph and inter-paragraph transitions, argumentation chain, use of signaling words | | Sentence Structure | Sentence Structure | Sentence variety, balance of long and short sentences, coordination and subordination |

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2. Grammar Review Rules

2.1 Common Grammar Errors Checklist

| Error Type | Incorrect Example | Correction | Explanation | |-----------|------------------|------------|-------------| | Subject-verb disagreement | The results of the experiment **shows**... | The results of the experiment **show**... | Subject is "results" (plural) | | Missing/misused article | We propose **method** to solve... | We propose **a method** to solve... | Singular countable nouns require an article | | Dangling modifier | **Using the proposed method,** the accuracy was improved. | **Using the proposed method, we** improved the accuracy. | The implied subject of a participial phrase must match the main clause subject | | Run-on sentence | The model performs well **,** it achieves 95% accuracy. | The model performs well**;** it achieves 95% accuracy. / The model performs well**. It** achieves 95% accuracy. | A comma cannot join two independent clauses | | Incomplete comparison | Our method is **more efficient**. | Our method is **more efficient than the baseline**. | Comparatives require an explicit object of comparison | | Broken parallelism | The system can **detect, classify,** and **is able to segment**... | The system can **detect, classify, and segment**... | Coordinated elements must share the same grammatical form | | that/which confusion | The model **which** we proposed... | The model **that** we proposed... | Restrictive relative clauses use "that" | | Irregular plurals | These **phenomenon** indicate... | These **phenomena** indicate... | Watch for irregular plural forms |

2.2 Punctuation Rules

| Rule | Correct Usage | Common Mistake | |------|--------------|----------------| | Serial comma (Oxford comma) | A, B**,** and C | A, B and C (the Oxford comma is recommended in academic writing) | | Em dash | We used three models — A, B, and C — for comparison. | An em dash with spaces on both sides, or without spaces (depends on journal style) | | Capitalization after colon | Capitalize if a complete sentence follows: **The** result is clear: **The** model outperforms... | Do not capitalize if a fragment follows | | Quotation marks and periods | American style: period **inside** quotes. British style: period **outside** quotes. | Choose based on the target journal's regional convention | | Abbreviation periods | e.g., i.e., et al., etc. | Note the comma: e.g.**,** / i.e.**,** |

2.3 Tense Guidelines by Paper Section

| Section | Recommended Tense | Example | |---------|-------------------|---------| | Abstract | Past tense (what was done) + present tense (conclusions) | "We **proposed** a method... The results **show** that..." | | Introduction | Present tense (current knowledge/consensus) + past tense (prior work) | "Deep learning **has become**... Smith et al. **demonstrated** that..." | | Methods | Past tense (experimental procedures) | "We **trained** the model on... The data **were** preprocessed..." | | Results | Past tense (experimental findings) | "The model **achieved** 95% accuracy. Table 2 **shows**..." | | Discussion | Present tense (interpreting significance) + past tense (citing results) | "This result **suggests** that... Our findings **indicated** that..." | | Conclusion | Past tense (summarizing work) + present tense (contributions/significance) | "We **proposed** and **evaluated**... This work **contributes** to..." |

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3. Word Choice Optimization Rules

3.1 Colloquial → Academic Substitution Table

| Colloquial | Academic Alternative | Context Notes | |-----------|---------------------|---------------| | a lot of | numerous / a substantial number of / considerable | Choose based on what is being modified | | get | obtain / acquire / achieve / attain | Choose based on collocation | | show | demonstra

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