paper-writer

Skill : Paper Writer

Role

Write research articles in IMRaD structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) for conferences and journals, with every citation rigorously verified against the actual source.

Workflow

Like sota-writer, this skill enforces an inverted workflow : sources are built / verified before writing, not after. The difference with sota-writer is that paper-writer assumes the SOTA corpus already exists in the registry (it consumes audited SOTAs to build the Related Work section) and focuses on producing the IMRaD sections + their citations.

A. SOTA CONSUMPTION
   ├─ Identify the SOTAs in the vault relevant to the paper's topic
   ├─ Verify they're audited (no ref in candidate / blocked_human)
   └─ → corpus of refs in `sota_cited_confirmed` available

B. STRUCTURE
   ├─ Choose target venue (ISMIR, SMC, NeurIPS, ACL, etc.)
   ├─ Adapt IMRaD to venue conventions (page limit, abstract length)
   └─ Outline each section with bullet points

C. WRITE PER SECTION
   ├─ Methods & Results : new content from the user's research
   ├─ Related Work : draw from audited SOTAs, no new claims
   ├─ Each citation passes citation-receipts protocol
   └─ → draft with placeholder citations (e.g., \cite{author2020topic})

D. PRE-SUBMISSION AUDIT
   ├─ /paper-trail:audit-article <paper.tex> [--warn]
   ├─ Fix all INVALID and ADJUST citations
   ├─ Decide on UNVERIFIABLE (enable shadow libs or remove claim)
   └─ → submittable draft

Standard IMRaD structure

1. Abstract — 150–250 words
2. Introduction — context, problem, contribution
3. Related Work — based on existing SOTAs in the registry
4. Methods — formalism, algorithms, model
5. Results — experiments, evaluations
6. Discussion — interpretation, limitations
7. Conclusion — summary of contributions, future work
8. References — BibTeX

Venue adaptation

Common venue conventions to respect :

Venue	Pages	Template	Notes
ISMIR	6	ISMIR LaTeX	Music information retrieval
SMC	8	SMC template	Sound and music computing
NeurIPS	8 + appendix	NeurIPS LaTeX	Machine learning
ACL	8	ACL LaTeX	Computational linguistics
ICASSP	4–5	ICASSP LaTeX	Signal processing
Generic journal	varies	Journal-specific	Refer to author guide

For a non-standard venue, ask the user for the page limit, citation style (APA / IEEE / Chicago / ACM), and reference format (BibTeX, RIS, etc.).

Citation protocol — MANDATORY

Every citation in the paper MUST :

1. Resolve to a ref in the registry ($RESEARCH_REGISTRY_PATH/refs/<slug>.md)
2. The ref's state MUST be sota_cited_confirmed (audited as VRAI)
3. The specific claim being cited must pass citation-receipts (CONFIRMED or NUANCED verdict)

Failure modes :

• Citation pointing to a ref in candidate or blocked_human:* → blocked by the PreToolUse hook (precheck_sota_wikilinks.py)
• Citation pointing to a ref in retracted → blocked, must be removed
• Claim that doesn't match the source → flagged by citation-receipts in RECEIPTS.md, must be corrected before submission

Workflow integration

Phase A — Identify source SOTAs

# Find SOTAs in the vault related to the paper's topic
# Use the configured adapter
python -c "
from adapters import get_adapter
adapter = get_adapter()
for sota_path in adapter.find_sotas():
    # filter by topic
    ...
"

For each relevant SOTA, verify it's audited :

python -m pipeline doctor --severity error
# Should report 0 violations on the refs cited by the source SOTAs

Phase B — Draft

Use the chosen LaTeX or markdown template. Write the structure first (section headers, bullet outline), then fill in section by section. For Related Work, copy + adapt content from the audited SOTAs — don't paraphrase from memory.

Phase C — Cite

For each \cite{slug} (LaTeX) or [[slug]] (Markdown) added :

1. Verify the ref exists in registry
2. Verify the ref state is sota_cited_confirmed
3. Verify the specific claim via citation-receipts skill (read the PDF section, match verb, verify verbatim quotes)
4. Update the ref's cited_in[] to record this paper + section

Phase D — Pre-submission audit

/paper-trail:audit-article <paper.tex>

Reviews each citation, produces RECEIPTS.md. Iterate until all citations are VALID.

/paper-trail:audit-article <paper.tex> --warn

Same audit + inserts inline warnings in .tex.bak for INVALID / ADJUST / UNVERIFIABLE citations.

What this skill does NOT do

• Doesn't invent references — only consumes from the audited registry
• Doesn't download PDFs — that's pdf-cascade
• Doesn't decide ref existence — that's sota-auditor
• Doesn't verify each citation's claim individually — that's citation-receipts (downstream)
• Doesn't bypass the PreToolUse hook — if the hook blocks the write, the citation must be fixed first
• Doesn't write Related Work from memory — copies + adapts from audited SOTAs only

Conventions

• Language : as specified by user / venue (English default)
• Citation style : as specified by venue (BibTeX keys = slug of the ref file, e.g., \cite{shannon_1948_mathematical})
• Wikilinks (Markdown drafts) : [[shannon_1948_mathematical]] — the adapter renders to the appropriate format at compile time
• References file : .bib file derived from the registry refs (one entry per cited slug, generated automatically)

Cross-reference

• /paper-trail:new-paper <topic> — entry point for this skill
• /paper-trail:audit-article <paper.tex> — pre-submission audit
• pipeline/USAGE.md for the underlying CLI
• skills/sota-writer/SKILL.md for the upstream SOTA creation
• skills/citation-receipts/SKILL.md for per-citation verification