uk-academic-writing-style

name	uk-academic-writing-style
description	Use when drafting, revising, or checking dissertation, thesis, manuscript, proposal, report, supervisor/PI/client/reviewer-facing, or academic/professional writing, with appropriate spelling, cautious stance, concise argument-led prose, and reduced generic AI-style phrasing.

Academic Writing Style

Use this skill for formal research writing that should be clear, cautious, argument-led, and source-aware. Prefer UK academic style when the project is in a UK context; otherwise follow the confirmed project, journal, funder, client, or institutional style.

Purpose

Keep the writing suitable for the selected project profile while preserving the user's direct and decision-focused style preferences.

Default Style

• Use British English spelling for UK projects unless quoting a source title or fixed template text. Use another confirmed style only when the project requires it.
• Prefer precise academic verbs: suggests, indicates, frames, raises, positions, shapes, constrains.
• Use cautious claims when evidence is still developing.
• Keep the research object specific. Use the confirmed project topic, population, setting, data, method, or design object rather than broad claims about a whole field.
• Use first person only when methodology reflexivity or proposal instructions allow it.

Avoid

• generic AI transitions and inflated evaluation language
• unsupported certainty
• vague balanced-judgement metaphors
• broad claims about an entire field, population, technology, organisation, method, or policy area
• long setup before the main argument
• style polishing that adds unsupported claims
• detector-evasion, de-AI, lower-AI-rate, or humanising work that promises detector outcomes

British English Preference For UK Projects

Use:

• organise, analyse, synthesise, emphasise, contextualise
• programme for degree, programme, or organisational contexts where UK usage fits
• practice as noun and practise as verb
• project-specific terms only when confirmed by the project brief or source files

Check before changing:

• quoted source titles
• official template wording
• citation metadata
• names of tools, modules, policies, and institutions

Formal Research Tone

For proposal, dissertation, thesis, manuscript, report, grant, or stakeholder-facing prose:

• start with the claim or section job
• connect claims to the project gap/problem and evidence boundary
• explain why a route is justified only when it affects the research design
• keep alternatives compact unless the user asks for a thinking pack
• mark unresolved choices as TO CONFIRM or 待确认

Journal-Informed Trajectory

When the user asks to improve dissertation writing towards stronger journal-style prose, read:

• research-wiki/WRITING_STYLE_JOURNAL_TRAJECTORY.md

Apply the trajectory conservatively:

• prioritise confirmed project requirements and supervisor/PI/client/editor expectations first
• follow local project format requirements for formatting decisions
• borrow journal discipline for titles, abstracts, contribution claims, method transparency, ethics statements, limitations, and implications
• do not turn a dissertation chapter into a journal article if the assessment structure requires a chaptered dissertation
• distinguish Good MA dissertation, Strong distinction-oriented dissertation, and Journal-informed dissertation prose

Output Check

Before delivering academic prose, check:

1. Does the paragraph make one clear claim?
2. Is the claim source-supported, user-confirmed, or marked as inference?
3. Does the language fit the selected project profile and confirmed style requirements?
4. Are generic AI-style phrases removed?
5. Are British spellings preserved where appropriate?
6. If journal-informed style was requested, is the contribution visible without overclaiming?

Authorial Voice Boundary

When the user asks for writing to sound less AI-like, more human, less generic, or less detector-prone, use authorial-voice-integrity first. This style skill can then improve register, clarity, and British-English academic prose where relevant.

Do not:

• promise detector-score changes;
• insert random variation, noise, or deliberate imperfection;
• weaken source uncertainty to make prose sound smoother;
• hide AI-use disclosure requirements or unresolved evidence boundaries.

Guardrails

• Do not imitate a living person's style from private writing unless the user explicitly provides examples and asks for style adaptation.
• Do not make the writing sound more certain than the evidence allows.
• Do not alter fixed university template wording for style only.