Menu
Use when a manuscript contains recurring concepts, translations, abbreviations, proper names, or near-synonyms whose meanings and forms must remain stable across the argument.
Install with Codex or Claude Copy this prompt, paste it into Codex, Claude, or another assistant, and let it review the skill page and install it for you.
Based on SOC occupation classification
Use when citations, quotations, page numbers, bibliography entries, or source-supported claims must be checked for existence, metadata accuracy, textual fidelity, and claim–source fit.
Use when a humanities researcher needs to transform verified sources into a structured scholarly conversation rather than a chronological list of summaries.
Use when a humanities researcher has a broad topic, intuition, corpus, or problem but does not yet have a precise, contestable, and researchable question.
Use when a humanities argument depends on a concept whose history, competing definitions, translations, or boundaries must be reconstructed before the concept can support new claims.
Use when an interpretation must be grounded in specific textual, visual, rhetorical, formal, interface, archival, performative, or material features rather than thematic summary or theoretical labeling.
Use when a research question, scope boundary, and source base exist but the manuscript still needs a defensible sequence of claims, warrants, evidence, objections, and section functions.
| name | checking-terminology-consistency |
| description | Use when a manuscript contains recurring concepts, translations, abbreviations, proper names, or near-synonyms whose meanings and forms must remain stable across the argument. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| language | en |
| license | MIT |
Control conceptual drift without flattening meaningful variation. This skill distinguishes harmless stylistic variation from changes that alter the argument's object, level of analysis, historical claim, translation, or normative force.
Humanities manuscripts often use several adjacent terms because sources use different vocabularies, translations vary, or a concept develops across sections. Consistency does not mean replacing every word with one preferred label. It means making every variation accountable.
Accepts a manuscript, chapter set, terminology ledger, concept map, translation notes, style sheet, or reviewer comments about unclear terminology.
Requires the text to be checked and, for central concepts, provisional definitions or evidence of how the researcher intends the terms to differ.
Produces a normalized TerminologyEntry ledger, occurrence map, drift analysis, recommended actions, unresolved researcher decisions, and a terminology gate report.
May produce a translation table, capitalization and hyphenation sheet, abbreviation policy, proper-name authority list, or proposed definition revisions.
Fails when central terms have no recoverable meaning, two terms are used interchangeably despite incompatible definitions, a translation choice cannot be justified, or the requester asks the agent to hide conceptual inconsistency through stylistic editing.
Guarantees that each audited central term is linked to an explicit definition, distinction, status, and recommended treatment.
Does not guarantee that the chosen concept is philosophically correct, that one translation is universally authoritative, or that terminological uniformity will make the argument persuasive.
Use after the central concepts have been provisionally defined, after merging chapters written at different times, after translation or multilingual research, before manuscript review, after renaming a key concept, or when reviewers report that several terms seem interchangeable.
Use it early enough that terminology changes can still propagate through the argument map, examples, headings, abstract, and keywords.
Provide:
If no definitions exist, the skill may create a provisional ledger but MUST mark entries requiring researcher definition.
Extract recurring concepts, technical terms, translated terms, proper names, abbreviations, hyphenated forms, capitalized labels, analytic categories, period names, and coined expressions. Rank them as central, supporting, source-specific, descriptive, or stylistic.
For each central term record:
A canonical form is a manuscript decision, not a claim that other scholarship must use the same terminology.
Locate singular and plural forms, capitalization changes, abbreviations, translations, spelling variants, and near-synonyms. Record section and local context. Do not normalize before examining whether a variation is meaningful.
Assign each variation one category:
For example, “platform,” “platform infrastructure,” and “platform capitalism” are not automatically interchangeable. Their relation must be stated.
Compare every central occurrence with the canonical definition. Ask:
Flag changes that alter inference or evidence requirements.
Central concepts often depend on boundaries between adjacent terms. Create explicit contrast pairs such as:
mediation / remediation
memory / storage
subject / position
influence / similarity
presence / authenticity
For each pair state whether the manuscript treats them as distinct, nested, overlapping, historically related, or interchangeable. Inconsistent relations are more serious than spelling variation.
Record original terms, transliteration system, published translation where used, and the researcher's chosen translation. Preserve quoted translations exactly. Where several translations are defensible, explain the manuscript's choice at first use rather than pretending universal consensus.
Check author names, titles, institutional names, dates, capitalization, diacritics, and romanization consistently.
Use one of the following actions for every flagged item:
Do not perform global replacement when context changes meaning.
After the researcher approves a decision, update headings, abstract, keywords, tables, diagrams, argument maps, examples, and conclusion. Record the change in the ledger. A term renamed in prose but left unchanged in the research question creates a new inconsistency.
Return PASS when central terms are defined and their variations are either consistent or explicitly justified. Return CONDITIONAL PASS for non-blocking style inconsistencies or documented translation alternatives. Return FAIL when concept drift changes the argument, a central distinction collapses, or unresolved terminology makes claims ambiguous.
Stop and request a researcher decision when:
Completion requires:
Do not invent original-language forms, etymologies, historical first uses, translator names, or authoritative consensus. Do not claim that two terms are equivalent because a dictionary offers overlapping glosses. Do not fabricate quotations to justify a definition. Do not silently attribute the researcher's coined distinction to an established scholar.
When the source-language text has not been consulted, label the form researcher-supplied or unverified as appropriate.
Use templates/terminology-ledger.md. Include:
Gate: Terminology Consistency
Status: PASS | CONDITIONAL PASS | FAIL
Evidence checked:
Blocking issues:
Non-blocking risks:
Researcher decisions required:
Required next action:
Next skill:
Audit how this manuscript uses “mediation,” “remediation,” and “platform mediation.” Preserve source quotations, identify level-of-analysis shifts, and require my decision where normalization would change the thesis.
Replace every similar-looking term with one word so the paper appears consistent, even if the theorists use them differently.
The bad invocation confuses visual uniformity with conceptual consistency and MUST be rejected.
mapping-concept-lineage when a distinction depends on historical derivation.structuring-humanities-argument when approved terms must be propagated.reviewing-manuscript for whole-manuscript evaluation.verifying-before-submission after terminology blockers are resolved.Terminology auditing cannot settle all interpretive disputes. Different disciplines and translations may support several defensible choices. The skill makes choices and uncertainties visible; final conceptual and translation responsibility remains with the researcher and, where needed, a language or field specialist.