academic-writing

name	academic-writing
description	Use when drafting or revising an academic paper, essay, thesis, or dissertation with source-away composition, originality, citation, synthesis, voice, and register controls; use academic-reporting-standards for selecting formal study-reporting rules.
metadata	{"portable":true,"compatible_with":["claude-code","codex"],"priority":"critical"}

Academic Writing

Academic prose must be reasoned, not merely cited. Before drafting any thesis statement, literature gap, interpretation, methodology justification, discussion, conclusion, or recommendation, load critical-reasoning-and-argument and run its argument map, countercase, fallacy, and certainty-calibration gates.

The single entry skill for any academic artifact: paper, essay, thesis, dissertation — in either the academic (peer-reviewed audience, strict conventions) or popular (general audience, conventions relaxed but rigor preserved) variant. Detail lives in references/; load only what the situation needs.

Output-type router

Output	Length	Audience	Original contribution required	Structural template (load)
Essay (academic)	1,500–5,000 words	Course / journal / collection	Argument or interpretation, not new data	references/conventions.md § Essay
Essay (popular)	800–2,500 words	General readers	Fresh angle, no formal contribution	references/conventions.md § Essay (popular)
Paper (academic)	4,000–10,000 words	Peer-reviewed journal or conference	New finding, method, or argument	references/conventions.md § Paper
Paper (popular)	1,500–4,000 words	Magazine / serious blog / Substack	Accessible synthesis or insight	references/conventions.md § Paper (popular)
Thesis	15,000–30,000 words (Master's); discipline-dependent	Examiner committee	Master-level original contribution	references/eco-thesis-craft.md
Dissertation	60,000–100,000 words (PhD)	Examiner committee + future scholars	Substantial original contribution	references/eco-thesis-craft.md

Pick the type before drafting. Mixing a thesis structure into an essay (or essay register into a paper) is the most common failure mode.

The four-question filter (Eco's gate, applied to every output)

Before writing, answer:

1. Type — paper / essay / thesis / dissertation.
2. Variant — academic or popular.
3. Discipline — sciences (IMRAD), social sciences (IBC or hybrid), humanities (essay/argument).
4. Citation style — APA / Chicago / MLA / Harvard / Vancouver. Load references/citation-styles.md.

Skipping any of these produces work that does not fit anywhere.

The source-away workflow (mandatory)

The engine produces academic prose only via this pipeline:

Sources → Extract notes → SOURCE-AWAY GATE → Compose → Originality check → Output

Each step has a non-negotiable rule:

1. Extract notes — atomic note cards, fragments not sentences, with provenance per card. Load references/trzeciak-note-discipline.md.
2. Source-away gate — sources are removed from active context before composition begins. Trzeciak's law: "You cannot copy what is not in front of you."
3. Compose — synthesize across notes using references/source-synthesis.md patterns. Three or more sources synthesized into one paragraph is the strongest plagiarism shield.
4. Originality check — N-gram overlap audit against the source corpus. Load references/originality-engine.md and references/plagiarism-prevention.md. Any 7-word verbatim run is either restructured, quoted with attribution, or cited.

This pipeline is what makes the engine's "same prompt, three runs, three different but authentic outputs" property real.

Reference index — when to load what

Reference	Load when
references/conventions.md	Picking the structural template for the chosen output type
references/eco-thesis-craft.md	Thesis or dissertation — Eco's topic-gate, index-card system, ten commandments of quotation, plagiarism gates, prose rules, pride/humility posture
references/trzeciak-note-discipline.md	Always — pre-composition note-card discipline, source-away gate
references/paraphrase-discipline.md	Converting source material to engine prose — true paraphrase vs synonym-swap
references/source-synthesis.md	Combining multiple sources into one argument — agreement, disagreement, supplementation, gap-naming patterns
references/quote-extraction.md	Selecting and integrating direct quotations
references/citation-brachiation.md	Following citation chains backward and forward to build the working bibliography
references/pearl-growing.md	Iterative source discovery from a strong seed reference
references/source-mining.md	Mining databases, indexes, and open archives for academic sources
references/citation-styles.md	Picking and applying APA / Chicago / MLA / Harvard / Vancouver
references/voice-and-register.md	Hedging, modality, reporting verbs, signposting, register audit
references/originality-engine.md	Pre-delivery N-gram overlap audit
references/plagiarism-prevention.md	Pre-delivery five-rule audit (verbatim, structure, citation, quote-density, paraphrase fidelity)
references/morley-rhetorical-moves.md	Need a phrase for a rhetorical move (introducing work, citing literature, describing methods, reporting results, discussing findings, writing conclusions, hedging, comparing, signposting). Morley Academic Phrasebank (Tier 1).
references/morley-reporting-verbs-and-hedges.md	Choosing a reporting verb by stance (neutral / tentative / strong / critical) or selecting a hedge calibrated to evidence strength. Includes the Davis & Morley reuse-acceptability rule as a plagiarism-prevention guardrail.

Universal structural conventions

Section	Paper	Essay	Thesis / Dissertation
Abstract	Required	Optional	Required
Introduction	Required	Required (often the hook)	Required (chapter)
Literature review	Embedded or separate	Embedded	Separate chapter
Methodology	Required (empirical)	Optional	Required (empirical)
Results	Required (empirical)	—	Required (chapter)
Discussion	Required	—	Required (chapter)
Conclusion	Required	Required	Required (chapter)
References / Bibliography	Required	Required	Required
Appendices	As needed	Rare	Common

Detail in references/conventions.md.

Variation across runs (per the engine's anti-plagiarism mandate)

Same prompt run three times must produce three authentic but distinct outputs. The variation comes from:

• Different argument order within the same outline structure.
• Different opening hook (anecdote, statistic, question, historical pivot).
• Different reporting-verb subset ("argues" vs "contends" vs "maintains" vs "claims").
• Different paragraph-pattern (claim-evidence-implication vs implication-evidence-claim).
• Different sentence-length cadence.
• Different synthesis grouping of the same source set.

The references and findings are the same. The argument, voice, and structure are different. Detail in references/voice-and-register.md.

Universal anti-patterns

• Drafting before the source-away gate has fired (sources still in context).
• Synonym-swap "paraphrase" — load references/paraphrase-discipline.md and follow the four-step technique.
• Literature review as annotated bibliography — load references/critical-literature-review.md and critical-reasoning-and-argument/references/literature-review-and-thesis-hardening.md.
• Thesis or dissertation chapter that cites heavily but does not expose the research question, gap, method logic, contribution, and counter-literature.
• Verbatim 7-word runs from any single source — load references/plagiarism-prevention.md.
• Mixing citation styles within one document.
• One-source paragraphs — synthesize across three or more (references/source-synthesis.md).
• Dogmatic, unhedged claims (target 6–12 hedges per 1,000 words).
• Repeated reporting verbs ("Smith says ... Jones says ... Lee says").
• Mixing output types — thesis structure inside an essay, essay register inside a paper.
• Skipping the originality check before delivery.
• Treating the popular variant as the academic variant minus citations — popular still requires accuracy and attribution; only the form changes.

Universal ship gate

• Output type and variant declared (paper / essay / thesis / dissertation × academic / popular).
• critical-reasoning-and-argument run on the central thesis, literature gap, methodology justification, interpretation, and conclusion.
• Citation style declared and applied consistently.
• Source-away gate fired before composition.
• Notes are fragments, not sentences (Trzeciak rule).
• Every paragraph cites where it should; quote-density audited.
• N-gram overlap check passed (no 7-word verbatim runs from any source).
• Voice audit passed (hedging in range, reporting-verb diversity).
• Structural template for the chosen type and variant followed.
• Reference list complete; every cited work is in the list, every list entry is cited at least once.
• DOI / persistent identifier captured where available.
• If thesis or dissertation: Eco's topic-gate, secret-title, provisional-TOC discipline applied.
• If thesis or dissertation: chapter logic, methodology justification, contribution-to-knowledge claim, limitations, and viva-defensible countercase are explicit.
• If popular variant: form relaxed, but accuracy and attribution preserved.

Companion skills

• dataset-discovery-and-analysis — for empirical papers / theses, the data-finding layer.

• critical-reasoning-and-argument — mandatory for the argument, gap, method, interpretation, contribution, and countercase logic in every academic artifact.

• data-quality-assessment — score the data behind empirical claims on the four-axis model.

• web-scraping-foundations — when sources include web data.

• business-writing (planned) — for non-academic writing artifacts.

• report-and-proposal-craft (planned) — for business reports.

• uganda-academic-research, kenya-academic-research - local university documentation-style defaults, plagiarism thresholds, and proposal/thesis format rules.

See also (within this skill)

The thirteen references/ files together encode the body of academic-writing craft from Eco, Bailey, Trzeciak, and the engine's own discipline. Load only what the current task requires; do not load the entire references set by default.

Use When

Use for source-grounded academic drafting, revision, synthesis, citation, paraphrase, and originality control.

Do Not Use When

Do not use as the reporting-standard selector; route that decision to academic-reporting-standards.

Inputs

Input	Source/provider	If absent
Research question, audience, genre	Author or brief	Stop and clarify the argument task
Verified source notes and citation style	Project corpus and venue rules	Produce an outline with gaps; do not invent citations

Workflow

1. Define the question, contribution, genre, and citation convention.
2. Build claim-to-source notes and separate quotation, paraphrase, synthesis, and inference.
3. Draft source-away from notes, then reconcile every claim to its source.
4. Stop on unattributed text or unsupported claims; recover by removing or marking the gap.
5. Run originality, structure, citation, and voice gates.

Outputs

Artefact	Consumer	Acceptance condition
Academic draft and claim-source notes	Author, supervisor, or reviewer	Claims are traceable, citations conform, and originality checks expose no unresolved borrowing

Writing Evidence Guidance

Claim-source notes, quotation checks, citation audit, and originality checklist provide the writing evidence.

Capability Contract

Review is read-only by default. Drafting or editing requires explicit authority; submission, authorship claims, and certification remain with the author.

Degraded Mode

Without sources or citation rules, return a structured outline and explicit evidence gaps, not polished unsupported prose.

Decision Rules

Choice	Action	Failure/risk avoided
Exact wording matters	Quote and verify verbatim	Citation drift
Ideas combine across sources	Mark synthesis and cite all inputs	False single-source attribution
Claim lacks evidence	Remove or mark gap	Fabrication

Quality Standards

The argument answers the research question, sources support the claims attributed to them, and prose retains the author's defensible voice.

Academic Writing Pitfalls

• Drafting from an open source paragraph; write from notes.
• Swapping synonyms to disguise copying; reconstruct the idea.
• Citation dumping; state each source's role.
• Inventing a bridge claim; mark synthesis or gap.
• Treating fluent prose as originality evidence; run the audit.

Worked Example

Two sources supporting different parts of one conclusion are cited together and the resulting claim is marked (synthesis).

Book-derived additions

Use dissertation-writing-process when the deliverable spans chapter planning, question-to-conclusion traceability, institutional formatting, and AI-use review.

References

• Source synthesis
• Paraphrase discipline
• Plagiarism prevention

Evidence Produced

Evidence	Consumer	Acceptance condition
Claim-source notes and originality audit	Author, supervisor, or reviewer	Quotations, paraphrases, syntheses, and inferences remain distinguishable and traceable

Anti-Patterns

• Drafting from an open source paragraph. Fix: close the source and draft from verified notes.
• Swapping synonyms to conceal copying. Fix: reconstruct the idea and cite its source.
• Dumping citations after unsupported claims. Fix: explain the evidentiary role of each citation.
• Inventing a bridge claim. Fix: mark it as synthesis or record an evidence gap.
• Treating fluency as originality evidence. Fix: run the source-away and originality checks.