| name | idea-writer |
| description | Use when writing an ideas report after brainstorming or when turning a chosen research direction into a proposal-style research plan |
Idea Writer
Write a structured ideas report after /brainstorm-ideas has converged on a research direction. For technology assessments use survey-writer; for manuscripts with real results use paper-writer.
Setup
Follow skills/_shared/writing-workflow.md for context loading, citation handling, gap-filling research, output format, diagrams, and finish checks.
- Primary source:
docs/discussion/*-brainstorm-ideas-log.md; if multiple exist, ask which one to use.
- If no log exists, ask the user to run
/brainstorm-ideas first or describe the direction.
- Save to
articles/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>-ideas-report.{md,typ,tex}.
Report Structure
Draft each section, show, get feedback:
- Research Question — one sentence
- Novelty Claim — what's new and why it matters
- Why Now, Why You — what changed to make this tractable; unique advantage
- Cross-field Connections — unexpected links discovered during brainstorming
- Proposed Approach — method outline (Polya: what is the plan?)
- Minimum Viable Experiment — (Polya: can you solve a part of it?)
- Success Signal — what would it look like if this problem is truly solved?
- Hope Signal — what would indicate the problem isn't solved yet, but the approach still has hope?
- Pivot Signal — what would indicate this approach fundamentally doesn't work, and it's time to abandon or change direction?
- Open Risks — unresolved uncertainties
- Target Venue
- Key References — full BibTeX entries; save matching
.bib file
Diagrams
When a concept is abstract or structural — a reduction between problems, a relationship between methods, a data flow, an architecture — draw a diagram instead of (or alongside) explaining it in prose. A picture makes the idea concrete and shareable in ways that paragraphs of text cannot.
Common diagram types:
- Reduction/connection diagrams — boxes for concepts, arrows for relationships
- Pipeline/flow diagrams — stages of a method or data flow
- Comparison layouts — side-by-side before/after or method A vs. method B
- Conceptual sketches — any visual that makes an abstract idea graspable at a glance
Polya's "Looking Back": After drafting, review — can the result be derived differently? Can it be used for some other problem? Can you see the result at a glance?
