nature-polishing
yuan1z0825/nature-skills
Polish academic manuscripts into Nature-style English with section-specific guidance and LaTeX layout fixes.
What is nature-polishing?
Restructures and translates academic prose—including Chinese drafts—into publication-quality English aligned with Nature journal patterns. Covers all manuscript sections (abstract, intro, results, discussion, etc.), LaTeX typesetting issues, and general scientific writing requests. Use when refining manuscripts for high-impact journal submission.
- Detects paper type, section, language, and target journal to load only relevant polishing rules
- Applies Nature/Nature Communications article patterns and Academic Phrasebank phrase-level guidance
- Fixes structural and wording issues in abstracts, introductions, results, discussions, conclusions, titles, and methods sections
- Diagnoses and resolves LaTeX layout problems: loose pages, stranded headings, figure placement, and float sizing
- Handles Chinese-to-English translation and general academic writing requests without explicit journal naming
- Flags unfixable structural problems rather than inventing missing content
How to install nature-polishing
npx skills add https://github.com/yuan1z0825/nature-skills --skill nature-polishingHow to use nature-polishing
- 1.State your request: manuscript section, paper type, target journal (if known), and whether the draft is in English or Chinese
- 2.The skill detects your axes (paper type, section, language, journal) and confirms them before proceeding
- 3.Provide the prose or LaTeX code to be polished
- 4.Receive section-specific, journal-aligned feedback and revised text
- 5.For layout issues, compile your LaTeX and provide the rendered PDF or log for diagnosis
Use cases
- Polish a research paper abstract or introduction for Nature submission
- Translate a Chinese academic draft into publication-quality English
- Fix LaTeX layout issues such as figures splitting across pages or 'Float too large' errors
- Restructure a results or discussion section to match high-impact journal conventions
- Refine a methods section or title for clarity and impact
- Researchers preparing manuscripts for Nature or Nature Communications
- Non-native English speakers translating Chinese academic drafts
- Authors revising papers for high-impact journal submission
- Scientists seeking structured guidance on academic writing conventions
- Authors troubleshooting LaTeX typesetting and figure placement
nature-polishing FAQ
No. Default is generic high-impact style. If you name Nature or Nature Communications, the skill loads journal-specific patterns. Otherwise, it applies research-paper best practices.
Yes. Detect language as zh-to-en and provide the Chinese text. The skill will translate and polish into Nature-style English.
Loose or sparse pages, stranded section headings, figures that don't fill the page or split across pages, 'Float too large' errors, multi-panel figure arrangement, and sparse Supplementary Information. Always compile and inspect rendered pages before and after.
The skill flags unfixable structural issues rather than inventing missing content. You will be told what is missing and how to address it.
Yes. It detects research, methods, hypothesis, algorithmic, and review papers and applies type-specific playbooks.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from yuan1z0825/nature-skills.
name: nature-polishing description: Polish, restructure, or translate academic prose into Nature-leaning English using writing-strategy principles, curated Nature/Nature Communications article patterns, and phrase-level support from Academic Phrasebank. Use whenever the user asks to polish a manuscript paragraph, abstract, introduction, results, discussion, conclusion, title, methods section, or Chinese academic draft for publication-quality English. Also covers LaTeX layout/typesetting (排版) fixes — loose or sparse pages, stranded section headings, figures that don't fill the page or split across pages, "Float too large", multi-panel figure arrangement, and Supplementary Information that looks empty — via references/latex-layout.md. Also trigger on general academic/scientific writing requests even without the word "Nature", including academic writing, scientific writing, SCI/paper writing, English manuscript polishing, language editing, proofreading, and Chinese phrasings such as 学术写作、科研写作、论文润色、写paper、SCI写作、英文论文润色、语言润色、润色、改写、学术英语、英文写作. version: 6.1.0 author: Yuan1z skill, refactored into static/dynamic layers
Nature-Style Academic Polishing — Router
This skill is split into two layers:
- A static layer under
static/that holds versioned, reusable content fragments (core principles, paper-type playbooks, per-section guidance, language-specific rules, per-journal style). - A dynamic layer (this file plus
manifest.yaml) that detects the request's axes and loads only the fragments needed for the current job.
Do not try to apply the polishing logic from memory or from this router. Always load fragments from disk as described below.
Routing protocol
Follow these five steps every time the skill is invoked.
1. Load the manifest and the core layer
Read manifest.yaml. It declares the axes (paper_type, section, language, journal), the allowed values, and the file paths each value maps to.
Also read every file listed under always_load. These hold the default stance, failure-mode diagnosis, ethics, and output format that apply to every polish job.
2. Detect the axis values for this request
For each axis in the manifest, decide the value using the manifest's detect: hint and the user's input:
paper_type— research / methods / hypothesis / algorithmic / review. Default: research.section— abstract / intro / results / discussion / conclusion / title / methods. May be multiple. Ask the user if it is ambiguous and matters for the polish.language— en or zh-to-en. Detect from the draft itself.journal— nature / nat-comms / generic. Default: generic. If the user names a Nature subjournal, treat it asnature.
State the detected axis values in one short line to the user before proceeding, so they can correct you cheaply.
3. Load the matching fragments
For each axis value, Read the file mapped in the manifest. Skip the section axis only if the user has supplied free-floating prose with no section context.
Do not read every fragment in static/. Load only what step 2 selected.
4. Polish using the loaded material
Apply the loaded fragments in this priority order, matching the paper type -> section job -> paragraph logic -> claim/evidence/boundary -> sentence polish rule from core/failure-modes.md:
- Paper-type playbook (architecture, writing order).
- Section-specific job and failure modes.
- Journal-specific framing and constraints.
- Language-specific sentence and paragraph rules (apply last).
- Core stance and ethics throughout.
If a paragraph's structural problem cannot be fixed without inventing content, flag it instead of papering over it.
5. Reach for references only when needed
The files under references/ are deep references, not defaults. Open them on demand per the references.on_demand table in the manifest, for example when the user explicitly asks for phrasebank-style alternatives or a stricter style audit.
Layout/typesetting (排版) requests are different. If the user asks to fix
placement rather than wording — loose/sparse pages, stranded headings, figures
that don't fill the page or split across pages, "Float too large", multi-panel
arrangement, sparse Supplementary Information — skip the prose axes (paper_type,
section, language, journal) and load references/latex-layout.md directly. That
file is self-contained: it carries the diagnosis workflow (render → contact-sheet →
read the log), the float-glue and [H]/\clearpage/placeins patterns, and the
"regenerate wide figures taller at the source" rule. Always compile and visually
inspect rendered pages before and after — never judge layout from the .tex alone.
Why this split
- The static layer is versioned and reviewable. Adding a new journal style or paper type is one new file plus one manifest line.
- The dynamic layer keeps each invocation cheap: only the fragments relevant to this draft enter context, instead of the full 1000-line monolith.
- The router itself is short on purpose. Update fragments, not this file, when adding scope.
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