Academic Research Writing Skill

SKILL.md

# Academic Research Writing Skill

## Purpose

This skill helps users develop academic research writing in a structured, rigorous, and logically coherent way. It is especially suitable for literature reviews, research proposals, thesis openings, research background sections, study objectives, research questions, hypotheses, methodology sections, measurement indicators, statistical analysis plans, and ethics-related writing.

The skill is designed for postgraduate-level academic work and emphasizes clarity, evidence-based reasoning, conceptual precision, and appropriate academic tone.

## When to Use

Use this skill when the user needs help with:

- Writing or improving a literature review
- Developing a research proposal or thesis opening report
- Refining a research topic or title
- Identifying research gaps and innovation points
- Formulating research questions and hypotheses
- Writing research background and rationale
- Designing study methods
- Selecting primary and secondary outcomes
- Explaining clinical, theoretical, or practical significance
- Writing ethics application content
- Planning statistical analysis
- Converting informal ideas into academic language
- Translating or polishing Chinese academic writing into English, or English into Chinese

## Typical User Inputs

The user may provide:

- A tentative research topic
- A rough research idea
- A list of variables or indicators
- Existing literature or article titles
- Supervisor feedback
- A study population
- Experimental design details
- A target word count
- Required sections from a proposal template
- Existing draft text to polish or restructure

If the input is incomplete, infer a reasonable structure based on the available information and clearly state any assumptions.

## Core Workflow

### 1. Clarify the Research Focus

Identify:

- The target population
- The core intervention, exposure, or task
- The comparison group or condition
- The main outcome variables
- The theoretical or clinical problem being addressed
- The expected contribution of the study

### 2. Build the Academic Logic

Organize the argument using the following chain:

```text
Research background
→ Existing evidence
→ Current limitations or gaps
→ Why the proposed study is needed
→ Research purpose
→ Research questions
→ Hypotheses
→ Study design
→ Indicators and analysis
→ Expected significance
```

### 3. Improve Academic Expression

Rewrite vague or informal language into precise academic language. Avoid overclaiming. Use cautious phrases when evidence is limited, such as:

- may indicate
- is expected to
- may contribute to
- provides preliminary evidence for
- helps clarify whether
- is associated with
- suggests a potential mechanism

### 4. Ensure Methodological Consistency

Check whether the following elements match each other:

- Research question and hypothesis
- Study design and causal claims
- Primary outcome and main hypothesis
- Secondary outcomes and exploratory aims
- Sample size and statistical method
- Experimental procedure and measurement timing

### 5. Produce the Final Output

Depending on the user request, output may include:

- A polished paragraph
- A structured research proposal section
- A table of research questions and hypotheses
- A list of primary and secondary indicators
- A statistical analysis plan
- A complete opening report draft
- A bilingual Chinese-English version

## Output Requirements

The output should be:

- Academically appropriate
- Logically structured
- Clear and concise
- Suitable for postgraduate research writing
- Consistent with the user’s stated study design
- Cautious about causal language unless the design supports causal inference
- Practical enough to be used in a real proposal or ethics application

When relevant, separate the answer into sections such as:

```text
1. Research Background
2. Research Purpose
3. Research Questions
4. Research Hypotheses
5. Study Design
6. Main and Secondary Outcomes
7. Statistical Analysis
8. Research Significance
```

## Special Considerations

### For Clinical or Rehabilitation Research

Distinguish between:

- Clinical outcome indicators
- Behavioral performance indicators
- Neurophysiological indicators
- Feasibility indicators
- Safety indicators

Avoid claiming treatment efficacy if the study is only cross-sectional, observational, or exploratory.

### For Psychology and Neuroscience Topics

Clearly define:

- Cognitive process
- Behavioral manifestation
- Neural mechanism
- Experimental paradigm
- Operational definition of each variable

### For Literature Review Writing

Use a logical rather than purely article-by-article structure. A useful format is:

```text
Theme 1: What is already known
Theme 2: What remains unclear
Theme 3: Why the proposed study is needed
```

## Example Prompts

```text
请帮我根据这个课题写研究背景和立项依据。
```

```text
我的研究是 MI-BCI 与内隐序列学习，请帮我整理研究问题和研究假设。
```

```text
请把这段开题报告内容改得更学术、更简洁。
```

```text
请帮我区分本研究的主要指标和次要指标。
```

```text
请根据这个横断面研究设计，帮我写统计分析方法。
```

## Example Output Style

When asked to write research hypotheses, prefer a structured format:

```text
Hypothesis 1: Compared with random sequence conditions, structured sequence conditions will lead to shorter MI-BCI response latency.

Hypothesis 2: Stroke patients may show weaker but still observable implicit sequence learning effects compared with healthy controls.

Hypothesis 3: Changes in neurophysiological indicators may be associated with behavioral improvements during the MI-BCI task.
```

When the study is exploratory, mark hypotheses as exploratory rather than confirmatory.