Academic Proofreading

Report-only skill. Never edit source files — produce reviews/<scope>/proofread/<YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM>.md only (where <scope> is the paper slug, e.g. paper-jtp).

Output Path

Per rules/review-artefact-routing.md (auto-loads in research projects (path-scoped to paper-*/ and paper/)):

• Source slug: proofread
• Write reports to: reviews/<scope>/proofread/YYYY-MM-DD.md inside the project, where <scope> is the paper slug (e.g., paper-jtp). Path is relative to the research project root, not the Task-Management repo.
• Never at project root (./CRITIC-REPORT.md-style filenames are forbidden — pre-rule layout).
• Idempotency: if today's file exists, append a same-day descriptor ({date}-revision.md, {date}-r2.md, {date}-pre-submission.md) — never overwrite.
• Index update: if reviews/INDEX.md exists, write a one-line entry under "Latest per source" pointing at the new file. Otherwise review-recap will rebuild the index next time it runs.
• Infrastructure repos (Task-Management, atlas-workspace, etc.): this section does not apply — the path-scoped rule won't load there.

When to Use

• Before sending a draft to supervisors
• Before submission to a journal/conference
• After major revisions to check consistency
• When you want a fresh-eyes check on writing quality

When NOT to Use

• Formal audits — use the Referee 2 agent for systematic verification
• Argument quality — use devils-advocate for logical scrutiny
• Citation completeness — use an installed bibliography validator or direct cite-key cross-referencing (this skill flags only obvious citation-format issues)

Workflow

1. Locate files: Find all .tex files in the project (and .log files for LaTeX diagnostics)
2. Read the document: Read all .tex source files in order
3. Run 11 check categories (below)
4. Produce report: Write reviews/<scope>/proofread/<YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM>.md under the project directory (where <scope> is the paper slug, e.g., paper-jtp; create the directory if it does not exist: mkdir -p reviews/<scope>/proofread/). Do NOT overwrite previous reports — each review is timestamped to the minute. Canonical convention: the installed shared resource shared/review-state-schema.md.

Check Categories

Eleven categories, run in order. Full catalogue — every bullet, threshold, and worked example — in references/check-categories.md:

| # | Category | # | Category | |---|----------|---|----------| | 1 | Grammar & Spelling | 7 | TikZ Diagram Review | | 2 | Notation Consistency | 8 | Numeric Text↔Table Cross-Check | | 3 | Citation Format | 9 | Causal Language Audit | | 4 | Academic Tone | 10 | Equation Completeness | | 5 | LaTeX-Specific Issues | 11a | Anonymity (double-blind venues only) | | 6 | Citation Voice Balance | 11 | Preprint Staleness |

Severity Levels

| Level | Definition | Example | |-------|-----------|---------| | Critical | Will be noticed by reviewers, may cause rejection | Broken references, major grammar errors, inconsistent core notation, text↔table number mismatch, causal overclaiming with weak design | | Major | Noticeable quality issue | Inconsistent citation style, tone issues, overfull hbox > 10pt, undefined variable in equation, stale preprint, ambiguous "significant" | | Minor | Polish issue | Occasional British/American mix, minor spacing, missing equation number for referenced equation |

Quality Scoring

Apply numeric quality scoring using the shared framework and skill-specific rubric:

• Framework: ../shared/quality-scoring.md — severity tiers, thresholds, verdict rules
• Rubric: references/quality-rubric.md — issue-to-deduction mappings for this skill

Start at 100, deduct per issue found, apply verdict. Insert the Score Block into the report after the summary table.

Recurring Pattern Grouping

When the same issue appears 3+ times, group it as a single pattern finding instead of listing each instance separately. This prevents reports bloated with 50 individual items when the real message is "you have 3 recurring problems."

Format:

### M3: Hedge phrase "interestingly" (8 instances)
- **Category:** Academic tone
- **Locations:** lines 42, 67, 103, 145, 189, 203, 267, 301
- **Problem:** Filler hedge phrase adds no content
- **Fix:** Delete all 8 instances

One deduction for the pattern (not 8 separate deductions). Escalation still applies: 5+ instances of the same minor issue → one Major deduction.

Report Format

# Proofread Report

**Document:** [filename]
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Pages:** [approximate]

## Summary

| Category | Critical | Major | Minor |
|----------|----------|-------|-------|
| Grammar & spelling | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Notation consistency | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Citation format | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Academic tone | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LaTeX-specific | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Citation voice balance | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TikZ diagrams | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Numeric cross-check | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Causal language | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Equation completeness | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Preprint staleness | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| **Total** | **0** | **0** | **0** |

## Critical Issues

[List each with file, line/section, and specific issue]

## Major Issues

[List each with file, line/section, and specific issue]

## Minor Issues

[List each with file, line/section, and specific issue]

## Quality Score

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| **Score** | XX / 100 |
| **Verdict** | Ship / Ship with notes / Revise / Revise (major) / Blocked |

### Deductions

| # | Issue | Tier | Deduction | Category |
|---|-------|------|-----------|----------|
| 1 | [description] | [tier] | -X | [category] |
| | **Total deductions** | | **-XX** | |

## Recommendations

[Optional: overall observations about the writing — prioritise fixes by deduction size]

Council Mode (Optional)

For high-stakes pre-submission checks, run in council mode — 3 LLM providers independently run the 7 check categories, cross-review, and a chairman synthesises one PROOFREAD-REPORT.md. Trigger: "council proofread" / "thorough proofread". Full orchestration + invocation: ../shared/council-protocol.md.

Value: Diminishing returns for pure formatting — most valuable combined with citation-voice-balance and notation-consistency checks, where different models have genuinely different pattern recognition.

Log to REVIEW-STATE.md (final step)

After writing the proofread report, append a row to the project's REVIEW-STATE.md:

bash <skills-root>/_shared/review-state-log.sh \
  --check proofread \
  --paper "<paper-{venue} dir>" \
  --verdict "<PASS|ISSUES FOUND>" \
  --open-issues "<total-issues-across-categories>/<total-issues-across-categories>" \
  --report "reviews/<scope>/proofread/<YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM>.md" \
  --notes "<one-line: e.g. '3 critical, 12 minor; mostly notation §3'>" \
  [--trigger "pre-submission-report|review-cluster"]

• Verdict: PASS if no issues found across any category; ISSUES FOUND otherwise.
• Open issues: total count across all 7 (or 11) check categories at run time.
• Trigger: pass orchestrator name only if invoked via pre-submission-report or review-cluster. Otherwise omit.

Schema: the installed shared resource shared/review-state-schema.md.

Source format. Paper prose stays one line per paragraph; normalize edited files with .scripts/latex_paragraph_format.py --apply and recompile. Canonical: rules/latex-source-format.md.

Cross-References

• Installed bibliography validator — For thorough bibliography cross-referencing and metadata checks
• latex — For compilation and error resolution (run before proofreading to ensure the document compiles cleanly)
• Referee 2 agent — For formal code + paper auditing
• devils-advocate — For argument quality and logical scrutiny