Research Writing And Literature
Purpose
Build a research story rather than a sequence of paper summaries. Every paragraph needs a central topic, normally in its first sentence; each later sentence must develop, support, qualify, or transition from it.
When AI is used to draft or substantially revise the document, first use author-guided-ai-writing.md to obtain an author-approved story brief and claim-evidence map. Drafting and line editing do not replace those author decisions.
Before a substantial draft or structural revision, identify the reader, the decision or scientific understanding the section must support, the evidence that carries the central claim, and what the reader should know after the section. Write the structure from that reader-to-evidence path instead of filling a generic manuscript template.
Route To References
- For critical literature synthesis, read
references/literature-review.md.
- For journal-paper structure and results-led storytelling, read
references/paper-writing-style.md.
- For section-specific technical writing, methods, DOE, and figure discussion, read
references/technical-writing-analysis.md.
- For equation explanations, claim-evidence checks, methods completeness, and figure or equation narratives, read
references/technical-argument-audit.md before a final prose-only pass.
- For a clarity pass focused on reader understanding rather than formulaic compression, read
references/technical-prose-clarity.md.
- When matching the calibrated research style and its evidence boundaries, read
references/han-hu-research-style.md.
- For a final pass against formulaic AI-like drafting habits, read
references/anti-formulaic-writing.md.
Introduction And Background
Use the chain: importance and applications; state of the art; remaining issue; why it persists; the proposed innovation; and its likely significance. Do not claim novelty merely because no prior work exists. Identify why the missing work is challenging and how the approach resolves a meaningful barrier.
Citations And Synthesis
Use FirstAuthor et al. for a multi-author narrative citation unless the target format requires otherwise. State a paper's method and takeaway in one efficient sentence when possible; avoid a redundant second sentence that only repeats its result. Group background studies by mechanism, method, material, or evidence type, and place citations beside the claim they support. Do not attach a broad citation range to a sentence that conflates distinct categories.
After each source group, state the limitation, contradiction, or knowledge gap that motivates the next step. Include background references fairly across major theories and research groups; trace seminal work backward through its references and forward through citing work.
Methods, Models, And Results
Methods must make the work reproducible: facility/model details, procedure, data reduction, uncertainty, assumptions, and justification. For results, use four levels: figure description, observation, physical explanation, and comparison with existing work. State whether agreement, disagreement, or a new regime is supported, and limit claims to the evidence.
Editorial Safeguards
Do not make abstracts into compressed result tables. Use only the quantitative anchors needed to convey the main result; prioritize the problem, gap, approach, central finding, and implication. Before delivery, make an editorial pass for unfamiliar or undefined labels, repeated vague forms of enable and establish, unusually, together, unnecessary hyphenated compounds, dash forms, catalog-like headings, and modifier-heavy sentences. Use the rules in references/anti-formulaic-writing.md; review each occurrence in context rather than applying blind word bans or treating a style signal as authorship evidence. For a Word deliverable without a controlling template, use Times New Roman 11 pt, black text, single spacing, and Normal margins.