# Scientific Prose Style

Prose-quality rules for writing scientific manuscript text: abstract, introduction...

- Repository: https://github.com/Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills (646 stars)
- Category: Testing
- License: Apache-2.0
- Last updated: 2026-10-13
- Runs scripts: yes, review before use

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill scientific-prose-style -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill scientific-prose-style -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill scientific-prose-style -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills --skill scientific-prose-style -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Prose-quality rules for writing scientific manuscript text: abstract, introduction, results, discussion. The headline rule is a strict em-dash budget: the long dash (, ) is overused and reads as a stylistic tic, so cap it and rewrite with commas, colons, parentheses, or a period. Also caps semicolons and colons, the usual replacements, and covers hedging, sentence rhythm, paragraph openers, and AI-sounding prose (去 AI 味, AI 味重, sounds AI-generated) with an information test, a corpus-checked list of tells and a detection script. Load whenever drafting or revising manuscript prose (not figures; that is figure-planner).

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# scientific-prose-style

Rules for the *prose* of a scientific paper, the sentences of the abstract,
introduction, results, and discussion. Load this whenever you draft or revise
manuscript text. (Figure planning lives in `figure-planner`; this skill
is about words on the page.)

This skill owns punctuation, rhythm and word-level tells, and it runs last. When a passage is hard to follow
for reasons punctuation cannot fix, such as an unstable claim, a missing evidence link, or a
paragraph whose job is unclear, fix that first with `manuscript-optimizer` or `scientific-writing`.
Re-punctuating a sentence whose scientific role is wrong does not make it readable, and polishing a
drifted Review before its `review-article-architecture` drift audit makes the drift harder to see.

One layer sits directly above this one. `anti-defensive-writing` owns authorial posture at the
paragraph level: what a paragraph leads with, where a caveat sits, and whether a sentence exists to
advance the argument or to pre-empt an objection. Run it first. Stripping defensive scaffolding
rewrites paragraph openers and sentence boundaries, which is exactly what Rule 3 and Rule 5 below
then have to settle, so running this skill first means doing that work twice. Rule 3 here calibrates
hedges within a sentence; deciding whether the hedge should exist at all belongs upstairs.

## Rule 1: Em-dash budget (the headline rule)

The long em-dash (`, `) is the single most overused mark in generated scientific
prose. It feels punchy in isolation but a reader hits three or four per paragraph
and it reads as a stylistic tic, not as writing. **Cap it.**

The rest: https://github.com/Boom5426/Nature-Paper-Skills/blob/HEAD/skills/core/scientific-prose-style/SKILL.md