# Acl Writing Style

Use when revising an ACL paper for computational-linguistics house style, covering...

- Repository: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills (1346 stars)
- Category: AI and agents
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-09-27
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill acl-writing-style -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill acl-writing-style -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill acl-writing-style -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill acl-writing-style -g -a gemini-cli -y`
Claude Code plugin marketplace: `/plugin marketplace add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills`

## Description

Use when revising an ACL paper for computational-linguistics house style, covering task-first framing, linguistic examples tied to quantitative error analysis, scoping language claims to tested languages, LLM-era claim discipline, anonymous self-reference, Limitations prose, and compressing into the 8-page or 4-page ACL format.

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

# ACL Writing Style

Use this on the manuscript itself. ACL reviewers are NLP specialists who read
for whether the paper understands *language* as well as *models*; the style
that survives them is concrete, example-grounded, and precisely scoped.

## First-page contract

- Open with the task or linguistic phenomenon, not the model family: what
  goes in, what comes out, why it is hard, and for whom.
- State the contribution as a typed claim by paragraph two: new method, new
  resource, new analysis, or new finding, ACL reviews are calibrated per type.
- Give one real example (input, desired output, failure of the status quo)
  on page one; abstract problem statements without an example read as vague
  at this venue.
- Say what languages the paper covers in the abstract if the answer is not
  "English only", and if it is, say that too.

## Claim scoping in the LLM era

| Reflex phrasing | ACL-safe phrasing |
|---|---|
| "LLMs cannot do X" | "The five models tested fail X under these prompts" |
| "Our method understands Y" | "Improves the Y benchmark by n points; error classes A, B shrink" |
| "Works across languages" | "Evaluated on de/hi/sw/zh/ar; typological coverage discussed in §7" |
| "Significantly better" | Reserve for tested significance; give the test and p-value or interval |
| "State-of-the-art" | Scope to the exact setting, model scale, and date checked |

Reviewers increasingly ask whether a result is a property of the task, the
model snapshot, or the prompt; write so each claim names which.

## Examples and error analysis as prose

The rest: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/ACL-Skills/skills/acl-writing-style/SKILL.md