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Adjust writing tone and register for academic audiences and venues
Passed 23 of 23 test cases with the skill, and 22 of 23 without it.
1 fixed22 passed either way0 still failing0 broke
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
A test case the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
I am preparing a presentation slide deck for an informal departmental seminar vs. submitting a paper to an IEEE journal. How does register selection differ between a workshop/talk summary and a formal journal submission?
| Checked | Without skill | With skill |
|---|---|---|
| Notes that Level 2 register suits informal talks while Level 3 is appropriate for journal submissions. | Missed | Passed |
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
A skill for adjusting the tone, register, and voice of academic writing to match disciplinary expectations and target venue conventions. Covers the spectrum from informal drafts to publication-ready prose, including hedging language, impersonal constructions, discipline-specific stylistic norms, and common tone pitfalls that undermine credibility.
Academic writing occupies a specific position on the formality spectrum. The appropriate register depends on the genre (journal article, conference paper, thesis, grant proposal, blog post) and the discipline (humanities tend toward more elaborate prose; STEM fields favor concise, direct statements).
Register Levels in Academic Writing:
Level 1 - Informal (lab notebooks, internal emails):
"We tried the new method and it worked way better."
Level 2 - Semi-formal (conference talks, blog posts):
"We tested the proposed method and observed significant improvement."
Level 3 - Formal (journal articles, theses):
"The proposed method was evaluated against the baseline, yielding
a statistically significant improvement in accuracy (p < 0.01)."
Level 4 - Highly formal (legal briefs, policy documents):
"The aforementioned methodology was subjected to rigorous
evaluation, the results of which demonstrate a statistically
significant enhancement in predictive accuracy."
Most academic papers should aim for Level 3. Level 4 often sounds stilted and impedes readability. Level 2 is acceptable for workshop papers or invited commentaries but too casual for top-tier journals.
STEM Fields:
- Prefer active voice for methods: "We collected samples..."
- Use passive voice for established processes: "Samples were centrifuged..."
- Short sentences, minimal adjectives
- Precision over elegance
- Numbered equations and defined variables
test cases passed, vs 22 / 23 without
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