SKILL.md
Related Work Writing
Generate publication-quality Related Work sections with proper citations and thematic organization.
Input
$0— Current paper draft or method description
$1— Collected literature (BibTeX entries, paper summaries, or literature review notes)
References
- Related work writing prompts and strategies:
~/.claude/skills/related-work-writing/references/related-work-prompts.md
Workflow
Step 1: Analyze the Paper's Contributions
- Read the current paper draft (especially Methods and Introduction)
- Identify the key contributions and novelty claims
- List the technical components that need literature context
Step 2: Organize Literature by Theme
Group related papers into thematic clusters:
- Each cluster should represent a research direction or technique
- Common themes: problem formulation, methodology family, application domain, evaluation approach
- Order themes from most to least relevant to your work
Step 3: Write Each Theme Paragraph
For each thematic group:
- Topic sentence — Introduce the research direction
- Describe key works — Summarize 2-5 representative papers
- Compare and contrast — How does each approach differ from yours?
- Transition — Connect to the next theme or to your contribution
Step 4: Refine
- Ensure every cited paper has a clear reason for inclusion
- Check that your work's novelty is clear from the comparisons
- Verify all
\cite{}keys exist in the.bibfile
- Aim for 1-2 pages (single column) or 0.5-1 page (double column)
Rules
- Compare and contrast, don't just describe — "Unlike [X] which assumes..., our method..."
- Organize by theme, not chronologically — Group by research direction
- Cite broadly — Not just the most popular papers; include recent and diverse work
- Be fair — Acknowledge strengths of prior work before stating limitations
- Explain inapplicability — If a method could apply to your setting, explain why you don't compare experimentally, or add it to experiments
- Use present tense for established facts — "Smith et al. propose..." or "This approach uses..."
- End with positioning — The final paragraph should clearly position your work relative to all discussed prior work
Related Skills
- Upstream: literature-search, literature-review, citation-management
- Downstream: paper-writing-section
- See also: survey-generation