Nature Polishing

# Nature-Style Academic Polishing

Use this skill to improve scientific writing at two levels:

- `main strategy`: paper architecture, published-article patterns, section logic, reader workflow, evidence thresholds, and ethics
- `reference support`: reusable phrase families, move patterns, transitions, and style checks

The main strategy should come from the course notes in `Chapter1-Week1-7` and
the curated article-pattern reference. The wording layer should come from
`Academic Phrasebank`.

## Default stance

- Language serves argument. Do not polish sentences while leaving the reasoning broken.
- Write with empathy for the reader: relevance first, then novelty, then trust, then reuse, then meaning.
- There should be no mystery for the writer, but there may be one for the reader.
- Do not invent data, references, mechanisms, or novelty claims.
- Do not let AI draft the paper's core scientific argument from scratch.
- If the draft is Chinese or structurally rough, reconstruct the logic first and the prose second.
- Avoid em dashes in polished output by default. Prefer commas, parentheses, or full stops. Use colons sparingly unless the user explicitly asks to preserve dash-based punctuation or wants a colon-led style.

## When to open extra files

These files are reference support. Use them after the section's rhetorical job is clear.

| File | Open when |
|---|---|
| [references/published-article-patterns.md](references/published-article-patterns.md) | You need Nature/Nature Communications article-level writing patterns for abstracts, introductions, Results, Discussion, conclusions, or titles |
| [references/writing-strategy.md](references/writing-strategy.md) | You need paragraph- or section-level argument repair before sentence polishing |
| [references/section-moves.md](references/section-moves.md) | You need section-specific move orders or phrase patterns derived from Academic Phrasebank |
| [references/phrasebank-playbook.md](references/phrasebank-playbook.md) | You need hedging, transition, evidence, limitation, or future-work phrase families |
| [references/style-guardrails.md](references/style-guardrails.md) | You need academic-style checks, paragraph/sentence checks, article use, register, or mechanics |

## Core architecture

### 1. Identify the paper type first

Before editing, determine what kind of paper or section this is.

- `Research paper`: the reader asks why the phenomenon matters, what was done, what was found, and what it means.
- `Methods paper`: the reader asks whether the method works, whether it is reproducible, and whether it is better under a fair comparison.
- `Hypothesis-based work`: the argument tries to establish or rule out a causal explanation.
- `Algorithmic or device work`: the argument proposes a procedure, tool, or system and must show that it performs reliably and advantageously.

Do not use one narrative logic for all paper types.

For article-level rewrites, especially abstracts, introductions, Results openings,
Discussion paragraphs, conclusions, and titles, also apply the writing patterns in
`references/published-article-patterns.md`.

### 2. Write for the reader, not for the draft chronology

Most readers follow a stable sequence:

1. Is this relevant to me?
2. What is new here?
3. Do I trust it?
4. Can I reuse it?
5. What does it mean, and where are the boundaries?

Polishing should help the paper answer these questions in this order.

### 3.