tue-academic-writing

TU/e Academic Writing

Draft, revise, or review academic writing with clear argumentation, readable structure, appropriate style, and faithful use of sources.

Required reading

Read [the complete writing guidance](references/writing-guidance.md) before drafting, revising, or reviewing. Read it for every mode, including a targeted pass. The requested task determines which instructions to apply; do not use this entrypoint's overview as a substitute for the full guide.

LaTeX and Overleaf

• For LaTeX document creation or template adaptation, read LaTeX templates. For a new LaTeX document with no other requested format, default to the school-supplied two-column starter at assets/templates/tue-school-essay/. Preserve an existing project or a different required assignment template; use the other bundled starters only when requested or needed by the specified format.
• For Overleaf creation, editing, compilation, or PDF iteration, read the Overleaf workflow. Use available supported tools and verify the live result.
• Pure template setup or compilation does not require a prose review. Whenever drafting, revising, or reviewing prose, read the complete writing guide as above. Preserve review-only and grammar-only boundaries inside LaTeX and Overleaf too.

Understand and preserve the requested task

Establish the audience, purpose, main message, deliverable, available evidence, and assignment constraints from the supplied material. Ask only about material ambiguities that the material cannot resolve. Apply the guide's recommendations as defaults, retain its explicit qualifications, and follow a conflicting user, assignment, or publication requirement. Do not silently replace specific advice with generic stylistic preferences.

• Draft: work through preparation, drafting, and evaluation. Establish the main argument, inventory supporting material, identify missing sources, and develop each supporting argument through claim, evidence, and reasoning. Produce the requested text; mark unresolved gaps clearly rather than making up information.
• Revise: examine purpose and argument, paragraph structure, cohesion, style, and source fidelity within the authorized scope. Change the designated text while preserving intended meaning, technical details, qualifications, and attribution. Revisit preparation when the evidence or argument is incomplete.
• Review: examine those same aspects and provide passage-specific findings explaining the issue, its consequence for the reader, and a concrete remedy. Do not rewrite the whole draft unless requested; brief illustrative edits can explain a finding.
• Grammar-only: apply local grammar, word-usage, and clarity corrections without restructuring the argument, adding claims, or dropping details. Do not apply the whole-document guidance as permission to broaden the edit. Respect an available grammar-pass skill's boundaries; this skill has no dependency on it.

Apply the full guidance in a sensible order

Use the guide's numbered sections directly:

1. Purpose and preparation (§§1–4): establish the intended contribution, organize ideas and relationships, inventory the evidence, search for missing sources within the authorized scope, and select relevant material. Include necessary explanation; exclude distracting irrelevance when editing scope permits.
2. Argument and paragraphs (§§5–6): connect each arguable supporting claim to relevant, reliable, accurately represented evidence and explicit reasoning. Use the standard paragraph structure where it applies, including the distinct functions of concluding and transitioning sentences.
3. Reader comprehension (§§7–12): signal actual relationships, put familiar information before new information, pair demonstratives with summary words, and repeat key terms. Diagnose whether a gap needs a connector or substantive missing information.
4. Style (§§13–14): apply every listed convention, not merely “be formal and concise.” Retain the discipline-specific exception for researcher “we” and learn the conventions used in published writing in the field.
5. Sources (§§15–18): attribute borrowed material, format quotation appropriately, distinguish paraphrase from summary, preserve source meaning and emphasis, avoid synonym-only copying, and use a consistent referencing style. Consult the included resources when the task calls for them.

Return to earlier stages when later checks expose a missing idea, source, or explanation. Use external-reader or peer feedback when available; do not claim another reader has reviewed the text unless that happened. These are working steps, not mandatory headings or a checklist to paste into every response.

Agent operating rules

• Never invent findings, source details, quotations, measurements, or causal explanations. Distinguish a supported inference from a proposed interpretation requiring confirmation.
• Read an underlying source before asserting that it supports a claim. With only a draft or bibliography, assess citation use but do not claim source-content verification. Clearly identify what remains unverified.
• Use the guide's examples for their writing lessons only. Their hypothetical facts and citations must never become evidence in a user's document.
• Preserve formulas, identifiers, and technical distinctions unless substantive correction is authorized and supported. Do not make a claim more certain or broader than its evidence.
• Do not invent grading requirements or present a style convention as a universal grammatical law.
• An external-resource link is a starting point, not proof that its contents or address are current. Check it before relying on current style details.

Deliver and verify

Return the requested draft, revision, or review in its requested format. Keep unresolved evidence gaps and substantive questions distinct from finished prose. In revisions, compare against the original to check that concrete details, uncertainty, and attribution were preserved. In reviews, prioritize argument and missing evidence before local polish, and describe actual issues rather than returning generic advice.

Do not certify grades, institutional approval, source verification, or readiness for submission beyond what has actually been established.