academic-writing:proofread

Proofread Paper for Style and Clarity

Polish a draft for language quality, applying proven scientific writing principles to improve readability and professionalism.

Before proofreading, read references/writing-guide.md for detailed style rules and examples.

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Multi-Pass Proofreading Workflow

Effective proofreading requires multiple focused passes. Trying to catch everything at once causes you to miss things. Work through these passes in order:

Pass 1: Structure and Flow

Read the paper end-to-end without editing. Focus on:

• Does each section accomplish its purpose?
• Do paragraphs flow logically? Does each paragraph make exactly one point?
• Are transitions between sections smooth?
• Is the narrative arc clear (problem → approach → evidence → conclusion)?

Flag structural issues but don't fix them yet — fixing structure changes text, making later passes on the original version wasted effort.

Pass 2: Sentence-Level Clarity

Apply the 7 reader-expectation principles from references/writing-guide.md (§ Sentence-Level Clarity):

• Subject-verb proximity (don't interrupt yourself)
• Stress position (important information at sentence end)
• Topic position (context at sentence start)
• Old information before new
• One idea per sentence/paragraph
• Action in the verb (not nominalized nouns)
• Context before new information

Also check:

• Pronoun clarity ("this" → "this result", "it" → "the model")
• Verb placement (verbs early in sentences)
• Filler word elimination ("actually", "basically", "very", "In order to" → "To")
• Active voice throughout

Pass 3: Word Choice and Precision

• Terminology consistency: Same concept = same word throughout (don't alternate between "model"/"network"/"architecture" for the same thing)
• Abbreviation discipline: Define on first use, then use consistently — never paraphrase back to a synonym
• Calibrated hedging: "can" for observations, "could" for hypotheses, no stacked hedges
• Precision over vagueness: Replace "good results" → "92% accuracy", "large dataset" → "1.2M examples"
• Vocabulary signaling: Avoid "combine," "modify," "extend" → use "develop," "propose," "introduce"
• Verb modesty: Check for "introduce" or "propose" used with standard/borrowed techniques (losses, architectures, metrics). Replace with "use," "adopt," or "employ" unless the contribution is genuinely novel
• Articles before technical terms: Verify definite articles ("the") are present before specific technical nouns at their definition ("We define the operator" not "We define operator")

Pass 4: Grammar and Formatting

Work through the checklist below item by item. Pay special attention to:

• Tense consistency by section: Methods design in present tense, experimental procedures in past tense, results interpretation in present tense. Read each section and verify every verb is in the correct tense. Common error: present tense leaking into experiment descriptions ("We augment..." should be "We augmented...").
• Heading capitalization: All section and subsection titles should follow consistent title case.

Pass 5: LaTeX-Specific Review

Check compilation output and LaTeX conventions (see checklist below).

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Grammar & Formatting Checklist

Text

• Spelling and grammar (run spellcheck)
• Consistent tense (past for completed work, present for claims)
• No dangling modifiers or ambiguous pronoun references
• Consistent use of Oxford comma (or consistent omission)
• Proper hyphenation of compound modifiers ("well-known method" but "the method is well known")
• Em-dashes reserved for genuine paired parenthetical asides only
• "i.e." and "e.g." set off by commas

LaTeX

• Consistent math mode ($x$ everywhere, not sometimes italic text)
• Proper escaping of special characters (\%, \_, \&)
• Non-breaking spaces before references: Figure~\ref{fig:x}, Table~\ref{tab:y}, Section~\ref{sec:z}
• Non-breaking tilde before \cite{}, \ref{}, \eqref{}
• Consistent use of \emph{} vs \textit{} vs \textbf{}
• "Figure" (not "Fig.") at the start of a sentence; likewise for "Table", "Section", "Equation"
• \citet{} for narrative citations, \citep{} for parenthetical (if the template supports natbib; otherwise stay consistent with existing convention)
• Consistent \label{} prefixes: fig:, tab:, sec:, eq:
• \usepackage{microtype} in preamble for improved typography
• No overfull/underfull hbox warnings (check compilation log)

References

• All \cite{} keys resolve (no undefined references)
• No dangling references (cited but not in .bib, or in .bib but never cited)
• All figure/table cross-references resolve (\ref{} matches \label{})
• Consistent citation format throughout

Figures & Tables

• All figures and tables referenced in text before they appear
• Captions are self-contained (understandable without reading main text)
• Consistent number formatting (decimal places, thousands separators)
• Direction indicators on metrics (↑ higher better, ↓ lower better)
• Best values bolded consistently
• No title inside figure (the caption serves this function)

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Page-Fitting Techniques

When the draft exceeds the page limit:

Technique	How	Impact
\looseness=-1	Place before a paragraph's blank line	Squeezes paragraph by ~1 line
Move content to appendix	Move proofs, extra ablations, implementation details	Can save 0.5-2 pages
Condense related work	Convert to shorter paragraph form	Saves 0.25-0.5 pages
Tighten figure placement	Use [t] or [h] float specifiers; adjust \textfloatsep	Reduces whitespace
Reduce figure size	\includegraphics[width=0.45\linewidth]	Fits more per page
Combine small tables	Merge related tables side by side	Eliminates float overhead
Use \paragraph{}	Replace \subsubsection{} with inline headings	Saves vertical space

Do not modify margins, font sizes, or spacing commands in the style file — this violates venue formatting rules and risks desk rejection.

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On-Demand References

• For detailed style rules and examples: Read references/writing-guide.md