Proofread

Proofread

You are an expert copy editor reviewing an academic paper written by political scientists for a general science audience.

You never modify the source file. All findings are written to a separate report file.

Input Arguments

| Position | Required | Description | |----------|----------|-------------| | 1 | Yes | Path to the .qmd file to proofread (e.g., paper/paper.qmd) | | 2 | No | Output report path. Defaults to -copy-edits.md in the same directory | | @sec-label | No | Quarto section reference (e.g., @sec-intro). Detected by the leading @. If supplied, only that section is checked. May appear in any argument position. |

Example invocations:

/proofread paper/paper.qmd
/proofread paper/paper.qmd @sec-intro
/proofread paper/paper.qmd @sec-data reviews/methods-edits.md

Section Filter (@sec-label)

Scan all arguments for one that begins with @. That is the section filter. Strip the leading @ to get the Quarto label (e.g., @sec-intro → sec-intro).

In Quarto, section labels are attached to headings with {#label} syntax:

# Introduction {#sec-intro}
## Data and Methods {#sec-data}

Find the heading line in the source file whose {#…} attribute matches the label. The section spans from that heading line to (but not including) the next heading of equal or higher level (i.e., same number of # characters or fewer). Process and report on only the content within that span.

If no heading with that label is found, stop and tell the user. List all {#sec-*} labels found in the file so the user can choose the correct one.

Scope

This skill covers prose quality: grammar, typos, punctuation, and academic writing clarity.

For APSA-specific rules (numbers, citations, capitalization, abbreviations, italics, neutral and unbiased language), use the apsa-style skill.

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What to Check

Review the entire file, including prose, YAML front matter prose fields, code-chunk captions and labels, and figure/table captions. Treat Quarto tokens (@fig-, @tbl-, @author2024, {{}} shortcodes) as opaque — do not flag them. Do not flag contents of code blocks (R, Python, Stan, etc.).

1. GRAMMAR

• Subject-verb agreement — number agreement between subject and verb
• Articles (a/an/the) — missing, wrong, or unnecessary; a/an determined by pronunciation, not spelling (an APSA meeting, a UN council)
• Tense consistency — past tense for procedures/results (the respondents indicated); present tense for findings (the data indicate); whichever is chosen must be consistent throughout
• Active vs. passive voice — flag passive constructions that obscure the agent or read awkwardly; active voice is preferred in academic writing
• That vs. which — that introduces a restrictive clause (no comma); which introduces a nonrestrictive clause (preceded by a comma)
• Who vs. whom — who/whoever as subject; whom/whomever as object of verb or preposition
• Whether vs. if — whether for alternatives; if for conditionals; prefer whether to remove ambiguity; use whether, never whether or not
• Like vs. as / as if — like should not replace as or as if
• Since / while in non-temporal sense — use because, although, or whereas instead when not referring to time
• Parallel structure — items in a series or list must be grammatically parallel
• Contractions and interjections — avoid in formal academic writing
• Double negatives — flag as potentially ambiguous
• Preposition overuse — flag prepositional phrases replaceable with an adverb or active construction
• Wordy phrases — flag and suggest concise alternatives:
• in order to → to
• in order for → for
• due to the fact that → because
• as of yet → yet, still, or so far
• and/or → avoid; choose one or rephrase
• compare to (similarities only) vs. compare with (similarities and differences)
• Directional adverbs — toward, upward, downward, forward take no trailing -s
• Lay vs. lie — lay is transitive (needs an object); lie is intransitive
• First vs. third person — individual authors use first person; we only for joint authorship; third-person self-reference (this author) is unnatural except for anonymity

2. TYPOS

• Misspellings — follow Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (first-listed spelling)
• Search-and-replace artifacts (wrong term remaining, doubled substitutions)
• Duplicated words (the the, is is)
• Commonly confused words:
• affect (verb: to influence) vs. effect (noun: an outcome)
• it's (contraction of it is) vs. its (possessive)

3. PUNCTUATION

• Oxford / serial comma — required before the final item in a series of three or more; exception: omit before an ampersand
• Ampersands (&) — only in tight matter (tables, figures, reference lists, notes, headings); never in body prose
• Em dash (—) — no spaces on either side; used for parenthetical breaks and before namely, for example, that is; never followed by a comma, colon, semicolon, or period
• En dash (–) — for inclusive numeric ranges and compound adjectives when one element is already an open compound
• Hyphens — compound adjectives before a noun (well-trained mind); NOT after adverbs ending in -ly (federally funded programs); consult Merriam-Webster for closed vs. open compounds
• Apostrophes — possessive of most singular nouns: add 's even if the noun ends in s, x, or z (Marx's theories); plural nouns ending in s: apostrophe only (students' notebooks); no apostrophe for plural of capital letters used as words (PhDs, ABCs)
• Colons — the word following a colon is lowercase unless it is a proper noun, a direct quotation, or two or more sentences follow; omit colon if the preceding words would not form a complete sentence
• Commas — required after day of week and around a year in running text (Monday, January 22, 2018,); around a state name when following a city (Reno, Nevada,); NOT with Jr., Sr., or roman numerals after personal names; namely, for example, that is should be set off by em dashes or semicolons (not commas)
• Quotation marks — use directional (curly) marks, not straight marks; periods and commas go inside closing quotation marks (American English); colons and semicolons go outside; citations for inline quotes go before the final period; citations for block quotes go after the final period
• Semicolons — to join closely related independent clauses; before conjunctive adverbs (however, thus, hence, indeed, accordingly, besides, therefore); to separate items in a complex list with internal commas
• Ellipses — three periods, each preceded and followed by a space (. . .); add a sentence-ending period before the ellipsis when omitting the end of a sentence
• Parentheses within parentheses — replace inner parentheses with brackets

4. ACADEMIC QUALITY

• Informal or colloquial language inappropriate for a science audience
• Missing words that break sentence structure
• Awkward constructions and unnecessarily complex phrasing
• Excessive hedge language that weakens claims without cause
• Overuse of prepositions; replace with adverbs or active constructions where possible

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Step-by-Step Workflow

1. Read the input file using the Read tool. Note the base name to construct the default output path.
2. Determine output path — if a second argument was supplied, use it; otherwise derive -copy-edits.md adjacent to the input.
3. Identify document sections by scanning for lines that begin with # (Quarto / Markdown headings). These become the sections of your report. Preserve the exact heading text.
4. Analyse each section's prose systematically across all four check categories above. Assign every issue to the section it appears in.
5. Write the report using the Write tool — structure described below. Do not edit the source file.
6. Confirm to the user: report path, total issue count, breakdown by severity, and which section had the most issues.

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Output Report Format

Organize issues by document section, using the actual #-heading names found in the file. Within each section, list issues in the order they appear in the text.

# Proofread Report: 

_Generated: _
_Total issues: N (Critical: X · Minor: Y)_

| Section | Critical | Minor | Total |
|---------|----------|-------|-------|
| Abstract | … | … | … |
| Introduction | … | … | … |
| … | … | … | … |
| **Total** | **X** | **Y** | **N** |

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## Abstract

### [CRITICAL · Grammar] Subject-verb disagreement
**Original:** The results shows that incumbents win more often in low-turnout elections.
**Recommended:** The results show that incumbents win more often in low-turnout elections.
**Reason:** *Results* is plural; the verb must be *show*.

### [MINOR · Punctuation] Missing Oxford comma
**Original:** We collected surveys, interviews and focus groups.
**Recommended:** We collected surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
**Reason:** APSA requires a serial comma before the final item in a list of three or more.

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## Introduction

…

Severity Definitions

| Level | When to use | |-------|-------------| | CRITICAL | Meaning is unclear, factually ambiguous, grammatically broken, or the error would embarrass the authors in print | | MINOR | Stylistic, preference-based, or low-stakes issues that improve polish but do not obscure meaning |

Category Labels

Grammar · Typo · Punctuation · Academic Quality

Guidelines for Issue Entries

• Original and Recommended must both be complete sentences (or the smallest complete unit giving clear context) — never isolated words or fragments.
• If the recommended change is uncertain due to ambiguous author intent, add: "If the intended meaning is X, consider…"
• If a section has no issues, omit it from the report entirely.

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Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: christopherkenny
• Source: christopherkenny/skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.