agentsclimarketplace

Literature reading and synthesis

Skill jjfroehlich/agent-skills-for-academic-research/skills/literature-reading-and-synthesis

Agent skills for academia research: writing, dataviz, publishing, communication, career, and more.

Install
npx -y skills add jjfroehlich/agent-skills-for-academic-research --skill literature-reading-and-synthesis

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

  • 1 stars1 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Use when the user brings scientific papers, figures, tables, reading goals, alert queues, related-literature notes, or reference piles and needs active reading strategy, claim/evidence extraction, figure unpacking, comparison across papers, literature tracking, synthesis matrices, reusable notes, or journal-club/project-decision readiness. Trigger when the user needs a reading or synthesis workflow, not for a simple one-paper summary, citation formatting, citation-manager mechanics, literature search alone, manuscript drafting, grant writing, peer review, or slide design.

The file declares its own license as MIT. That is the author’s claim about this one file, and it is not the same thing as the license GitHub reports for the repository, which is listed with the other numbers below.

SKILL.md

4.4 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Literature Reading And Synthesis

Purpose

Help users read scientific papers actively, extract claims and evidence without flattening them, maintain a sustainable literature-tracking routine, and turn notes into synthesis artifacts.

Use this skill when

  • The user needs a reading plan for one or more papers.
  • The user asks how to unpack figures, tables, methods, claims, or limitations.
  • The user wants a synthesis matrix, comparison table, or reusable note template.
  • The user is setting up or debugging a literature-alert or reading queue.
  • The user needs presentation, journal-club, or project-decision readiness from papers.

Do not use this skill when

  • The user only asks for a factual summary of one paper and does not need a method.
  • The task is mainly manuscript drafting, grant writing, or peer review rather than reading/synthesis.
  • The request is citation formatting or citation-manager mechanics.

Core workflow

  1. Clarify the goal: orient, skim, present, compare, decide, track, or synthesize.
  2. Route to the right playbook: paper reading, claim extraction, literature tracking, or synthesis matrices.
  3. Pick the appropriate depth: quick triage, targeted section read, figure/evidence read, or high-stakes deep read.
  4. Separate motivation, approach, results, interpretation, limitations, and next steps.
  5. For figures and tables, decode the evidence before writing the take-home.
  6. Convert the read into a concrete output: reading plan, extraction table, figure note, tracking queue, or synthesis matrix.
  7. State caveats when advice is about habit design, dated source lists, or unsupported citation-manager mechanics.

Output formats

  • Reading-depth plan.
  • Six-question paper note.
  • Figure/table unpacking note.
  • Claim and evidence extraction table.
  • Literature alert portfolio.
  • Weekly literature triage queue.
  • Synthesis matrix.
  • Build-on-it note with next research action.

Reference routing

  • Open references/paper-reading-workflow.md for reading goals, article-type routing, section intent, deep-read passes, and presentation readiness.
  • Open references/claim-extraction.md for six-question extraction, figure/table unpacking, claim appraisal, and critique discipline.
  • Open references/literature-tracking.md for alert streams, source portfolios, query tuning, weekly triage, and backlog pruning.
  • Open references/synthesis-matrices.md for matrix fields, field-source maps, build-on-it notes, and comparison outputs.
  • Use checklists for quick execution once the relevant reference route is clear.
  • Use examples when the user asks for a template, worked pattern, or concrete artifact.

Quick checklist

  • What is the user's reading goal and deadline?
  • Is this quick triage, targeted reading, or high-stakes deep reading?
  • What article type is it?
  • Which claims, figures, methods, limitations, and next steps must be separated?
  • Does the output need a paper note, figure note, tracking queue, or synthesis matrix?
  • Are citation-manager mechanics being requested without source-backed guidance?

Common pitfalls

  • Reading every paper at the same depth.
  • Copying the abstract instead of extracting claims and evidence.
  • Accepting figure take-homes before decoding the display.
  • Treating publication as proof.
  • Building an alert stream too large to process.
  • Turning a synthesis matrix into a miscellaneous notes field.

Quality bar

  • The answer must name the reading/tracking goal and choose a matching depth.
  • Claims, evidence, interpretation, limitations, and next actions must be distinct.
  • Figure and table advice must include concrete evidence-decoding steps.
  • Literature tracking advice must be sustainable and volume-aware.
  • Outputs must be reusable by the user after the conversation.

Keep looking

Skills are one crate of 328,083. Ordering is by how many stacks a row turns up in, so the top of any crate is what has actually been picked rather than what has the most stars.