Manuscript Map
The single most important file — thesis, contribution, target venue, section budgets, key sources. Read first, every session.
The single most important file in the kit. Claude reads this first, every session. The more precise it is, the less the agent drifts, overclaims, or invents. Replace every
<...>placeholder. Delete sections that do not apply.
Thesis (one sentence)
<The single claim this manuscript exists to defend. If you cannot state it in one sentence, the paper is not ready to draft. e.g. "A pre-execution verification gate reduces hallucinated tool calls in LLM agents without lowering task completion, which post-hoc self-correction does not achieve.">
Contribution (what is new)
<What does the reader know after this paper that they did not before? Be specific. Distinguish your contribution from prior work explicitly.\>
Status
- Stage: <idea / outline / first draft / revision / responding-to-reviewers / camera-ready>
- Target journal/venue: <e.g. ACL — numbered reference style, ~8 pages + appendix, double-blind>
- Format: LaTeX + BibTeX (
biber/bibtex) - Main file: <main.tex>
- Bibliography: <references.bib>
- Deadline: <date or "none">
Audience
<Who reads this venue? What can you assume they know (skip it) vs. what must you establish (cite it)? A specialist methods audience ≠ a broad-readership journal.\>
Structure (sections & budgets)
<The section plan. Word budgets keep sections from sprawling. Update as you draft.>
| Section | File | Purpose (claim it establishes) | Budget | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract | sections/abstract.tex | <the whole paper in 200 words> | 200 w | <not started> |
| Introduction | sections/intro.tex | <gap + why it matters + what we do> | 800 w | <not started> |
| Methods | sections/methods.tex | <reproducible account of what was done> | 1500 w | <not started> |
| Results | sections/results.tex | <what the data show, no interpretation> | 1200 w | <not started> |
| Discussion | sections/discussion.tex | <interpretation, limits, implications> | 1500 w | <not started> |
| Conclusion | sections/conclusion.tex | <contribution restated, future work> | 300 w | <not started> |
Key sources (the spine of the argument)
<The handful of references the paper stands on. Claude must never confuse these or misattribute their claims. Cite keys must match references.bib exactly.>
.bib key | What it establishes | Do NOT overclaim it as |
|---|---|---|
<tooluse2023> | <tool use works on single-turn QA> | <evidence for multi-turn agents — different setting> |
<halluc2022> | <hallucination is prevalent in LLMs> | <a tool-call-specific benchmark> |
Figures & tables (display items)
| ID | File | Shows | Referenced in |
|---|---|---|---|
fig:arch | figures/arch.pdf | <agent + verification-gate schematic> | Method |
tab:toolacc | inline | <tool-call accuracy by task horizon> | Experiments |
Data & reproducibility
- Data location: <path / repository / DOI>
- Analysis code: <path / repo>
- What is reproducible vs. reported-only: <state plainly>
- Availability statement: <where data/code will be deposited>
Claims that need extra care (do not soften, do not inflate)
<Sentences a reviewer will attack. List them so the agent treats them as protected.>
- <Causal language is NOT licensed here — association only.>
- <Generalization beyond the tested matrix is out of scope.>
Terminology (one term per concept)
<Lock the vocabulary so the draft does not alternate synonyms.>
- Use "tool-call accuracy" — not "success rate", "correctness".
- Use "task horizon" — define once (number of steps), then use consistently.
Co-authors & roles
<Who owns which section / who must approve which claims.\>
Not Now (parked, off-thesis)
<Interesting but out of scope. Keep it here so it stays out of the draft.>