Related Work Writing skill

Related Work Writing

Generate publication-quality Related Work sections with proper citations and thematic organization.

Input

• $0 — Current paper draft or method description
• $1 — Collected literature (BibTeX entries, paper summaries, or literature review notes)

References

• Related work writing prompts and strategies: ~/.claude/skills/related-work-writing/references/related-work-prompts.md

Workflow

Step 1: Analyze the Paper's Contributions

• Read the current paper draft (especially Methods and Introduction)
• Identify the key contributions and novelty claims
• List the technical components that need literature context

Step 2: Organize Literature by Theme

Group related papers into thematic clusters:

• Each cluster should represent a research direction or technique
• Common themes: problem formulation, methodology family, application domain, evaluation approach
• Order themes from most to least relevant to your work

Step 3: Write Each Theme Paragraph

For each thematic group:

1. Topic sentence — Introduce the research direction
2. Describe key works — Summarize 2-5 representative papers
3. Compare and contrast — How does each approach differ from yours?
4. Transition — Connect to the next theme or to your contribution

Step 4: Refine

• Ensure every cited paper has a clear reason for inclusion
• Check that your work's novelty is clear from the comparisons
• Verify all \cite{} keys exist in the .bib file
• Aim for 1-2 pages (single column) or 0.5-1 page (double column)

Rules

• Compare and contrast, don't just describe — "Unlike [X] which assumes..., our method..."
• Organize by theme, not chronologically — Group by research direction
• Cite broadly — Not just the most popular papers; include recent and diverse work
• Be fair — Acknowledge strengths of prior work before stating limitations
• Explain inapplicability — If a method could apply to your setting, explain why you don't compare experimentally, or add it to experiments
• Use present tense for established facts — "Smith et al. propose..." or "This approach uses..."
• End with positioning — The final paragraph should clearly position your work relative to all discussed prior work

Related Skills

• Upstream: literature-search, literature-review, citation-management
• Downstream: paper-writing-section
• See also: survey-generation