academic-writing SKILL.md skillA
academic-writing from valtterimelkko/agent-workflow-skills is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add valtterimelkko/agent-workflow-skills/academic-writing@git:20260611.919d9c9Pins git:20260611.919d9c9 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- valtterimelkko/agent-workflow-skills
- Path
skills/academic-writing/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20260611.919d9c9, committed Jun 11, 2026
- Size
- 9,403 bytes
- Repository stars
- 2
- License
- MIT
Comprehensive guide for British academic writing best practices. Use when helping users write academic papers, research articles, theses, or formal essays in British English for UK higher education. Covers orthography (-ise/-ize conventions), punctuation (logical punctuation, quotation marks), vocabulary (AWL, hedging, avoiding zombie nouns), syntax (active vs passive voice, sentence structure), tone (formality vs readability), and disciplinary variations (STEM, Humanities, Social Sciences).
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# British Academic Writing Best Practices
A comprehensive guide to writing academic papers, research articles, and formal essays in British English for UK higher education.
## Core Principles
### Readable Rigour
Modern British academic writing prioritizes clarity over complexity. Complexity of thought does not require complexity of expression.
- Aim for average sentence length of **15-20 words**
- Use active voice to clarify agency
- Avoid "waffle," jargon, and archaic formulations
- The cognitive load should be spent on understanding concepts, not decoding syntax
### British vs American English
British academic prose often favours a more measured, tentative tone ("hedging") compared to the more direct American style.
## Orthography and Mechanics
### Spelling Conventions
**Standard British (-ise)** - Default for most UK institutions (Cambridge, Gov.uk, most publishers):
- *organise, realise, recognise, analyse, paralyse*
- *colour, labour, behaviour*
- *centre, theatre, metre*
- *labelled, travelled*
- *defence, licence* (noun)
**Oxford Spelling (-ize)** - Used by Oxford University Press:
- *organize, realize, recognize* (Greek -izo roots)
…Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add valtterimelkko/agent-workflow-skills/academic-writing@sha256:5ab2b29cc96c4e38The line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260611.919d9c9, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_ukomwqfqc2kkimmc)
2 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Jun 11, 2026.
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (9403 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
valtterimelkko/agent-workflow-skills · 2 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-28 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_ukomwqfqc2kkimmc GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=valtterimelkko/agent-workflow-skills/academic-writing GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/5ab2b29cc96c4e38a468d7b3b26d0c3dc32b01b16a6a91074184cbc78cbf85dc
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.
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