paper-reviewer

name: paper-reviewer description: This skill should be used when users request peer reviews of academic papers or manuscripts. It produces structured, evidence-based reviews following top-tier venue standards with no scores or accept/reject decisions. Activates on requests like "review this paper", "provide a peer review", or "analyze this manuscript".

Paper Reviewer

Overview

Generate comprehensive, evidence-based reviews of academic manuscripts following top-tier venue standards. The skill enforces rigorous evidence anchoring, maintains objectivity and constructive tone, and produces reviews without numerical scores or accept/reject decisions.

When to Use This Skill

Activate when the user requests:

• Peer review of an academic paper or manuscript
• Structured analysis of research contributions
• Evaluation of scientific work for publication venues
• Feedback on manuscript strengths and weaknesses

Review Workflow

Step 1: Input Processing

Accept the manuscript in any format (PDF, plain text, markdown, OCR output).

Read the entire manuscript carefully, noting:

• Section structure (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, etc.)
• All figures and tables with their numbers
• All equations with their numbers
• Page numbers for reference
• The references/bibliography section

Step 2: Review Structure

Produce a review with EXACTLY these six sections in order (no additions, no omissions):

1. Synopsis of the paper
2. Summary of Review
3. Strengths
4. Weaknesses
5. Suggestions for Improvement
6. References

Step 3: Write Each Section

Synopsis of the paper (≤150 words)

• Neutrally restate: the problem, the proposed method, core contributions, and main results
• Use objective language only
• Avoid subjective judgments or decision-like language
• Do not preview strengths or weaknesses

Summary of Review (3-5 sentences)

• Provide a balanced overview of both positives and concerns
• After EACH reason or claim, add an evidence anchor in parentheses
  • Examples: (See Table 2), (Sec. 4.1), (Eq. (5)), (Fig. 3, p. 7)
• If a claim lacks manuscript evidence, write: (No direct evidence found in the manuscript.)

Strengths (3-6 bullet points)

Focus on:

• Novelty and originality
• Technical soundness
• Experimental rigor (datasets, metrics, baselines)
• Clarity of presentation
• Potential impact

CRITICAL: Add evidence anchors to EVERY bullet point. Reference specific figures, tables, equations, sections, or pages.

Weaknesses (3-8 bullet points)

Focus on verifiable issues:

• Relation to closest prior work (missing comparisons, insufficient differentiation)
• Experimental breadth (limited datasets, missing metrics, insufficient ablations)
• Statistical rigor (no confidence intervals, no significance tests)
• Reproducibility gaps (missing hyperparameters, no code availability)
• Theoretical limitations (unstated assumptions, unexplored failure modes)

CRITICAL: Add evidence anchors to EVERY bullet point. When evidence is missing, explicitly state the gap (e.g., No evidence found in Sec. 4; missing from Methods.).

Suggestions for Improvement (4-8 recommendations)

Provide concrete, actionable recommendations:

• Add specific ablation studies
• Unify baseline settings and tuning budgets
• Report mean ± std/CI across multiple runs
• Include additional metrics (e.g., reliability diagrams, calibration plots)
• Release code and random seeds
• Expand related work discussion to cover specific papers
• Add failure case analysis

Link each suggestion to 1-2 corresponding weaknesses to make it verifiable and actionable.

References

• List ONLY items explicitly cited within this review AND appearing in the manuscript's reference list
• Use concise format: [Author et al., Year] or the manuscript's numbering style
• If no citations are needed or the reference list is unavailable, write: None

Evidence-First Principle

Every claim must be anchored to manuscript evidence.

Good examples:

• "The method demonstrates strong performance on ImageNet (Table 3, p. 8)."
• "The ablation study isolates the contribution of each component (Sec. 5.2, Table 5)."
• "Hyperparameter settings are not reported (No evidence found in Methods section or appendices)."

Bad examples:

• "The method shows good results." (No anchor)
• "The paper is well-written." (Subjective, no anchor)
• "This approach is novel compared to [external work not in manuscript]." (External citation)

Critical Constraints

Mandatory constraints:

• Use ONLY the six section headings listed above
• Do NOT include scores, ratings, confidence levels, or accept/reject decisions
• Do NOT guess authors, institutions, or affiliations
• Do NOT cite external sources unless they appear in the manuscript's reference list
• Do NOT make speculative claims

Tone and style:

• Objective and constructive
• Polite and professional
• Focus on improving the work, not criticizing the authors
• Use imperative/infinitive form for suggestions ("Add an ablation study" not "You should add")

Length:

• Target 400-600 words total
• Adjust as needed for manuscript complexity
• Synopsis: ≤150 words
• Other sections: balanced allocation

Output Format

Produce plain text output using markdown formatting:

• Use ## for section headings
• Use - for bullet points
• Use bold for emphasis sparingly
• Maintain consistent formatting throughout

Resources

references/

For detailed examples and additional guidance:

• review_template.md - Annotated section examples with real review snippets
• evidence_anchoring.md - Comprehensive guide to evidence citation patterns