Research Proposal

Research Proposal Generator

Generate a forward-looking academic research proposal — a plan for research not yet done — following flagship academic writing conventions, in English or Chinese.

This skill produces the first draft correctly, not a template to be fixed later. Its single most important discipline is citation integrity: a proposal with a fabricated reference is an academic-integrity problem, not a style problem. Read references/CITATION_INTEGRITY.md before Phase 2.

Core Principles

Prose first. Proposals read as flowing, connected paragraphs — not bulleted lists. Reserve lists for a focused set of research questions/objectives (2–4 items) and timeline milestones. Never enumerate contributions, methodology, background, or significance as bullets; narrate them. Full rules and examples: references/WRITING_STYLE_GUIDE.md.

Every citation verified before it is committed. Reference count follows the argument, never a quota — there is no minimum. A PhD proposal typically cites 25–50 sources (humanities often more); a tightly argued 25 beats a padded 45. Every reference must exist (DOI/PMID/arXiv resolves, or Zotero metadata), with author and year matching the source, before it enters the proposal. Unverifiable references are flagged [UNVERIFIED] and disclosed — never fabricated. See references/CITATION_INTEGRITY.md.

Write with verification, not one-shot. Draft section by section; verify each section's citations before moving to the next (Phase 4). Do not generate a full multi-section proposal with dozens of citations in a single pass — that is the structural cause of hallucinated references.

Hedge to the evidence. Use tentative language ("aims to", "may", "is expected to") for proposed work and uncertain claims; state well-established facts plainly. Do not over-claim ("will prove", "revolutionize").

Avoid the LLM tells. These phrases are AI-detector signatures — strip them: "Over the past decade, X has emerged as…", "In recent years,", "It is worth noting that", "plays a crucial/pivotal role", "has garnered significant attention", "delves into", "a testament to". Write specific openings grounded in the actual field instead of generic scene-setting.

Scenario Routing

The default structure below targets PhD/doctoral proposals and academic research plans (Abstract → Introduction → Literature Review → Methodology → Timeline → Significance). Confirm the scenario in Phase 1 and adapt:

Phase 1: Requirements Gathering

Use AskUserQuestion to collect:

• Research topic / question — core problem to investigate.
• Scenario — PhD proposal / 开题报告 / research plan / grant (routes structure, see above).
• Academic domain — STEM (and whether computational/ML — see references/DOMAIN_TEMPLATES.md), Humanities, or Social Sciences.
• Output language — English or 中文.
• Target word count — default ~3,000 words; range 2,000–4,000 (humanities may extend to ~10,000).
• Optional — target institution/supervisor; existing materials or a Zotero library to draw on.

If the topic is too vague to scope a methodology, ask focused clarifying questions before proceeding.

Phase 2: Literature Collection (with verification gate)

Read references/LITERATURE_WORKFLOW.md for search strategy and organization.

Tool portability. Confirm which tools are available before using tool-specific names. Prefer the user's Zotero library (via the mcp__zotero__* tools) for closed-access papers; use WebSearch for landscape/trends and WebFetch to open DOI / PubMed / arXiv pages and confirm metadata. If a Zotero/arXiv/PubMed MCP is not connected, fall back to WebSearch + WebFetch. Remind the user to add relevant closed-access papers to Zotero.

Sources by role: WebSearch for trends, reviews, and terminology; WebFetch on arXiv / PubMed / publisher pages for open-access primary sources and metadata; Zotero MCP for the user's own library, annotations, and notes. For journal articles the Crossref REST API (WebFetch https://api.crossref.org/works/<DOI>) is the highest-signal existence+metadata check — it returns clean JSON (title / first author / year / venue), more reliable than parsing a publisher HTML page.

Organize candidates by role: background/context, current state-of-the-art, gap-identifying, methodology, and related work.

Verification gate (do not skip)

Before any source is eligible to be cited:

1. Verify each candidate's existence, first author, and year against a first source (DOI/PMID/arXiv page, or Zotero metadata) — Rules 1, 2, 5 of references/CITATION_INTEGRITY.md.
2. Only take specific findings/numbers from sources whose full text or abstract you actually accessed. Do not write internal results for a paper you could not open.
3. Present the verified candidate list (title, author, year, source/DOI) to the user for a quick sanity check before outlining.

Anything that cannot be verified does not enter the reference pool; if the user insists on a half-remembered source, flag it [UNVERIFIED].

Non-interactive / headless runs. If the skill is invoked without an interactive user (a background agent or pipeline), do not deadlock on step 3: record the verified candidate list inline in the deliverable (or a companion citation_verification_log.md) and continue. The recorded list is the audit trail in lieu of a live sanity check.

Phase 3: Outline Generation

Read references/STRUCTURE_GUIDE.md and references/DOMAIN_TEMPLATES.md for section-by-section and domain guidance.

Standard Outline (default scenario)

# [Research Title]

## Abstract (150-300 words, 5-10%) — background, questions, methodology overview, significance
## 1. Introduction (500-800 words, 15-20%) — background, problem, questions/objectives, scope
## 2. Literature Review (500-1000 words, 20-25%) — framework, current state, gap, positioning
## 3. Methodology (500-800 words, 20-25%) — design, data collection, analysis, validity/limitations
## 4. Timeline (200-300 words, 5-10%) — phases, milestones, optional Gantt
## 5. Significance and Expected Contributions (200-400 words, 10-15%) — theoretical, practical, broader impact
## References — cite what the argument needs (see CITATION_INTEGRITY.md); no minimum, no padding

Add a Chapter Outline section for humanities proposals. Do NOT include appendices — integrate essential content into the body.

Approval gate (RED LINE)

Present the outline and wait for explicit user approval before Phase 4. Do not start writing content on an unapproved outline.

Ask whether the structure, section emphasis, and scope are acceptable, and whether to add/remove/modify sections.