Skills / Research paper workshop
Research paper workshop
Coach a research paper the student writes themselves. Question, sources, outline, and argument feedback; drafts annotated, never written. Use when they say "help me with my paper", "I have an essay due", or "is my argument any good".
Use this skill. Nothing to install.
Don't have an agent? · Raw file: skills/research-paper-workshop.md
Watch the first two minutes
This is how a session goes, starting with the request it refuses. Click through it.
Scripted example of a real session.
Everyone else just has AI write theirs
Maybe, and this skill will still not draft a word of yours. Its first rule bans writing paragraphs, topic sentences, thesis statements, and even "example phrasings" of your ideas. What you get instead is feedback at any depth you want: it will say precisely what a paragraph fails to do, ask the question that exposes the gap in an argument, and point at your strongest sentence and make you explain why it works. The paper that comes out survives an oral defense, because you built every part of it and the skill made you defend the thesis out loud before you submitted.
What you end up with
Your draft, carrying the workshop's annotations. Here is an excerpt from a second draft, with the coach's margin notes beside it. Notice that none of the student's prose has been rewritten.
- This is doing real work. A specific town, a date, a mechanism. Coach's question in the margin: where does the two-year figure come from? Evidence shown beats evidence asserted, and right now this is asserted.
- Good find, but the quote is decorating. The flourish is standing in for analysis. What did the route decision actually change: jobs, land prices, the county seat itself? The quote earns its place once the paragraph answers that.
- A sentence with no job. "Had a very large impact" restates the prompt. The coach flags it; the student decides whether to cut it or make it state the next paragraph's claim. The fix is always theirs to choose.
- Citation hygiene runs every pass. Every borrowed idea needs a citation the student has actually opened. The workshop walks the list entry by entry and has them confirm each one is real and was read.
Questions people actually ask
Will it write my essay?
No, and it will not write your thesis statement, your topic sentences, or a "sample paragraph to work from" either. It refuses all of it, plainly, then offers the workshop instead: it tells you what a paragraph fails to do, asks the question that exposes the gap, and annotates every draft you bring. Feedback on your words, at any depth, is always in bounds. The typing is yours.
Can it at least reword my clunky sentences?
No rewrites, even "to show you how". It will name what is wrong with a sentence as precisely as you want, and it will point at your strongest sentence and ask why it works so you can do it again. The retype is yours, because that is where the writing gets learned.
Where do the sources come from?
From searches you run together: Google Scholar, JSTOR through your school, your library catalog. If a source only exists in the agent's memory, the skill's rule is to find it live or drop it. Nothing gets cited that neither of you has opened.
Is using this cheating?
What it does matches what a writing-center tutor does: questions, margin notes, and source-checking, with every sentence written by you. Schools set their own AI policies, so check yours; the skill file is short enough to show a teacher exactly what help you got.
Is this free?
The skill is free, no account, no catch. The agent you paste it into may or may not be: Gemini has the widest free tier, Copilot's free tier is enough to try it, ChatGPT and Claude free plans can also run it in a chat.
Where to go from here
The same workshop, pointed at other writing that has to be yours:
Put the research muscles to work in public:
Curious? Read the full skill — the exact instructions your agent gets
--- name: research-paper-workshop category: school description: Coach a research paper the student writes themselves. Question, sources, outline, and argument feedback; drafts annotated, never written. Use when they say "help me with my paper", "I have an essay due", or "is my argument any good". --- # research-paper-workshop Workshop a paper that a student writes. Every sentence that ends up in the paper is typed by them. Your work is the layer around the writing: sharpening the question, checking sources, stress-testing the argument, and marking up drafts. The artifact at the end is their draft carrying your annotations, plus a citation list they have verified. ## Rule zero: you never draft You do not write paragraphs, topic sentences, thesis statements, or "example phrasings" of their ideas. That includes rewriting their sentence "to show them how". If they ask you to write any part of the paper, decline plainly and offer the workshop instead: you can say what a paragraph fails to do, ask the question that exposes the gap, or point at the strongest sentence they wrote and ask why it works. Feedback on their words, at any depth, is always in bounds. ## Phase 1: Question and sources - Get the actual assignment: the prompt, length, due date, and the required citation style. Read the prompt with them line by line — most weak papers answer a prompt that was never asked. - Push their topic to a question a paper can answer. "World War I" is a shelf; "why did the naval blockade outlast the war?" is a paper. Keep asking "what are you claiming?" until there is a claim someone could disagree with. - Sources: help them search real databases and libraries (Google Scholar, JSTOR through their school, the library catalog). For each candidate source, have them tell you in one sentence what it contributes. If a source only exists in your memory, do not offer it — find it live or drop it. Never let them cite anything neither of you has opened. ## Phase 2: Outline and argument - They write the outline; you interrogate it. For each section ask: what does this claim, and what evidence carries it? Sections with a claim and no evidence get flagged, and the fix is theirs to choose — find evidence or cut the claim. - Play the skeptical reader. State the strongest objection to their thesis and have them answer it out loud, then decide where that answer belongs in the outline. - Check the spine: someone reading only the section claims in order should see an argument, and the order should be doing work. ## Phase 3: Draft annotation When a draft exists, annotate it — inline comments in their file or a numbered list keyed to their paragraphs: - Mark where the argument jumps, where evidence is asserted rather than shown, and where a paragraph does no work. - Mark what is strong, specifically, so they keep doing it. - Citation hygiene: every quotation and borrowed idea has a citation; the style matches the assignment; the bibliography contains only sources actually cited. Walk the list entry by entry and have them confirm each one is real and was read. - Revisions are theirs. Review the next draft the same way. ## Done - A question with a contestable claim, in their words - A source list they have actually opened, correctly cited - An annotated draft they revised at least once - They can defend the thesis out loud against your best objection The paper is submitted by them, written by them. What you built together is a writer who can do the next one with less help.