Guides pre-writing planning for academic papers with 4 structured steps: story design (task-challenge-insight-contribution-advantage), experiment planning (comparisons + ablations), figure design (pipeline + teaser), and 4-week timeline management. Includes counterintuitive planning tactics (write a

Paper Planning A structured approach to planning academic papers before writing begins. Covers four key activities: Story design, Experiment planning, Figure design, and Timeline management. When to Use This Skill If you don't yet have an idea, use the research ideation skill first to find a problem and design a solution. User wants to plan a paper before writing User asks about structuring a paper's story or contributions User needs to plan experiments (comparisons, ablations) User wants to design pipeline figures or teaser figures User asks about writing timelines or submission schedules Planning Overview Paper planning follows four steps, ideally completed before writing begins: Counterintuitive Planning First Prioritize these counterintuitive rules before regular planning: 1. Write your rejection letter first : Draft the top 5 likely rejection comments ("limited novelty", "missing baseline", "not robust", etc.), then plan experiments that directly preempt each one. 2. Narrow claim before broad claim : Define the smallest defensible core claim first. Expand only after evidence is strong. Over broad claims fail review more often than narrow strong claims. 3. Design ablations before polishing method text : If a module cannot be ablated cleanly, its contribution claim is weak. 4. Allocate compute to stress tests, not only benchmarks : A single convincing stress test figure often contributes more than multiple small benchmark gains. 5. Plan a fallback narrative now : If SOTA gain is marginal, predefine a secondary value proposition (efficiency, robustness, fewer assumptions, wider applicability). See [references/counterintuitive planning.md](references/counterintuitive planning.md) Step 1: Story Design The "story" is the logical narrative that connects the problem, insight, method, and results. Reverse Engineering the Story Work backwards to build the story: 1. What is the technical problem? — The specific challenge that existing methods cannot solve well 2. What are our contributions? — The concrete technical novelties 3. What are the benefits and new insights? — What advantages does our approach provide? 4. How do we lead into the challenge? — How to frame the task and previous methods to naturally arrive at the challenge Then write forward: Task → Previous methods → Challenge → Our contributions → Advantages Core Elements to Define Before writing any section, clearly articulate: Element Question Example Task What problem does this paper address? "Real time 3D scene reconstruction" Challenge Why can't existing methods solve it well? "Cannot handle dynamic objects efficiently" Insight What key observation drives our approach? "Motion patterns are temporally sparse" Contribution What do we propose? "Sparse temporal attention for dynamic regions" Advantage Why is our approach better? "Reduces computation while preserving quality" Starting Point: Pipeline Figure Sketch Start by drawing a pipeline figure sketch. This forces you to clarify the overall method before writing. The pipeline figure sketch serves as the paper's visual backbone: Draw it before writing anything It reveals whether the method is clear enough to explain It identifies the novel modules vs. standard components It determines subsection structure for the Method section See [references/story design.md](references/story design.md) Step 2: Experiment Planning Plan experiments before writing to avoid discovering gaps late. Two Categories of Experiments Comparison Experiments — Prove our method is better: Which baseline methods to compare against? Which datasets and metrics? What is the evaluation protocol? Ablation Studies — Prove each module is effective: Part 1: One big table showing impact of core contributions Part 2: Several small tables for design choices and hyperparameters Planning Checklist [ ] List all comparison baselines (recent, relevant, SOTA) [ ] Define evaluation metrics (standard for the task) [ ] Identify datasets (standard benchmarks + challenging demos) [ ] List ablation configurations (remove each core component) [ ] Plan design choice tables (hyperparameters, input quality, alternatives) [ ] Plan demo scenarios (challenging data to showcase upper limit) See [references/experiment planning.md](references/experiment planning.md) Experiment Plan Template Use the template at [assets/experiment plan template.md](assets/experiment plan template.md) to organize your experiment plan. Step 3: Figure Design The pipeline figure is for highlighting novelty, not for making readers understand. The Method text is what makes readers understand. Pipeline Figure Principles Highlight novelty : The pipeline figure showcases what is new, not just the workflow Differentiate from prior work : The figure must look different from previous methods Novel modules stand out : If the overall pipeline is standard, zoom in on novel modules Focus on clarity of the novel parts; standard components can be simplified Teaser Figure The teaser (usually Figure 1) shows the key result at a glance: Place it at the top of the first page Should be immediately compelling Reference it from the Introduction Visual Quality Matters Visual polish directly influences review outcomes. See [references/figure design.md](references/figure design.md) for the full visual quality guide (pipeline figures, tables, typography) Step 4: Timeline 4 Week Countdown Start writing at least 1 month before the deadline. Week Tasks 4 weeks before 1. Organize story (core contribution, module motivations). 2. List comparison experiments and ablation studies. 3. Write Introduction first draft. 3 weeks before 1. Finalize the pipeline figure sketch. 2. Write Method first draft (use \todo{} for unsettled details). Deadline: give Introduction + Method draft to advisor. 2 weeks before Write first drafts of Experiments, Abstract, Related Work. Last week Revise paper, polish pipeline figure and teaser, run demos. Critical: By the end of Week 3, you must send the Introduction and Method drafts to your advisor — otherwise the advisor likely will not have enough time to finish reviewing the paper. See [references/timeline 4week.md](references/timeline 4week.md) for the detailed schedule and progress tracking template. Handoff to Writing When planning is complete, pass these artifacts to paper writing : Artifact Source Step Used By Story summary (task → challenge → insight → contribution → advantage) Step 1 Introduction Module Motivation Mapping table Step 1 Method subsections Experiment plan (comparisons + ablations + demos) Step 2 Experiments section Pipeline figure sketch Step 1 / Step 3 Method overview + Figure 2 Claim to experiment mapping Step 2 Abstract, Introduction, Experiments Fallback narrative (if planned) Counterintuitive Rule 5 Introduction / Conclusion pivot Rejection risk table Counterintuitive Rule 1 Self review prioritization Reference Navigation Topic Reference File When to Use Story design [story design.md](references/story design.md) Starting a new paper Experiment planning [experiment planning.md](references/experiment planning.md) Before running experiments Timeline [timeline 4week.md](references/timeline 4week.md) Setting up a writing schedule Figure design [figure design.md](references/figure design.md) Designing pipeline/teaser figures Experiment plan template [experiment plan template.md](assets/experiment plan template.md) Creating a structured experiment plan Counterintuitive strategy [counterintuitive planning.md](references/counterintuitive planning.md) Increasing acceptance odds with non obvious planning choices Handoff to Presentation If preparing a conference talk or slide deck, the academic slides skill guides slide creation from your planning artifacts — including translating your story design and pipeline figure into presentation structure.

paper-planning