related-work-writing
Write Related Work sections that compare and contrast prior work with your approach. Organize by theme, cite broadly, and explain how your work differs. Use when writing or improving the Related Work section of a paper.
By lingzhi227 · 1,460 installs
npx skills add lingzhi227/agent-research-skills --skill related-work-writing
Source repository · Upstream listing
Related Work Writing
Generate publication quality Related Work sections with proper citations and thematic organization.
Input
$0 — Current paper draft or method description
$1 — Collected literature (BibTeX entries, paper summaries, or literature review notes)
References
Related work writing prompts and strategies: ~/.claude/skills/related work writing/references/related work prompts.md
Workflow
Step 1: Analyze the Paper's Contributions
Read the current paper draft (especially Methods and Introduction)
Identify the key contributions and novelty claims
List the technical components that need literature context
Step 2: Organize Literature by Theme
Group related papers into thematic clusters:
Each cluster should represent a research direction or technique
Common themes: problem formulation, methodology family, application domain, evaluation approach
Order themes from most to least relevant to your work
Step 3: Write Each Theme Paragraph
For each thematic group:
1. Topic sentence — Introduce the research direction
2. Describe key works — Summarize 2 5 representative papers
3. Compare and contrast — How does each approach differ from yours?
4. Transition — Connect to the next theme or to your contribution
Step 4: Refine
Ensure every cited paper has a clear reason for inclusion
Check that your work's novelty is clear from the comparisons
Verify all \cite{} keys exist in the .bib file
Aim for 1 2 pages (single column) or 0.5 1 page (double column)
Rules
Compare and contrast, don't just describe — "Unlike [X] which assumes..., our method..."
Organize by theme, not chronologically — Group by research direction
Cite broadly — Not just the most popular papers; include recent and diverse work
Be fair — Acknowledge strengths of prior work before stating limitations
Explain inapplicability — If a method could apply to your setting, explain why you don't compare experimentally, or add it to experiments
Use present tense for established facts — "Smith et al. propose..." or "This approach uses..."
End with positioning — The final paragraph should clearly position your work relative to all discussed prior work
Related Skills
Upstream: [literature search](../literature search/), [literature review](../literature review/), [citation management](../citation management/)
Downstream: [paper writing section](../paper writing section/)
See also: [survey generation](../survey generation/)