research-proposal

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name: research-proposal description: > Generate academic research proposals for PhD applications. Use when user asks to "write a research proposal", "create PhD proposal", "generate research plan", "撰写研究计划", "写博士申请", "doctoral proposal", or mentions specific research topics for PhD application. Supports STEM, humanities, and social sciences with field-specific adaptations. Follows Nature Reviews-style academic writing conventions. Supports both English and Chinese output based on user preference. metadata: author: user version: "1.0.0" allowed-tools:

• WebSearch
• Read
• Write
• Edit
• AskUserQuestion
• Task
• Glob
• Grep
• mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items
• mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_metadata
• mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_fulltext
• mcp__zotero__zotero_get_annotations
• mcp__zotero__zotero_get_notes
• mcp__zotero__zotero_search_notes
• mcp__zotero__zotero_semantic_search
• mcp__zotero__zotero_advanced_search

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Research Proposal Generator

Generate high-quality academic research proposals for PhD applications following Nature Reviews-style academic writing conventions.

Overview

This skill guides the generation of research proposals through a structured 5-phase workflow:

1. Requirements Gathering - Collect research topic, domain, language preferences
2. Literature Collection - Gather relevant literature from multiple sources
3. Outline Generation - Create structured outline for user approval
4. Content Writing - Generate full proposal based on approved outline
5. Output & Review - Deliver Markdown file with quality checklist

Target Output: 2,000-4,000 words (default ~3,000 words) for PhD applications.

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Phase 1: Requirements Gathering

Use AskUserQuestion to collect the following information:

Required Information

1. Research Topic/Direction

   • What is the core research question or area?
   • Any specific problems to address?

2. Academic Domain

   • STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
   • Humanities (History, Philosophy, Literature, Languages)
   • Social Sciences (Sociology, Psychology, Economics, Political Science)

3. Output Language

   • English
   • 中文 (Chinese)

4. Target Word Count

   • Default: 3,000 words
   • Range: 2,000-4,000 words (humanities may extend to 10,000)

Optional Information

5. Target Institution(s)

   • University/research group names
   • Specific faculty members of interest

6. Existing Materials

   • User's prior research or publications
   • Relevant literature already collected in Zotero

Example Questions

Questions to ask the user:

1. "What is your research topic or direction? Please describe the core question or problem you want to investigate."

2. "Which academic domain does your research belong to?"
   - STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)
   - Humanities (History, Philosophy, Literature)
   - Social Sciences (Sociology, Psychology, Economics)

3. "What language should the proposal be written in?"
   - English
   - 中文 (Chinese)

4. "Do you have a target word count? (Default: ~3,000 words)"

5. "Are you applying to specific institutions or working with particular faculty?"

6. "Have you uploaded relevant literature to your Zotero library that I should reference?"

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Phase 2: Literature Collection

Literature Sources Strategy

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Literature Sources                    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  General Info    →  WebSearch (trends, news, reviews)   │
│  Open Access     →  arXiv, PubMed (preprints, OA papers)│
│  Closed Access   →  Zotero MCP (user's uploaded papers) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Using WebSearch

Search for:

• Recent review articles and meta-analyses
• Research trends and emerging topics
• News about breakthroughs in the field
• Methodological advances

Example searches:

"{topic} systematic review 2024 2025"
"{topic} research trends future directions"
"{topic} methodology recent advances"

Using Zotero MCP

IMPORTANT: Remind users to upload relevant closed-access literature to Zotero before starting.

Search User's Library

# Search by topic keywords
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_search_items
Parameters: query = "{research topic keywords}"

# Advanced search with filters
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_advanced_search
Parameters: conditions based on author, title, year, tags

# Semantic search for related papers
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_semantic_search
Parameters: query = "{research question}"

Retrieve Paper Content

# Get full text content
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_get_item_fulltext
Parameters: item_key = "{item key from search}"

# Get user's annotations and highlights
Use: mcp__zotero__zotero_get_annotations
Parameters: item_key = "{item key}"

# Get user's notes
Use: mcp__zotero_