Nature Reviewer Assessment Skill

Use this skill to simulate a Nature-style reviewer assessment package from the referee side.

This skill is for reviewer-style manuscript evaluation, not for drafting the authors' response. If the user wants rebuttal writing, route to nature-response.

Default stance

• Ground the review only in the local source basis plus manuscript facts supplied by the user.
• Evaluate the manuscript against source-grounded axes: originality, scientific importance, interdisciplinary readership, technical soundness, and readability for nonspecialists.
• Use the 12-axis technical concern taxonomy only as an internal coverage checklist; it supplements but never replaces the five source-grounded axes.
• Return exactly 3 reviewer reports + 1 cross-review synthesis unless the user explicitly asks for another structure.
• The three reviewers may differ only in emphasis; do not invent reviewer identities, specialties, institutions, or biographies.
• Identify who would be interested in the results and why.
• Identify technical failings that must be addressed before the authors' case is established.
• Give every substantive concern a stable ID, a faithful claim_pointer, and a verifiable evidence_pointer; mark missing locations instead of inventing them.
• Distinguish clearly between what is supported, what is weak, and what is not assessable from the provided material.
• When the manuscript has a clear technical domain, use claim-dependent domain gates as supporting checks, but keep the output inside the same 3-reviewer nature-reviewer structure.
• Do not claim the editor's final decision or certainty about fit to Nature.

Accepted inputs

The skill may receive:

• full manuscript draft
• abstract, summary paragraph, or cover-summary style text
• introduction, results, discussion, or methods excerpts
• figure legends, selected figures, or result notes
• author notes in Chinese or English describing the claimed contribution
• pre-submission positioning notes

If the provided material is partial, perform a bounded review and mark the assessment boundary explicitly.

Workflow

1. Identify the input scope and whether the job is a reviewer-style assessment rather than rebuttal drafting.
2. Extract a shared manuscript fact base: main claim, visible evidence, claimed significance, likely readership, and visible limitations.
3. Check readiness and label missing evidence or missing sections instead of inventing them.
4. Assess the manuscript using the source-grounded axes.
5. Build an internal concern ledger using references/technical-concern-taxonomy.md; record applicability, claim/evidence pointers, severity, and the resolution test for each supported concern.
6. If the manuscript clearly falls into a technical domain covered by references/domain-specific-review-gates.md, load only the relevant domain section and use it to sharpen the technical-soundness critique.
7. Generate Reviewer 1, Reviewer 2, and Reviewer 3 using shared facts but different emphasis. Reuse ledger issue keys internally so repeated concerns can be measured and cross-referenced.
8. Generate a Cross-review synthesis that captures consensus and weighting differences. Label an issue as consensus only when at least two reviewer reports raise the same underlying concern.
9. Run QA for evidence anchoring, overlap, groundedness, coverage, role boundaries, and non-invention.

Output format

Unless the user asks for another format, return:

Review setup
- Input scope:
- Assessment boundary:
- Shared manuscript claim summary:
- Visible evidence base:
- Missing materials affecting confidence:

Reviewer 1
- Overall assessment:
- Who would be interested in the results, and why:
- Major strengths:
- Major concerns:
- Technical failings that need to be addressed before the case is established:
- Assessment against Nature-style criteria:
- Recommendation posture:

For each substantive concern:
- Concern ID: R1-M1
- Axis:
- Claim pointer:
- Evidence pointer:
- Concern and resolution test:

Reviewer 2
[Same structure]

Reviewer 3
[Same structure]

Cross-review synthesis
- Consensus strengths:
- Consensus technical risks:
- Where emphasis differs across reviewers:
- Broad-interest / significance readout:
- Most important issues to resolve before a strong Nature-style case is established:

Risk / unsupported claims
- [specific unsupported or not-assessable items]

Red lines

• Do not invent reviewer identities, specialty roles, or selection history.
• Do not invent experiments, validations, controls, citations, figure details, line numbers, or prior-work distinctions not present in the input.
• Do not silently turn reviewer assessment into author rebuttal drafting.
• Do not present the review as an editorial decision letter.
• Do not state that the manuscript belongs in Nature as a settled fact.
• Do not omit technical failings when the provided evidence does not establish the authors' case.

Related files

Source hierarchy

Use sources in this order:

1. references/editorial criteria and processes.md
2. manuscript facts supplied by the user
3. conservative local implementation rules documented in references/source-basis.md
4. domain-specific supporting gates in references/domain-specific-review-gates.md

If a user asks for policy-level certainty beyond this local source, state the limit instead of improvising broader journal policy.