citation-formatter

Use when formatting references for journal submission, converting between citation styles (APA, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago), generating bibliographies for manuscripts, or ensuring consistent reference formatting. Automatically formats citations and bibliographies in 1000+ academic styles. Ensures reference accuracy, completeness, and compliance with journal requirements. Supports batch conversion and integration with reference managers.

Quality

53%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

Pending

No eval scenarios have been run

Securityby

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./scientific-skills/Academic Writing/citation-formatter/SKILL.md

Quality

Discovery

100%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This is a strong skill description that clearly communicates its purpose, lists concrete capabilities, and includes an explicit 'Use when' clause with natural trigger terms. It covers the academic citation formatting niche thoroughly with specific style names and use cases, making it easy for Claude to select appropriately. The description uses proper third-person voice throughout.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Lists multiple specific concrete actions: formatting references, converting between citation styles (with named examples APA, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago), generating bibliographies, ensuring consistent formatting, batch conversion, and integration with reference managers.	3 / 3
Completeness	Clearly answers both 'what' (formats citations and bibliographies in 1000+ styles, ensures accuracy and compliance, supports batch conversion) and 'when' with an explicit 'Use when' clause listing specific trigger scenarios like formatting references for journal submission, converting between citation styles, and generating bibliographies.	3 / 3
Trigger Term Quality	Excellent coverage of natural terms users would say: 'references', 'journal submission', 'citation styles', 'APA', 'MLA', 'Vancouver', 'Chicago', 'bibliographies', 'manuscripts', 'reference formatting', 'reference managers'. These are all terms a researcher would naturally use.	3 / 3
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	Occupies a clear niche focused specifically on academic citation and bibliography formatting. The specific mention of citation styles (APA, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago), journal submission, and reference managers makes it highly distinct and unlikely to conflict with other skills.	3 / 3
	Total	12 / 12 Passed

Implementation

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This skill is heavily padded with generic boilerplate that is not specific to citation formatting. Core capability sections contain empty placeholder code, the description is repeated verbatim in multiple sections, and the workflow is entirely generic with no citation-domain-specific guidance. The skill would need to be substantially rewritten to provide actionable, concise, citation-formatting-specific instructions.

Suggestions

Replace the empty placeholder code blocks in 'Core Capabilities' with actual executable examples showing specific citation style transformations (e.g., converting a concrete APA reference to Vancouver format).

Remove all duplicate content — the description appears verbatim in at least three sections. Consolidate 'When to Use' and 'When to Use This Skill' into a single brief list.

Replace the generic workflow with citation-specific steps including concrete validation (e.g., verify DOI resolution, check required fields per style, validate author name formatting).

Remove generic boilerplate sections (Output Requirements, Response Template, Input Validation, Quality Checklist) that contain no citation-specific guidance and waste token budget.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	Extremely verbose and repetitive. The description is copy-pasted into 'When to Use', 'Key Features', and 'When to Use This Skill' sections. Boilerplate sections like 'Output Requirements', 'Response Template', 'Input Validation', and 'Quality Checklist' are generic filler that don't add citation-specific value. Explains obvious concepts Claude already knows.	1 / 3
Actionability	The 'Core Capabilities' sections contain empty placeholder code (`result = tool.execute(data)`) that is not executable. The Quick Start imports from two different modules inconsistently. The CLI example and API examples appear fabricated with no guarantee the actual script supports these interfaces. No real executable, copy-paste-ready code exists.	1 / 3
Workflow Clarity	The workflow section is entirely generic ('Confirm the user objective', 'Validate that the request matches the documented scope') with no citation-specific steps or validation checkpoints. There are no concrete validation steps for reference formatting correctness. The 'Example run plan' is also generic boilerplate. No feedback loops for error recovery in batch operations.	1 / 3
Progressive Disclosure	References to external files (references/guide.md, references/examples/, references/api-docs/) are present and clearly signaled. However, the main file itself is a monolithic wall of repetitive content that should have been split or condensed. The 'Implementation Details' section says 'See ## Workflow above' which is a circular reference within the same file.	2 / 3
	Total	5 / 12 Passed

Validation

90%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 10 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

Criteria	Description	Result
frontmatter_unknown_keys	Unknown frontmatter key(s) found; consider removing or moving to metadata	Warning

	Total	10 / 11 Passed

Repository: aipoch/medical-research-skills
Commit: 0b96148

Reviewed: 3 days ago

Table of Contents

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