What’s inside

One SKILL.md (the playbook) + one starter template. A preview:

Research Paper Deck

When to use

• You need slides for a paper you're submitting alongside a conference talk, a lab meeting, or a thesis defense — and the deck must stand alone for readers who weren't in the room
• A reviewer, collaborator, or supervisor asked for "the paper as slides" they can read in 15 minutes
• You're preparing a reading-group deck where every slide must be checkable against the paper
• Your team needs a deck version of a technical report for internal circulation
• You want a deck that works as a handout: printed, annotated, and re-read without the speaker

Workflow

1. Extract the paper's skeleton (input: full paper → output: argument outline)
   Read the whole paper first — abstract, methods, results, limitations — and pull out its load-bearing structure: the research question, the method in one paragraph, each result with its evidence, and the claims the authors actually make vs. the ones they hedge. Write this as a plain outline with section references ("Result 2 — Figure 3, p. 7"). A paper deck is a reading instrument, not a pitch, so the outline must preserve the paper's reasoning order, not rearrange it into a story arc.
2. Design the slide architecture (input: argument outline → output: slide plan)
   Map the outline to slides at roughly one idea per slide, with a predictable rhythm: title slide, question + why it matters, related work in one slide, method, then one slide per result (figure + what it shows + what it doesn't show), limitations, and conclusion. Budget slides by evidence density, not by time — a three-experiment paper needs more result slides than a one-experiment paper, and the slide plan should say which figure or table anchors each slide.
3. Build evidence-first slides (input: slide plan + paper figures → output: draft deck)
   Every content slide carries its evidence on the slide: the figure or table (reused or cleanly redrawn with the same data), a one-sentence takeaway in the title position, and a small source line ("Fig. 3, p. 7"). Text is dense by design — full sentences, not fragments — because the reader has no speaker to fill the gaps. Never put a claim on a slide without its evidence on the same slide; if the evidence is a paragraph of text, quote the key sentence verbatim and cite it.
4. Add the reading aids (input: draft deck → output: readable deck)
   Add what a lone reader needs: a contents slide with slide numbers, a notation/glossary slide if the paper uses symbols or jargon, speaker notes (optional but useful) that carry the paper's caveats in full, and a final references slide. Check the deck reads top-to-bottom, left-to-right in a sensible order when printed — a reader's eye doesn't jump around the way a speaker's laser pointer does.

Template preview

Research Paper Deck — Template

One paper = one deck. The deck must be readable without the speaker.

Paper

Title: {paper title} | Authors: {authors} | Venue/year: {…} Source: {DOI / arXiv ID / PDF file}

Argument outline

• Research question: {in one sentence}
• Method (one paragraph): {…}
• Result 1: {claim} — evidence: {Figure/Table + page}
• Result 2: {claim} — evidence: {Figure/Table + page}
• Result 3: {claim} — evidence: {Figure/Table + page}
• Claims the paper hedges: {quote the hedge}
• Limitations stated in the paper: {…}

Slide plan

Slide checklist (per content slide)

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