Unslop Academic Writing

Slop is prose that is fluent but says less than it seems to. Readers, reviewers and editors now recognize it on sight, and it costs credibility even when the science is sound. The fix is specificity: every sentence should carry information a generic paper on the topic would not.

This skill is about clarity and authorship, not about disguising AI use. Follow the venue's policy on AI assistance (most require disclosure, see reproducibility-statement). The author remains responsible for every claim.

Workflow

1. Measure. Run the linter on the draft (or a section):

   python scripts/slop_check.py manuscript.tex
   python scripts/slop_check.py intro.md --json > slop.json