research-assistant

Research Assistant Skill

Use this skill for day-to-day research tasks over a Zotero library: answering literature questions, finding relevant references, checking claims against full text, filing new references with valid schemas, and generating formatted citations and bibliographies.

Core Principles

1. Choose the right search mode (qmode).
   • Use qmode="titleCreatorYear" when looking for a specific author, title keyword, or core topic.
   • Use qmode="everything" (the default) when searching for concepts, methods, or quotes that may appear inside attached PDFs.
2. Use boolean filters to narrow results.
   • item_type="-attachment" excludes standalone files.
   • item_type="journalArticle || conferencePaper" matches either type.
   • tag="-Read" finds items not yet tagged Read.
   • Always check exact tag spelling with zotero_list_tags before filtering by tag.
3. Ground every literature claim in a Zotero item key. Cite both the author-year and [key: ABCD1234] during drafting so every statement traces to a specific record in the library, then render final citations with zotero_get_citations.
4. Check schema before creating unfamiliar item types. Call zotero_get_item_type_schema(item_type=...) before calling zotero_create_item on types like report, thesis, presentation, or statute so Zotero does not reject invalid field names.

Common Workflows

1. Answering a Research Question from the Library

1. Search broadly, then precisely: Run zotero_search_items with targeted keywords and item_type="-attachment". If results are noisy, switch to qmode="titleCreatorYear".
2. Batch-read metadata: Use zotero_get_items to inspect abstracts and metadata for the top candidates in a single request.
3. Verify against full text: For the most relevant papers, call zotero_get_item_fulltext to verify methods, sample details, and exact claims rather than relying solely on abstracts.
4. Synthesize with citations: Group findings thematically, noting agreements, contradictions, and gaps across studies, and call zotero_get_citations (style="apa", "vancouver", "harvard-cite-them-right", etc.) to append a properly formatted reference list.