latex-writing

LaTeX Writing Best Practices

This skill guides the creation of well-structured, semantically correct LaTeX documents following established best practices for academic and technical writing.

Core Principle: Semantic Markup

Use LaTeX environments that match the semantic meaning of the content, not just the visual appearance. Let LaTeX handle the typography; you handle the structure.

Academic Writing Standards

When drafting academic papers, reports, or documentation, the prose must be clear, objective, and precise.

Tone and Style

• Avoid colloquialisms and contractions: Use "do not" instead of "don't", and "establish" instead of "set up".
• Objective voice: Minimize first-person pronouns ("I", "we") unless describing specific novel actions taken by the authors (e.g., "We propose a new algorithm...").
• Tense consistency:
  • Use present tense for general truths, describing what the paper does, and referencing figures/tables (e.g., "Section 2 describes...", "Figure 3 illustrates...").
  • Use past tense for describing the specific experiments you ran or past related work (e.g., "Smith et al. demonstrated...", "The system processed 500 requests...").

Paragraph Structure

• One idea per paragraph: Begin with a clear topic sentence.
• Signposting: Use transition words (e.g., Furthermore, Consequently, However) to guide the reader through logical arguments.

Mathematics and Equations

Mathematical typesetting requires strict adherence to amsmath best practices to ensure readability and correct spacing.

Display Math: Numbered vs. Unnumbered

• Never use $$...$$ for display equations in LaTeX. It is a plain TeX primitive that breaks vertical spacing.
• Use \[ ... \] for unnumbered display equations.
• Use the equation environment for numbered, single-line equations.

Anti-pattern: Plain TeX display math

% INCORRECT
The formula is:
$$ E = mc^2 $$

Correct: LaTeX display math

% CORRECT
The formula is
\[
  E = mc^2
\]