popl-writing-style
Use when drafting or revising POPL prose — building the informal-to-formal ramp from a motivating program to definitions to a sharply stated main theorem, keeping notation coherent across 25 pages of text, writing proof sketches that name the hard case, and framing significance as an idea other PL researchers can reuse.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill popl-writing-style --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# POPL Writing Style A POPL paper convinces twice: informally, that the problem is real and the idea natural; formally, that the theorems are exactly true. The craft is the ramp between the two. The 25-pages-of-text budget (POPL 2027 call, read 2026-07-08) is generous compared with old conference caps — the failure mode is not compression but *unmotivated formalism*. ## The informal-to-formal ramp 1. **Open with a program, not a framework.** Page 1 should show concrete code or a concrete derivation that misbehaves — the phenomenon your formalism explains. 2. **State the contribution as a sharp claim.** "We prove type soundness for λ_X with feature Y, the first such result without assumption Z" beats any paragraph of positioning. 3. **Walk the example through the machinery** before generalizing: the reader should predict each definition because the example demanded it. 4. **Main theorem by the end of the overview section**, at least informally: what is proved, under what assumptions, and what is *not* claimed. 5. Only then the full calculus — and every rule shown in the body should be a rule the text actually discusses (`popl-supplementary` takes the rest). ## Notation is load-beari
- The informal-to-formal ramp
- Notation is load-bearing
- Proof sketches that earn trust
- Significance, POPL-flavored
- Output format
What does the popl-writing-style skill do?
Use when drafting or revising POPL prose — building the informal-to-formal ramp from a motivating program to definitions to a sharply stated main theorem, keeping notation coherent across 25 pages of text, writing proof sketches that name the hard case, and framing significance as an idea other PL researchers can reuse.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill popl-writing-style --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.