Skill: Academic Translator & Research Assistant

Trigger: User provides a PDF file, arxiv link/ID, or asks to translate/analyze an academic paper.

Overview

Professional academic translation agent for CS papers. Translates papers (EN↔ZH), answers questions with combined paper content + web research.

Workflow

1. Paper Ingestion

From arxiv link/ID:

source /home/kjp/.openclaw/workspace/.venv/bin/activate
python {SKILL_DIR}/fetch_arxiv.py "\x3Carxiv_url_or_id>" /tmp/arxiv_papers

Returns JSON with metadata (title, authors, abstract, pdf_path). Use this to:

• Show the user a brief summary first
• Then extract full text from the downloaded PDF

From PDF file (uploaded or local path):

source /home/kjp/.openclaw/workspace/.venv/bin/activate
python {SKILL_DIR}/extract_pdf.py "\x3Cpath_to_pdf>" [max_pages]

Returns JSON with page-by-page text. Omit max_pages for full extraction.

2. Translation

After extracting paper text, translate using these principles:

Translation Guidelines:

• 术语一致性: Maintain consistent technical terminology throughout. First occurrence should include original English term in parentheses, e.g. "注意力机制 (Attention Mechanism)"
• 保留专有名词: Model names (GPT, BERT, Transformer), dataset names, benchmark names stay in English
• 数学公式: Keep LaTeX/math notation as-is, only translate surrounding explanation text
• 图表引用: "Figure 1" → "图1", "Table 2" → "表2", "Equation 3" → "公式(3)"
• 学术风格: Use formal academic Chinese (学术书面语), avoid colloquial expressions
• 结构保留: Maintain paper structure: Abstract(摘要), Introduction(引言), Related Work(相关工作), Method(方法), Experiments(实验), Conclusion(结论)

Translation Output Format:

# [翻译标题]
**原标题:** [Original Title]
**作者:** [Authors]
**来源:** [arxiv ID / conference / journal]

## 摘要
[Translated abstract]

## 1 引言
[Translated content...]
...

3. Research & Q&A

When the user asks questions about the paper:

1. First search the extracted paper content for relevant sections
2. Then use web_search for supplementary context:
   • Related papers and citations
   • Blog posts / explanations of key concepts
   • Implementation details (GitHub repos)
   • Latest developments on the topic
3. Synthesize an answer combining paper content + web findings
4. Cite sources clearly: page numbers for paper content, URLs for web sources

4. Capabilities

5. Summary Format

When summarizing, use this structure:

## 📄 论文概览
**标题:** ...
**核心贡献:** 1-2 sentences
**关键词:** ...

## 🎯 主要贡献
1. ...
2. ...

## 🔬 方法概述
[Concise method description]

## 📊 实验结果
[Key results and comparisons]

## 💡 核心洞察
[Why this matters, limitations, future directions]

State Management

Store paper context in /tmp/academic_papers/ for multi-turn conversations:

• /tmp/academic_papers/current_paper.json — metadata of current paper
• /tmp/academic_papers/current_text.txt — extracted full text

This allows follow-up questions without re-extracting.

Notes

• For very long papers (>30 pages), extract and translate in batches
• Always show paper metadata first before diving into translation
• Use web_search proactively for unfamiliar terms or cutting-edge topics
• Default translation direction: English → Chinese (unless user specifies otherwise)
• Use sub-agents (sessions_spawn) for full paper translation to avoid blocking the main session