author — academic LaTeX authoring

Write LaTeX that compiles cleanly the first time, reads professionally, and follows the conventions academic publishing expects.

The standard preamble (engine-agnostic baseline)

When asked to start a new article, use this. Adjust per-document only when the document needs a feature these don't provide.

\documentclass[11pt, a4paper]{article}      % Engine: pdflatex/xelatex/lualatex
% Encoding (only needed on pdflatex; harmless on others if guarded — prefer to drop on modern engines)
% \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}                  % pdflatex only
% \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}               % LaTeX 2018+ defaults to utf8; explicit for safety
% Math
\usepackage{amsmath, amssymb, amsthm, mathtools}
% Typography
\usepackage{microtype}                      % protrusion/expansion (full on pdflatex; partial elsewhere)
% Tables and figures
\usepackage{graphicx, booktabs, caption, subcaption}
% Units, numbers
\usepackage{siunitx}
% Hyperlinks (load near the end; cleveref AFTER hyperref)
\usepackage[hidelinks, breaklinks=true]{hyperref}
\usepackage{cleveref}                       % \Cref, \cref — better than \autoref
\title{Title}
\author{Author One \and Author Two}
\date{}                                     % omit date for camera-ready
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\begin{abstract}
...
\end{abstract}
\section{Introduction}
...
\bibliographystyle{plainnat}                % or use biblatex (see bibliography skill)
\bibliography{refs}
\end{document}

The engine is chosen by /academic-latex:compile from the preamble. If the document needs Unicode fonts / non-Latin scripts, swap to:

% LuaLaTeX-ready additions (drop fontenc/inputenc):
\usepackage{fontspec}
% \usepackage{polyglossia}                  % see multilingual skill
\setmainfont{Latin Modern Roman}            % or any installed OTF/TTF

House rules (academic typography defaults)

These are non-negotiable defaults. Override per journal style only when explicit instructions require it. For deep guidance, see /academic-latex:typography.

• Tables: booktabs (\toprule/\midrule/\bottomrule), no vertical rules. Captions ABOVE tables.
• Figures: captions BELOW figures. Use \centering, not the center env. \includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{...}.
• Cross-references: always \label{type:name} with type prefix (fig:, tab:, eq:, sec:, lst:). Reference with \Cref{tab:xyz} from cleveref — handles "Table 3" vs "Tables 3 and 4" automatically.
• Math: align/align* from amsmath, never eqnarray. Use \(...\) for inline math (more error-tolerant than $...$).
• Quotes: ` text' ` for single, text'' for double. Curly quotes in source become straight "` only when typed naively.
• Dashes: -- for ranges (en-dash), --- for em-dash. Never a single - for a dash.
• Non-breaking space: ~ between citation/reference numbers and the noun: Figure~\ref{fig:overview}. Same for "Dr.~Smith".
• Code: \usepackage{listings} (load on demand) or \usepackage{minted} (requires -shell-escape).
• Theorems: amsthm with named environments:

  \newtheorem{theorem}{Theorem}
  \newtheorem{lemma}[theorem]{Lemma}

Cross-reference labels

Use a type prefix in every \label{}:

cleveref uses these to format the reference correctly. With cleveref, do not type "Figure" before \Cref — it's added automatically.

% Right:
As shown in \Cref{fig:overview}, ...
% Wrong (yields "Figure Figure 3"):
As shown in Figure \Cref{fig:overview}, ...

Figures

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \includegraphics[width=0.8\linewidth]{figures/overview.pdf}
  \caption{Pipeline overview.}
  \label{fig:overview}
\end{figure}

Subfigures (need subcaption):

\begin{figure}[t]
  \centering
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{figures/before.pdf}
    \caption{Before.}\label{fig:before}
  \end{subfigure}
  \hfill
  \begin{subfigure}[b]{0.45\linewidth}
    \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{figures/after.pdf}
    \caption{After.}\label{fig:after}
  \end{subfigure}
  \caption{Comparison.}\label{fig:before-after}
\end{figure}

For TikZ/PGFPlots inline figures, see /academic-latex:figure-helper.

Tables

See /academic-latex:table-helper for booktabs templates and CSV-to-LaTeX conversion. Caption ABOVE the tabular environment.

Bibliography integration

Two stacks; pick before adding citations:

• biblatex+biber — modern, Unicode-clean, default for new work.
• natbib+bibtex — required by many journal templates.

See /academic-latex:bibliography for setup, citation commands, and conversion guidance. When uncertain which a journal expects, delegate to /academic-latex:docs-lookup.

Multilingual

For non-English or multi-language documents, load /academic-latex:multilingual BEFORE writing — choice of babel vs polyglossia affects the entire document.

When uncertain

Before adding a package option you are not 100% sure about, before claiming a deprecated→modern syntax mapping, before recommending a journal-specific class option:

Invoke /academic-latex:docs-lookup with the specific question. Use the verbatim quote returned. Do not guess.

This is the suite-level rule; see plugin README.

Output style

Make minimal targeted edits to existing documents. Do not rewrite working preambles to match these defaults — only add what's needed for the requested change. New documents start from the standard preamble above.

Last verified

2026-05-09 — defaults derived from anthropic-grade academic typography conventions; package guarantees from CTAN docs.