Academic Translator

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 "" /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 "" [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

| Command | Action | |---------|--------| | "翻译这篇论文" / "translate this paper" | Full paper translation | | "翻译摘要/引言/第N节" | Translate specific section | | "总结这篇论文" / "summarize" | Generate structured summary | | "解释 [concept]" | Explain a concept from the paper with web context | | "[any question]" | Answer based on paper + web research | | "对比 [paper A] 和 [paper B]" | Compare two papers |

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

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