venue-templates

What this skill does

# Venue Templates

## Overview

Access comprehensive LaTeX templates, formatting requirements, and submission guidelines for major scientific publication venues, academic conferences, research posters, and grant proposals. This skill provides ready-to-use templates and detailed specifications for successful academic submissions across disciplines.

Use this skill when preparing manuscripts for journal submission, conference papers, research posters, or grant proposals and need venue-specific formatting requirements and templates.

## When to Use This Skill

This skill should be used when:
- Preparing a manuscript for submission to a specific journal (Nature, Science, PLOS, IEEE, etc.)
- Writing a conference paper with specific formatting requirements (NeurIPS, ICML, CHI, etc.)
- Creating an academic research poster for conferences
- Drafting grant proposals for federal agencies (NSF, NIH, DOE, DARPA) or private foundations
- Checking formatting requirements and page limits for target venues
- Customizing templates with author information and project details
- Verifying document compliance with venue specifications

## Core Capabilities

### 1. Journal Article Templates

Access LaTeX templates and formatting guidelines for 50+ major scientific journals across disciplines:

**Nature Portfolio**:
- Nature, Nature Methods, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Machine Intelligence
- Nature Communications, Nature Protocols
- Scientific Reports

**Science Family**:
- Science, Science Advances, Science Translational Medicine
- Science Immunology, Science Robotics

**PLOS (Public Library of Science)**:
- PLOS ONE, PLOS Biology, PLOS Computational Biology
- PLOS Medicine, PLOS Genetics

**Cell Press**:
- Cell, Neuron, Immunity, Cell Reports
- Molecular Cell, Developmental Cell

**IEEE Publications**:
- IEEE Transactions (various disciplines)
- IEEE Access, IEEE Journal templates

**ACM Publications**:
- ACM Transactions, Communications of the ACM
- ACM conference proceedings

**Other Major Publishers**:
- Springer journals (various disciplines)
- Elsevier journals (custom templates)
- Wiley journals
- BMC journals
- Frontiers journals

### 2. Conference Paper Templates

Conference-specific templates with proper formatting for major academic conferences:

**Machine Learning & AI**:
- NeurIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems)
- ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning)
- ICLR (International Conference on Learning Representations)
- CVPR (Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition)
- AAAI (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence)

**Computer Science**:
- ACM CHI (Human-Computer Interaction)
- SIGKDD (Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining)
- EMNLP (Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing)
- SIGIR (Information Retrieval)
- USENIX conferences

**Biology & Bioinformatics**:
- ISMB (Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology)
- RECOMB (Research in Computational Molecular Biology)
- PSB (Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing)

**Engineering**:
- IEEE conference templates (various disciplines)
- ASME, AIAA conferences

### 3. Research Poster Templates

Academic poster templates for conference presentations:

**Standard Formats**:
- A0 (841 × 1189 mm / 33.1 × 46.8 in)
- A1 (594 × 841 mm / 23.4 × 33.1 in)
- 36" × 48" (914 × 1219 mm) - Common US size
- 42" × 56" (1067 × 1422 mm)
- 48" × 36" (landscape orientation)

**Template Packages**:
- **beamerposter**: Classic academic poster template
- **tikzposter**: Modern, colorful poster design
- **baposter**: Structured multi-column layout

**Design Features**:
- Optimal font sizes for readability at distance
- Color schemes (colorblind-safe palettes)
- Grid layouts and column structures
- QR code integration for supplementary materials

### 4. Grant Proposal Templates

Templates and formatting requirements for major funding agencies:

**NSF (National Science Foundation)**:
- Full proposal template (15-page project description)
- Project Summary (1 page: Overview, Intellectual Merit, Broader Impacts)
- Budget and budget justification
- Biographical sketch (3-page limit)
- Facilities, Equipment, and Other Resources
- Data Management Plan

**NIH (National Institutes of Health)**:
- R01 Research Grant (multi-year)
- R21 Exploratory/Developmental Grant
- K Awards (Career Development)
- Specific Aims Page (1 page, most critical component)
- Research Strategy (Significance, Innovation, Approach)
- Biographical sketches (5-page limit)

**DOE (Department of Energy)**:
- Office of Science proposals
- ARPA-E templates
- Technology Readiness Level (TRL) descriptions
- Commercialization and impact sections

**DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)**:
- BAA (Broad Agency Announcement) responses
- Heilmeier Catechism framework
- Technical approach and milestones
- Transition planning

**Private Foundations**:
- Gates Foundation
- Wellcome Trust
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
- Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)

## Workflow: Finding and Using Templates

### Step 1: Identify Target Venue

Determine the specific publication venue, conference, or funding agency:

```
Example queries:
- "I need to submit to Nature"
- "What are the requirements for NeurIPS 2025?"
- "Show me NSF proposal formatting"
- "I'm creating a poster for ISMB"
```

### Step 2: Query Template and Requirements

Access venue-specific templates and formatting guidelines:

**For Journals**:
```bash
# Load journal formatting requirements
Reference: references/journals_formatting.md
Search for: "Nature" or specific journal name

# Retrieve template
Template: assets/journals/nature_article.tex
```

**For Conferences**:
```bash
# Load conference formatting
Reference: references/conferences_formatting.md
Search for: "NeurIPS" or specific conference

# Retrieve template
Template: assets/journals/neurips_article.tex
```

**For Posters**:
```bash
# Load poster guidelines
Reference: references/posters_guidelines.md

# Retrieve template
Template: assets/posters/beamerposter_academic.tex
```

**For Grants**:
```bash
# Load grant requirements
Reference: references/grants_requirements.md
Search for: "NSF" or specific agency

# Retrieve template
Template: assets/grants/nsf_proposal_template.tex
```

### Step 3: Review Formatting Requirements

Check critical specifications before customizing:

**Key Requirements to Verify**:
- Page limits (varies by venue)
- Font size and family
- Margin specifications
- Line spacing
- Citation style (APA, Vancouver, Nature, etc.)
- Figure/table requirements
- File format (PDF, Word, LaTeX source)
- Anonymization (for double-blind review)
- Supplementary material limits

### Step 4: Customize Template

Use helper scripts or manual customization:

**Option 1: Helper Script (Recommended)**:
```bash
python scripts/customize_template.py \
  --template assets/journals/nature_article.tex \
  --title "Your Paper Title" \
  --authors "First Author, Second Author" \
  --affiliations "University Name" \
  --output my_nature_paper.tex
```

**Option 2: Manual Editing**:
- Open template file
- Replace placeholder text (marked with comments)
- Fill in title, authors, affiliations, abstract
- Add your content to each section

### Step 5: Validate Format

Check compliance with venue requirements:

```bash
python scripts/validate_format.py \
  --file my_paper.pdf \
  --venue "Nature" \
  --check-all
```

**Validation Checks**:
- Page count within limits
- Font sizes correct
- Margins meet specifications
- References formatted correctly
- Figures meet resolution requirements

### Step 6: Compile and Review

Compile LaTeX and review output:

```bash
# Compile LaTeX
pdflatex my_paper.tex
bibtex my_paper
pdflatex my_paper.tex
pdflatex my_paper.tex

# Or use latexmk for automated compilation
latexmk -pdf my_paper.tex
```

Review checklist:
- [ ] All sections present and properly formatted
- [ ] Citations render correctly
- [ ] Figures appear with proper captions
- [ ] Page count within limits
- [ ] Author guidelines followed
- [ ] Supp