Alterlab Venue Templates

Venue Templates

Overview

LaTeX templates, formatting requirements, and writing-style guidance for academic journals, conferences, posters, and grants. Provides ready-to-use templates plus references that cover many more venues than are bundled.

Use this skill when you need venue-specific formatting (templates, page/word limits, citation style, figure specs, anonymization rules) or style (tone, abstract format, reviewer priorities). Hand off substantive prose development to alterlab-scientific-writing and grant argumentation strategy to alterlab-research-grants.

What's Bundled

6 ready-to-use LaTeX templates in assets/:

Formatting references in references/: journals_formatting.md, conferences_formatting.md, posters_guidelines.md, grants_requirements.md. These cover many venues beyond the bundled templates (Science, Cell Press, IEEE, ACM, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, CHI, ISMB, DOE, DARPA, foundations).

Writing-style guides in references/: venue_writing_styles.md (master overview), nature_science_style.md, cell_press_style.md, medical_journal_styles.md, ml_conference_style.md, cs_conference_style.md, reviewer_expectations.md.

Writing examples in assets/examples/: nature_abstract_examples.md, neurips_introduction_example.md, cell_summary_example.md, medical_structured_abstract.md.

Workflow

1. Identify the venue. Journal, conference, poster, or grant agency.
2. Query template + requirements. Run query_template.py (below) or read the relevant references/*.md. Verify currency against the official author guidelines — venue style files change yearly.
3. Customize the template. Use customize_template.py or edit placeholders by hand.
4. For writing register, load the matching style guide and check reviewer_expectations.md.
5. Validate + compile. Run validate_format.py on the PDF, then compile.

# Compile (run pdflatex 2-3x, or use latexmk for automatic rerun handling)
latexmk -pdf my_paper.tex

Helper Scripts

All scripts are stdlib Python; run from the skill root.

query_template.py — find templates and requirements

python scripts/query_template.py --list-all
python scripts/query_template.py --venue "Nature" --type journals
python scripts/query_template.py --venue "NeurIPS" --requirements
python scripts/query_template.py --keyword "machine learning"

customize_template.py — fill in title/authors/affiliations

--template takes the bare filename (not a path); the script searches assets/{journals,posters,grants}/ for it.

python scripts/customize_template.py \
  --template nature_article.tex \
  --title "Novel Approach to Protein Folding" \
  --authors "Jane Doe, John Smith" \
  --affiliations "MIT, Stanford" \
  --email "doe@mit.edu" \
  --output my_paper.tex

# Interactive picker
python scripts/customize_template.py --interactive

validate_format.py — check a compiled PDF against venue specs

Requires pdfinfo (poppler). Checks page count, margins, fonts heuristically.

python scripts/validate_format.py --file my_paper.pdf --venue "Nature" --check-all
python scripts/validate_format.py --file my_paper.pdf --venue "NeurIPS" --check page-count,fonts
python scripts/validate_format.py --file proposal.pdf --venue "NSF" --report validation.txt

Quick Reference

Page limits (typical — always re-verify yearly)

Citation style

Figure specs

NeurIPS at a glance

Single-column (text block 5.5 × 9 in), Times 10pt, 8-page main text (+ unlimited refs/appendix), numbered bracket citations, anonymization required for the double-blind initial submission, colorblind-safe figures recommended. Official style file (neurips_<year>.sty) changes annually.

Why Style Matters

The same results read very differently across venues. Load the matching guide before drafting:

• Nature/Science (nature_science_style.md): accessible to non-specialists, story-driven, broad significance, flowing-paragraph abstract.
• Cell Press (cell_press_style.md): mechanistic depth, graphical abstract, Highlights, eTOC.
• Medical (medical_journal_styles.md): patient-centered, evidence-graded, structured abstracts (NEJM/Lancet/JAMA/BMJ).
• ML conferences (ml_conference_style.md): contribution bullets, ablations, reproducibility.
• CS conferences (cs_conference_style.md): field-specific conventions (ACL, EMNLP, CHI, SIGKDD).
• reviewer_expectations.md: what reviewers prioritize per venue and rebuttal tips.

Best Practices

• Verify currency: compare bundled templates against the latest official author guidelines (links in the references).
• Use the official style file where one exists; don't tweak margins/fonts (grounds for desk rejection at many venues).
• Preserve required structure: don't remove required sections or packages when customizing.
• Check page limits and anonymization before submission; remove identifying info for double-blind venues.

External author guidelines

• Nature: https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors
• Science: https://www.science.org/content/page/instructions-authors
• PLOS: https://plos.org/resources/
• Cell Press: https://www.cell.com/author-guidelines
• NeurIPS: https://neurips.cc/ · ICML: https://icml.cc/ · CVPR: https://cvpr.thecvf.com/
• NSF PAPPG: https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=pappg
• NIH: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/how-to-apply-application-guide.html
• DOE: https://science.osti.gov/grants