how-to-technical-writing: simple words rule and shared writing checklist

[GiggleLiu]

Observation

The style guide told authors to use plain connectives, but the intended rule was broader: explain ideas with simple words rather than fancy ones. The review-paper checklist also broke the guide's own sentence rules, and the writing rubric lived in review-paper while the writing rules lived in how-to-technical-writing.

Issue

Two homes for the writing guide drift apart, and a checklist that ignores its own rules is a poor model for the prose it reviews.

Fix

• Rename the rule to Simple words; preserve technical words and extend the examples beyond connectives ("show" over "demonstrate", "start" over "commence"). The hunt-table row, CLAUDE.md, and write-paper's summary line follow.
• Rewrite how-to-technical-writing/SKILL.md in its own plain style.
• Move guidelines 1–5 and 7 into skills/how-to-technical-writing/checklist.md, the single source of truth for the writing guide. skills/review-paper/checklist.md keeps only the review-process items (gate, verification, journal fit, delivery), rewritten as short sentences.
• Update cross-references in review-paper/SKILL.md, write-paper/SKILL.md, and CLAUDE.md. Ignore .lavish/.

Verification

python3 scripts/validate_skills.py passes; pytest -q reports 247 passed.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_018cc6n2NyTUNUDQ7LhzZDur

[GiggleLiu]

Self-review

Finding	Status
Guidelines 2, 5, 7 (symbols, display math, figures) now sit in the technical-writing checklist although CLAUDE.md says notation and figure rules stay in write-paper.	Accepted. The checklist header says these items apply the write-paper rulebooks; the rulebooks themselves stay in write-paper.
Guideline numbering in the two checklists is non-contiguous (1–5, 7 vs 6, 8, 9).	Accepted. Numbers match the table in review-paper/SKILL.md; renumbering would break every finding that cites a guideline.
The previous branch's last commit ("update") was never in main and is folded into this PR.	Fixed. Content verified identical to the old working tree; tests pass.
No test covers the new checklist.md file.	Deferred. Structural tests check SKILL.md frontmatter only; a checklist test adds little.