Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
› hlr-thesis-and-contribution
hlr-thesis-and-contribution
GitHub用于提炼哈佛法律评论文章的原创性核心论点与规范价值，确保其具备争议性与实际影响。适用于无法一句话概括主张、被指描述性过强或需区分既有研究贡献的场景。
Trigger Scenarios
无法用一句话清晰表述核心主张
文章被评价为仅描述现状缺乏论证
读者询问‘那又怎样’（so what?）
需要明确区分与现有最接近研究的贡献差异
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill hlr-thesis-and-contribution -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "hlr-thesis-and-contribution",
"description": "Use when articulating the central legal claim and normative payoff of a Harvard Law Review (HLR) piece so it reads as an original contribution, not a doctrinal survey. Forges the thesis; it does not search for preemption (hlr-preemption-check) or build the argument's internal structure (hlr-argument-structure)."
}
Thesis and Contribution (hlr-thesis-and-contribution)
In a student-edited generalist review, the single most decisive question is: what is the claim, and why does it matter? HLR editors screen for a thesis that is original, normative, and consequential. A piece that competently describes the state of the law without arguing for something will not clear the screen. This skill turns a topic into a sharp, defensible claim with a stated payoff.
When to trigger
- You can describe an area of law but cannot state your claim in one sentence
- A reader asks "so what?" after your introduction
- Reviewers (or your own gut) say the piece is "descriptive" or "a survey"
- You need to distinguish your contribution from the closest existing scholarship
Anatomy of an HLR thesis
- The claim is normative or reconstructive, not merely descriptive. "Courts do X" is not a thesis; "Courts should do Y instead of X, because Z" is. Even a descriptive reframing must change how readers understand the doctrine.
- It is falsifiable / contestable. A serious reader could disagree. If no one could, it is a truism.
- It states the payoff. Who acts differently if you are right — courts, Congress, agencies, litigants, scholars? Name the consequence.
- It is original against the literature. Not "first to notice X" but "prior work treats X as A; this
piece shows X is better understood as B, with consequence C" (verify against
hlr-preemption-check). - It fits a generalist audience. The stake connects to structural commitments (separation of powers, federalism, rights, the rule of law) a non-specialist editor recognizes as important.
The contribution paragraph (front of the introduction)
A flagship article states its contribution early — typically by the bottom of the first page or two. Build it from four moves:
| Move | Sentence it produces |
|---|---|
| The problem | The live doctrinal/structural problem, stated concretely |
| The gap | What existing law or scholarship gets wrong or leaves open |
| The claim | Your thesis, in one declarative sentence |
| The payoff | What changes — the prescription and who it binds |
Kinds of legal contribution (pick the dominant one)
- Doctrinal: identify a doctrine's incoherence and propose a fix or reconstruction.
- Normative/theoretical: argue for a value or framework that should govern the area.
- Descriptive-but-reframing: show the law is not what everyone assumed (a new map that reorders debate).
- Institutional: argue a different actor (court, agency, Congress) should decide, and why.
Checklist
- The thesis is one declarative, contestable sentence
- It is normative or reframing, not a description of current law
- The payoff names who acts differently if the claim holds
- The contribution paragraph appears in the first page or two
- Originality is staked against the closest prior work (cross-check
hlr-preemption-check) - A generalist editor can see the structural stake in one read
Anti-patterns
- "This Article surveys/describes/catalogs…" with no argument (the survey trap)
- Burying the thesis on page 20 after a long doctrinal warm-up
- "First to address" claims that collapse under a real preemption search
- A thesis so hedged ("courts might sometimes consider…") that nothing is at stake
- A payoff aimed at only one specialty bar when HLR wants a generalist stake
Output format
【Thesis】one declarative, contestable sentence
【Type】doctrinal / normative / reframing / institutional
【Gap】what prior law or scholarship gets wrong or leaves open
【Payoff】who acts differently if you are right
【Generalist stake】the structural commitment it touches
【Next】hlr-preemption-check (confirm originality) → hlr-argument-structure
Supplementary resources
../../resources/worked-examples/01-introduction.md— before→after of an HLR-style introduction with the contribution front-loaded../../resources/exemplars/library.md— real HLR pieces whose theses to study
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 13:17
