Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
› commres-literature-positioning
commres-literature-positioning
GitHub针对Communication Research期刊，将论文置于文献中以确立累积性理论贡献。通过识别实证争论、精确命名差距、对比竞争性解释，避免文献堆砌，确保假设与理论紧密衔接，提升稿件在传播科学中的定位清晰度。
Trigger Scenarios
撰写或修改引言及假设段落
审稿人指出遗漏关键文献或未参与学术辩论
需区分当前假设与最接近的先前实证研究
效应稳健但理论贡献不清晰
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill commres-literature-positioning -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "commres-literature-positioning",
"description": "Use when positioning a Communication Research (CR) manuscript against the literature so it reads as a cumulative, theory-testing contribution to communication science. CR reviewers expect engagement with the empirical communication literature and the rival accounts your hypotheses adjudicate. Stakes the contribution; it does not write the lit review."
}
Literature Positioning (commres-literature-positioning)
CR is a cumulative, social-scientific journal: reviewers ask how your hypotheses extend, qualify, or adjudicate the prior empirical communication literature. Positioning is not throat-clearing — it places the paper where a quantitative communication scientist can see the open question, the rival accounts, and the move your tests make.
When to trigger
- Drafting or revising the introduction and the "present study / hypotheses" paragraph
- A reviewer said you "missed obvious work" or "don't engage the debate"
- You need to distinguish your hypotheses from the closest prior empirical papers
- Your effect is solid but the contribution to communication theory is unclear
How CR wants the literature engaged
- Engage the empirical debate, not a pile of citations. Identify the live disagreement or open question your hypotheses speak to, and cite the studies that define it — including the strongest prior tests.
- Build to hypotheses. CR introductions march from theory and prior findings to explicit, numbered hypotheses (and research questions); positioning sets up exactly those predictions.
- Name the gap precisely. Not "little is known" — say what is contested, mismeasured, under-tested, or confounded in prior work, and why resolving it advances communication science.
- Position against rivals. "Prior work argues X via mechanism M; we test whether M holds, is conditional on C, or is better explained by M′." The rival becomes a tested alternative, not a foil.
- Theory over platform. Frame around the communication process or construct, not the medium or dataset — platforms change; tested mechanisms accumulate.
Cross-area engagement (CR is read across communication science)
| If your paper is… | also engage… |
|---|---|
| a media-effects experiment | the general processing/persuasion theory it tests, not one stimulus literature |
| a survey of new-media use | the use→effect process literature, not just platform descriptions |
| a content analysis | the substantive effects/processing literature the coded features speak to |
| a health/political communication study | the message/audience mechanism literature beyond one topic |
Anti-patterns
- A "literature dump" with no organizing empirical debate
- Engaging only one platform or topic niche (a common CR rejection reason)
- Hypotheses that do not follow from the cited theory and prior findings (HARKing risk)
- Strawmanning prior work, or hiding the closest competing study
- Self-citation that breaks anonymity — write self-citations in the third person (see
commres-submission)
Positioning pass for Communication Research
Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the communication process, the measured constructs, the study design, and the inferential claim; then judge whether the manuscript answers CR's real reader: a quantitatively trained communication scientist who weighs theory, measurement validity, identification, and effect interpretation.
- Do the pass: Build a three-column map — incumbent finding/account, unresolved tension, this paper's tested delta; include one rival account the design must rule out and one sibling-venue omission a referee would flag.
- Return a ledger: give
claim / evidence / risk / manuscript locationrows so the next agent edits rather than rediscovers the issue. - Sibling guard: Journal of Communication (all-paradigm), Human Communication Research (interpersonal), New Media & Society (digital). If a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until
resources/official-source-map.mdhas been checked and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.
Output format
【Debate】the live empirical disagreement / open question
【Key works】the 3-6 prior tests that define it
【Gap】what is contested / mismeasured / confounded / untested
【Hypotheses】how H1…Hk follow from the positioned theory
【Strongest rival】the account the design will adjudicate
【Next】commres-theory-building
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— measurement and effects literatures by area../../resources/official-source-map.md— CR scope and double-anonymized / third-person self-citation rules
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 12:37
