Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
› est-study-design
est-study-design
GitHub专为ES&T期刊设计实验、采样或建模研究，确保方案通过专家审查。涵盖环境相关性、对照设置、重复性、质量平衡及QA/QC计划，旨在预防常见拒稿风险，指导研究设计而非执行。
Trigger Scenarios
规划实验室、中试或野外研究及采样活动
确定浓度、基质、对照组和终点
在数据生成前制定QA/QC和质量/能量平衡计划
审稿人质疑环境相关性、对照或重复性
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill est-study-design -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "est-study-design",
"description": "Use when designing experiments, sampling campaigns, or modeling studies for Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T) so the design survives expert review — environmental relevance, controls, replication, mass\/energy balances, and a QA\/QC plan built in from the start. It guides design decisions; it does not run the study."
}
Study Design (est-study-design)
ES&T reviewers are demanding about whether a design can actually support its environmental claim.
The failure modes are predictable: unrealistic conditions, missing controls, no replication, an
unclosed mass balance, or QA/QC bolted on after the fact. Design to pre-empt them. Execution and
reporting of results live in est-data-analysis.
When to trigger
- Planning a lab/mesocosm/field study, sampling campaign, or modeling experiment
- Choosing concentrations, matrices, controls, replicates, and endpoints
- Setting up the QA/QC and mass/energy-balance plan before generating data
- A reviewer questioned environmental relevance, controls, or replication
Design principles ES&T expects
- Environmental relevance. Use concentrations, matrices, pH/ionic strength, light, temperature, and timescales representative of the target system — not only idealized lab spikes. Justify any accelerated/exaggerated conditions.
- Controls that isolate the mechanism. Include the controls that rule out abiotic loss, sorption, volatilization, photolysis, blanks, and matrix effects — whatever could mimic your effect.
- Replication & randomization. Biological/experimental replicates (not just technical); randomize/rotate where position or batch could confound; power your design for the effect size.
- Mass / energy balance. Where the design implies one, plan to account for inputs, products, sorbed/volatilized fractions, and losses — unexplained gaps are a top rejection reason.
- QA/QC by design. Pre-plan blanks (method/field), spikes/recoveries, CRMs, LOD/LOQ,
calibration, surrogate/internal standards, and duplicates (see
est-data-analysis). - Dose–response / kinetics. For toxicity or reaction studies, design enough points to fit curves/rate constants, not just a single dose or time point.
- Models. State assumptions, domain, boundary/initial conditions, calibration vs validation data, and sensitivity/uncertainty analysis up front.
Controls a reviewer expects, by claim type
The fastest way to lose an environmental-relevance argument is to omit the control that rules out a competing process. Match the control set to what you are claiming:
| If you claim... | You must control for... | Reviewer's killer question |
|---|---|---|
| Biodegradation/biotransformation | abiotic loss (autoclaved/poisoned control) | "could this be sorption or hydrolysis?" |
| Photolysis | dark control, light-screened control | "is the loss just thermal?" |
| Adsorption to a sorbent | blank sorbent, dissolved-phase loss | "is it volatilization?" |
| Treatment removal | influent/effluent mass balance, blank run | "where did the mass go?" |
| Toxicity/effect | solvent/vehicle control, dilution series | "is the carrier causing it?" |
Worked micro-example (illustrative — designing the PFAS biotransformation study)
To support "precursor X biotransforms to PFHxA in river water," the design (illustrative) builds in the defenses before any sample is run:
- Environmental relevance: spike at ~50 ng/L (illustrative — near observed field levels), in filtered river water at ambient pH and temperature, not a buffered idealized matrix.
- Controls: an autoclaved (abiotic) control to separate biotransformation from sorption/hydrolysis; a no-spike blank; a sorption check on the vessel walls.
- Replication & power: triplicate microcosms per timepoint (biological replicates), randomized incubator position; enough timepoints (e.g., 0, 1, 3, 7, 14 d) to fit a first-order rate constant.
- Mass balance: measure precursor, intermediates, and terminal acid plus a sorbed-fraction extraction, targeting ≥80% closure (illustrative) and reporting the gap.
- QA/QC by design: per-batch spikes/recoveries, field and method blanks, per-analyte LOQ, and surrogate standards pre-specified — not improvised after the run.
The design choice that pre-empts the top rejection: the abiotic control plus the mass balance together make the biotransformation claim falsifiable, which is exactly what the analytical reviewer checks.
Anti-patterns
- Lab spikes orders of magnitude above environmental levels presented as relevant
- No abiotic/sorption/photolysis control to isolate the claimed process
- n = 1 or technical replicates passed off as independent replication
- A transformation/treatment study with no attempt at a mass balance
- QA/QC improvised after data collection; no blanks or recoveries planned
- A model with undisclosed assumptions and no validation or sensitivity analysis
Output format
【Design】lab / mesocosm / field / modeling + endpoints
【Environmental relevance】conditions match target system? [Y/N + justification]
【Controls】which confounders ruled out
【Replication/power】n, randomization, effect size
【Mass/energy balance】planned? how closed?
【QA/QC plan】blanks / spikes / CRM / LOD-LOQ / calibration
【Next】est-data-analysis
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— instruments, fate/transport models, QA/QC backbone../../resources/official-source-map.md— ES&T scope and rigor expectations
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 13:12
