Agent Skills
› brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
› apsr-topic-selection
apsr-topic-selection
GitHub评估政治学项目是否符合APSR期刊标准并推荐投稿栏目。通过通用重要性、实质贡献、方法严谨性和范围清晰度四项测试，指导作者跨子领域定位，区分Regular Article与Research Note等轨道，避免狭隘或描述性选题。
Trigger Scenarios
为APSR选择项目选题或框架
审稿人认为论文过于狭窄
决定在Regular Article和Research Note之间选择
考虑Registered Reports或Replications and Reappraisals
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill apsr-topic-selection -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "apsr-topic-selection",
"description": "Use when deciding whether a political-science project fits the American Political Science Review (APSR) and which of its five tracks to target. APSR is the discipline's generalist flagship, so the test is general significance across subfields, not subfield novelty alone. Helps frame the question; it does not collect data."
}
Topic Selection & Fit (apsr-topic-selection)
APSR is the general-interest flagship of political science. The bar is not "new to my subfield" — it is "matters to the discipline." Use this skill to pressure-test fit before you invest.
When to trigger
- Choosing among possible projects or framings for an APSR submission
- A reviewer/colleague said the paper feels "too narrow" or "subfield-only"
- Deciding between a Regular Article and a Research Note
- Considering Registered Reports (prospective design) or Replications and Reappraisals
The APSR fit test
A strong APSR paper usually clears all four:
- General significance. A scholar in a different subfield (e.g., a comparativist reading an Americanist paper) should see why it matters. State the stakes for politics broadly — power, institutions, behavior, representation, conflict, justice.
- A real contribution, not just a finding. It changes how the field thinks, measures, or argues — a new theory, a decisive test, a reconceptualization, a corrected record.
- Credible on its own methodological terms. Quantitative, qualitative, formal, experimental, or
interpretive — each is welcome, but each must be done rigorously (see
apsr-research-design). - A clean, answerable scope. The question is sharp enough to answer convincingly within ~11,000 words (Article) or ~7,000 (Research Note).
Subfield framing (write past your home subfield)
| Home subfield | Reach to the discipline by… |
|---|---|
| American politics | tie to representation, institutions, or behavior that travels beyond the US case |
| Comparative | draw the general mechanism, not just the country case; speak to theory others can use |
| International relations | connect to cooperation, conflict, or institutions as general phenomena |
| Political theory | show why the normative/conceptual stakes matter for empirical work or public life |
| Methodology | show what substantive questions the method newly answers — not method for its own sake |
Track choice
- Regular Article — full study, broad claim, < 11,000 words.
- Research Note — one crisp contribution (a decisive test, a measurement advance, a focused reappraisal), < 7,000 words. Faster to read; do not pad it into an Article.
- Registered Report — you have a strong design but no results yet; get in-principle acceptance
on the design (see
apsr-review-process). - Replications and Reappraisals — your contribution is to re-examine an influential published
result (see
apsr-transparency-and-data-policyfor materials expectations).
Anti-patterns
- "It's never been studied in country X" as the whole contribution (descriptive, subfield-only)
- A clever method demo with no substantive political-science payoff
- A sprawling question that cannot be answered within the length cap
- Choosing Article length out of habit when a Research Note would land harder
Output format
【Question】one sentence
【General significance】who outside the subfield cares, and why
【Contribution type】theory / test / measurement / reconceptualization / corrected record
【Track】Regular Article / Research Note / Registered Report / Replication / Synthesis
【Fit verdict】strong / needs reframing / off-fit (why)
【Next】apsr-literature-positioning
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— data sources by subfield../../resources/official-source-map.md— APSR tracks and scope
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 12:21
