English natural-science journal workflow (en-natsci-journal-workflow)

Purpose

This is the routing skill. It does not replace a single-journal profile; it first classifies the manuscript by discipline, advance type, evidence shape, and audience breadth, then routes into the matching per-journal skill for fit and re-framing. It is a sibling to en-journal-workflow, which covers the econ / finance / management 100.

Resources to Load When Needed

• If the target family is unclear, read ../../resources/worked-examples/venue-routing.md before choosing a venue.
• If a manuscript sits between broad and specialist venues, read ../../resources/exemplars/selection-patterns.md.
• Before submission-ready advice, use ../../resources/journal-roster.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md to open the current official author instructions for the chosen journal.

Ask four things first

1. Advance type: a single broadly-significant discovery, a mechanism, a new method/tool, a definitive clinical result, a theoretical/mathematical result, or an authoritative review/synthesis?
2. Evidence shape: molecular/mechanistic experiment, in vivo / animal model, human clinical trial or cohort, observational/field data, simulation/theory, structure determination, benchmark/algorithm, or proof?
3. Audience breadth: all of science (Nature/Science/PNAS), a whole discipline (Nature-subject / society flagship), or a specialty community?
4. Submission goal: swing for a general-science or flagship venue, or optimize topic–venue fit and review odds at a strong specialty journal?

Quick routing

Sibling-Journal Disambiguation

Decision rules

• Significance before submission. Nature/Science/Cell/PNAS triage most papers before review on "broad significance." If the advance is solid but incremental, route to the strong specialty or open-access multidisciplinary venue rather than burning a flagship desk-reject.
• "First to report X" is not a contribution at flagship venues — name the conceptual advance, the mechanism, or the definitive evidence.
• Descriptive ≠ mechanistic. A correlation, an omics catalogue, or a structure with no functional insight routes below Cell/Nature-subject; add mechanism or route to a data-resource venue.
• Clinical evidence hierarchy. A practice-changing randomized trial belongs at NEJM/Lancet/JAMA; an observational cohort or secondary analysis usually routes to a society specialty journal. Trial registration + the right reporting checklist (CONSORT/PRISMA/STROBE) are prerequisites, not nice-to-haves.
• Review vs. primary. Reviews of Modern Physics, Chemical Reviews, Accounts of Chemical Research, CA, and Trends are largely invited — do not route an unsolicited primary-data paper there.
• Format gates. A PRL must fit the Letter length limit; a Nature/Cell paper must survive editorial triage; an eLife paper enters the Reviewed-Preprint model.
• Always enter the single-journal skill's official-submission checklist before submitting; never rely on a stale template.

Output format

[Top journal skill] <skill-name>
[Alt 1] <skill-name> (reason)
[Alt 2] <skill-name> (reason)
[Do not submit to] <journal> (one-line mismatch reason)
[Biggest current gap] significance / mechanism / evidence / reporting-checklist / formatting / official requirements
[Next step] invoke <skill-name> for single-venue fit and re-framing