From jaar-skills
Polishes scholarly prose to meet JAAR house style for the study of religion. Checks argument clarity, gender-neutral language, serial comma use, and term definition.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/jaar-skills:jaar-writing-styleThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
A JAAR article should read as rigorous humanities scholarship that a religion scholar **outside** your
A JAAR article should read as rigorous humanities scholarship that a religion scholar outside your area can follow with pleasure. The prose must carry an argument (not just inform), define its terms, and meet JAAR's house conventions (gender-neutral language, serial comma, italicized foreign terms).
jaar-theory-and-method).jaar-structure-and-exposition).【Argument-forward?】claims lead, evidence supports? [Y/N]
【Accessible?】terms/transliterations defined for non-specialists? [Y/N]
【Analytic, non-confessional?】[Y/N]
【House conventions】gender-neutral + serial comma + italicized foreign terms? [Y/N]
【Economy】tightened to the word budget? [Y/N]
【Next】jaar-citation-and-style
Prose for the AAR/Oxford University Press flagship must satisfy the area specialist and the non-specialist scholar of religion at once. Each row names a habit, the reader it loses, and the JAAR move that keeps both.
| Habit | Loses | JAAR move |
|---|---|---|
| Untranslated technical vocabulary | The generalist | Gloss and italicize the term on first use |
| Over-explaining the tradition | The specialist | Compress to what the argument needs |
| Devotional or hagiographic warmth | Both (reads as advocacy) | Describe the claim; keep the analytic voice distinct |
| Long unanalyzed block quotation | Both | Quote, then read the quotation for the argument |
| "Man and his faith" generics | The contemporary reader and copyeditor | Gender-neutral phrasing |
A draft on Eucharistic devotion reads: "When the faithful gaze upon the Host, they encounter the true presence of their Lord, a mystery that words cannot capture." A JAAR pass:
jaar-theory-and-method governs).| Reader's report | Diagnosis | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| "Dense; I'm not in this subfield and couldn't follow" | Jargon excludes generalists | Gloss terms; spell out what a non-specialist needs |
| "Reads as devotional" | Confessional register | Restore analytic distance; report, don't endorse |
| "Quotations sit unexplained" | Evidence not read | Analyze each quotation for the argument |
| "Gendered generics throughout" | House-convention miss | Gender-neutral language; serial comma |
| "Inconsistent transliteration" | Style drift | Declare one system; apply it throughout |
Hedged calibration: gender-neutral language, the serial (Oxford) comma, and italicized foreign terms are stable JAAR house conventions, but spelling (American vs. British) and any current style-sheet specifics should be confirmed against the journal's submission guidelines, since house style can be updated under the publisher.
../../resources/official-source-map.md — JAAR language conventions (gender-neutral, serial comma, foreign-term italics)npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin jaar-skillsFormats citations and references for Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR) submissions. Converts footnote citations to in-text author-date and builds alphabetized year-keyed reference lists.
Shapes AJS manuscripts to the journal's author-date house style, polishing citations, notes, references, and prose for a generalist sociological audience.
Drafts and polishes manuscripts for Current Anthropology journal, ensuring cross-subfield readability, CA house style (Chicago author-date), word caps (6-10k major article, 3-5k report, ≤200 abstract), and jargon-light inclusive language.