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Positions Psychological Science manuscripts against the literature with sharp gap/contribution framing and ~40 reference budgets. Handles reviewer feedback about incremental contributions.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
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/psci-skills:psci-literature-positioningThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Psychological Science gives you almost no room for a traditional literature review: roughly **40
Psychological Science gives you almost no room for a traditional literature review: roughly 40 references and an Introduction that shares a 2,000-word budget with the Discussion. Positioning must be surgical — name the open question, the contribution, and the broad relevance in a few tight paragraphs.
When your reference list overflows the format, sort every candidate into one of four roles and keep only what earns its slot. Confirm the current reference allowance against the journal's submission guidelines, but the discipline is the same.
| Role | Keep? | Why it earns a slot in Psychological Science |
|---|---|---|
| Defines the open question | always | without it the gap is not legible |
| Closest prior result you beat/extend | always | this is the contribution's contrast class |
| Method/measure provenance | usually | reviewers check construct validity |
| Broad-relevance anchor (another subarea) | one or two | the breadth signal editors screen for |
| Background-completeness citation | cut first | the format rewards precision, not coverage |
A two-study attention package wants to position against a famous but underpowered emotional-capture finding. Weak framing: "Prior work has examined attentional capture (refs 1–18)." Venue-fit framing:
Stakes: Capture by emotional distractors is a load-bearing assumption
across clinical, social, and cognitive accounts of self-regulation.
Gap: The single most-cited demonstration (N ≈ 40, no preregistration)
has never been tested under a power-justified, preregistered design.
Contribution (stated by paragraph two):
Two preregistered studies (N = 240; N = 300) provide a powered,
transparent test and a boundary condition (trait anxiety).
Breadth: Settles a premise that downstream clinical-science models inherit.
| Reviewer pushback | Psychological Science fix |
|---|---|
| "Contribution is incremental" | name the decisive test or boundary, not a longer literature tour |
| "First to show" overclaim | downgrade to "first powered, preregistered test of"; cite the priors honestly |
| "Reads as a narrow-paradigm result" | add the one breadth anchor showing who outside the subarea inherits the claim |
| "Too many citations for the format" | apply the triage table; move completeness refs to supplemental |
【Question + stakes】why it matters across psychology
【Gap】what is unresolved / contested / untested
【Contribution】novel / replication / decisive test / extension — stated early?
【Anchor citations】the defining works + closest priors (≈ within ~40 total)
【Breadth】who outside the subarea cares
【Next】psci-theory-and-hypotheses
../../resources/official-source-map.md — reference count and word formatnpx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin psci-skillsPositions a Cognitive Psychology manuscript against rival models and prior empirical programs by framing the theoretical question and showing why existing evidence cannot settle it.
Positions a JPSP manuscript introduction and literature review against the section's expected literatures to sharpen the gap and contribution.
Positions a JAP manuscript against I-O literature to clarify the theoretical contribution. Useful for drafting the introduction, responding to reviewer concerns about novelty, or distinguishing from sibling venues.