revedres-workflow

RER Workflow Router (revedres-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It tells you which revedres- skill to use at the current stage* of a review article aimed at the Review of Educational Research (RER) — the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) review journal of record, published by SAGE (founded 1931). RER publishes comprehensive, critical, integrative reviews of research bearing on education — systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and conceptual/critical syntheses — and does not publish original empirical research unless it is incorporated in a broader integrative review.

The decisive fact that shapes everything: unlike Annual Reviews, RER reviews are SUBMITTED and peer-reviewed, not invited. There is no commissioning editor handing you a slot. So the rigor of the review itself is the contribution — a documented systematic search and PRISMA flow, transparent inclusion/exclusion, reliable double-coding, defensible meta-analytic models (or a principled narrative synthesis), risk-of-bias and sensitivity analysis, and an organizing framework that advances theory or policy rather than tallying studies. The lifecycle is therefore: scope a synthesis-worthy question → write and (where applicable) preregister a protocol → search and screen systematically to a PRISMA flow → impose a conceptual framework → demonstrate comprehensiveness, code reliably, and probe robustness → make transparency/reproducibility provable → write in RER's masked APA-7 voice → submit and revise.

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as RER and the artefact as a review (systematic / meta-analytic / critical-integrative), not a primary-research paper. Operational tells that you are at RER and not a sibling: the work synthesizes other people's studies rather than reporting your own; the natural early step is a protocol/PROSPERO registration, not an IRB-approved data collection; there is no identification strategy of your own (you appraise the designs of the studies you include). If the user has original empirical results, they want American Educational Research Journal (AERJ) or AERA Open, not RER — say so.

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?" on a review/meta-analysis
• A review draft reads like an annotated bibliography and needs an analytic spine
• Work is ping-ponging between search, screening, coding, and framing
• An RER editor/reviewer letter arrived and the user needs to switch into revision mode

Routing table

Current symptom	Next skill
Unsure the question is synthesis-worthy / RER-scale	revedres-topic-selection
Need a protocol, scope, and (where applicable) preregistration before searching	revedres-proposal-and-commissioning
Search/screening is unsystematic; PRISMA flow not built	revedres-literature-synthesis
Corpus is a pile of studies, not an argument about the field	revedres-organizing-framework
Coverage, risk-of-bias, or robustness feels thin	revedres-comprehensiveness-and-balance
Need a PRISMA flow, forest plot, or evidence/coding table	revedres-tables-figures
Prose summarizes study-by-study; reads narrow or jargon-heavy	revedres-writing-style
Coding reliability, open materials, reproducible meta-analysis to settle	revedres-transparency-and-reproducibility
Negotiating scope or handling reviewers of a review	revedres-editor-strategy
Ready to submit via Manuscript Central; need a preflight	revedres-submission
Received editor/reviewer feedback on the review	revedres-revision

Default order

1. revedres-topic-selection — confirm the question is RER-scale (important, mature enough, needs synthesis)
2. revedres-proposal-and-commissioning — protocol + (where applicable) PROSPERO/PRISMA-P preregistration
3. revedres-literature-synthesis — systematic search, screening, PRISMA flow, data extraction
4. revedres-organizing-framework — impose the conceptual spine that advances theory/policy
5. revedres-comprehensiveness-and-balance — exhaustiveness, risk-of-bias, heterogeneity, sensitivity
6. revedres-tables-figures — PRISMA flow, forest/funnel plots, coding and evidence tables
7. revedres-writing-style — the synthesizing RER voice in APA 7 (abstract + intro last)
8. revedres-transparency-and-reproducibility — coding reliability, open data/code, MARS/PRISMA reporting
9. revedres-editor-strategy — scope negotiation and reviewer expectations
10. revedres-submission — Manuscript Central preflight (masking, APA 7, 150-word abstract)
11. revedres-revision — after the editor/reviewer letter

revedres-writing-style is a late-stage polish; do not rewrite the intro before the organizing framework and the corpus settle. The protocol comes early — a credible systematic review fixes its search and inclusion rules before screening, so revedres-proposal-and-commissioning precedes the heavy reading.

Anti-patterns

• Searching and screening with no written protocol, then back-fitting inclusion rules to a convenient set — reviewers read this as a fishing expedition
• Treating the review as an annotated bibliography (no framework) — the named RER failure mode
• Vote-counting significant vs. non-significant studies instead of weighing by effect size, design quality, and estimand
• Importing primary-research instincts: there is no "identification" or "replication package" of your own data — you appraise the included studies and report your synthesis's reproducibility
• Confusing RER with AERJ / AERA Open (primary research), Educational Researcher (short commentary/policy), Review of Research in Education (commissioned thematic volumes), or Psychological Bulletin (psychology reviews)

Routing by review archetype

A "review" is not one thing; the bottleneck differs by type. Read the archetype, then enter the chain at the right link.

Archetype	Likely first bottleneck	Enter at
meta-analysis (pooled effect sizes)	comparability of estimands + a defensible model and heterogeneity story	revedres-comprehensiveness-and-balance
systematic review (PRISMA, qualitative synthesis)	a complete, documented search and reliable screening	revedres-literature-synthesis
critical/conceptual synthesis	the organizing framework that reframes the field	revedres-organizing-framework
emerging-area review (young, fast-moving)	is the literature mature enough for RER yet?	revedres-topic-selection

Minimal decision snippet

if editor_or_reviewer_letter:        -> revedres-revision
elif ready_to_submit:                -> revedres-submission
elif coding_or_reproducibility:      -> revedres-transparency-and-reproducibility
elif prose_summarizes_not_synth:     -> revedres-writing-style
elif need_prisma_or_forest_plot:     -> revedres-tables-figures
elif coverage_rob_or_robustness:     -> revedres-comprehensiveness-and-balance
elif reads_like_a_list:              -> revedres-organizing-framework
elif search_unsystematic:            -> revedres-literature-synthesis
elif no_protocol_yet:                -> revedres-proposal-and-commissioning
else:                                -> revedres-topic-selection