From sf-skills
Structures theoretical arguments for Social Forces manuscripts, ensuring portability and theoretical grounding. Useful when empirics are strong but the 'so what' is thin.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/sf-skills:sf-theory-buildingThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
At Social Forces a result is not a contribution until it is attached to an **argument a general
At Social Forces a result is not a contribution until it is attached to an argument a general social-science reader can carry elsewhere. SF's reputation rests on rigor and on findings that mean something theoretically. This skill turns results into theory: explicit mechanisms, scope conditions, and observable implications, in the idiom appropriate to your kind of work — stated economically, because the reference-inclusive 10,000-word cap leaves no room to ramble.
sf-research-design.Ask: Could a researcher in another social-science subfield import this mechanism or concept to their
own problem? If yes, you have a general-audience contribution. If it only works for your exact case,
tighten it into a general logic or reframe (back to sf-topic-selection).
Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the social mechanism, data scope, identification or interpretation, and contribution to a wider literature; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: social-science reviewers who want generalizable social-process evidence across sociology, demography, and policy-adjacent topics.
claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.【Core claim】one sentence
【Mechanism】the social/causal story
【Observable implications】testable consequences → research-design
【Scope conditions】where it holds / fails
【Portability】who else (in or beyond sociology) can use this argument
【Concision】argument stated without crowding the word/reference budget? [Y/N]
【Next】sf-research-design
../../resources/external_tools.md — analysis tooling across SF's methodological range../../resources/official-source-map.md — SF scope and contribution expectationsnpx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin sf-skillsBuilds portable theoretical arguments for ASR manuscripts. Defines mechanisms, scope conditions, and concepts across quantitative, ethnographic, comparative-historical, and computational methods.
Structures theoretical arguments for American Journal of Sociology manuscripts into portable, discipline-level contributions with explicit concepts, mechanisms, and scope conditions.
Structures the theoretical argument of an APSR manuscript into a discipline-level contribution by defining concepts, mechanisms, observable implications, and scope conditions.