Use when positioning an American Political Science Review (APSR) manuscript against the literature so it reads as a discipline-wide contribution. APSR readers span subfields, so the paper must engage the literatures they expect and avoid the desk-rejection trigger of "failure to engage the relevant literatures." Stakes the contribution; it does not write the lit review.
SkillScore95Maintained
Automatic
◆Research pack
Last verified 8/15/2026
What it changes
Passed 21 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 16 of 22 without it.
Without skill73%
With skill95%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Includes the exact section bracket tag 【Move】.
Uses the exact section bracket tag 【Key works】.
Includes the exact section bracket tag 【Debate】.
and 9 more in the full report
6 fixed15 passed either way0 still failing1 broke
Pass-rate lift
+23 pp
Tokens
+34%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-23%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/15/2026v121 of 22 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 6 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 6
Prompt
I am revising the introduction of my manuscript on US congressional committee voting procedures prior to submitting to APSR. A mentor mentioned that my draft cites almost exclusively Americanists and won't catch the attention of a generalist reader. Could you help me re-frame my literature positioning? Please structure your analysis using bracketed headers that detail: the live debate, 3 to 6 defining works, the precise gap being targeted, the paper's strategic move, the strongest rival account to address, and the next step in the submission workflow.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Includes the exact section bracket tag 【Debate】.
Missed
Passed
Includes the exact section bracket tag 【Move】.
Missed
Passed
Specifies 【Next】apsr-theory-building as the final step tag.
Missed
Passed
case-01 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/15/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md103 linessingle file
Literature Positioning (apsr-literature-positioning)
APSR's peer-review policy lists "failure to engage the relevant literature(s)" as an explicit
desk-rejection ground. Positioning is therefore not throat-clearing — it is survival. The goal is
to place the paper where a general political-science audience can see the gap and the move.
When to trigger
Drafting or revising the introduction and the "contribution" paragraph
A reviewer said you "missed obvious work" or "don't engage the debate"
Your subfield literature is solid but the paper doesn't connect to the broader discipline
You need to distinguish your contribution from the closest prior papers
How APSR wants the literature engaged
Engage the debate, not a pile of citations. Identify the live disagreement or open question
your paper speaks to. Cite the works that define it, including across subfields where relevant.
Two audiences at once. Satisfy specialists (you know the frontier) and generalists (why it
matters). The intro should make a comparativist care about an Americanist paper and vice versa.
Name the gap precisely. Not "little is known" — say what is contested, mismeasured,
under-theorized, or untested, and why resolving it advances the field.
Position the contribution as a move in the debate. "Prior work argues X via mechanism M; we
show M fails / is conditional on C / is better explained by M′."
Pre-empt the obvious objection. APSR reviewers are expert; acknowledge the strongest rival
account and say how your design adjudicates it (hand off to apsr-research-design).
Cross-subfield engagement (a distinctive APSR demand)
If your paper is…
also engage…
an empirical test of an institutional claim
the formal/theoretical literature generating the claim
a country/region case
the general comparative theory it speaks to
a measurement contribution
the substantive literatures that will use the measure
normative/theoretical
the empirical work the argument bears on, where applicable
Anti-patterns
A "literature dump" with no organizing debate
Engaging only your own subfield (a top APSR rejection reason)
Strawmanning prior work, or hiding the closest competitor paper
Use when positioning an American Sociological Review (ASR) manuscript against the literature so it reads as a broad sociological contribution rather than a subfield note. Stakes the contribution in a debate that travels across sociology; it does not write the literature review.