jcf-writing-style - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: jcf-writing-style description: Use when drafting or polishing prose for a Journal of Corporate Finance (JCF) manuscript — the ≤250-word abstract, 1–7 keywords, author-date (Harvard) in-text citations, and the "your paper, your way" first-submission reference flexibility. It enforces JCF house conventions; it does not generate results.

Writing Style (jcf-writing-style)

When to trigger

Writing or trimming the abstract and keywords
Setting in-text citation and reference style for first submission
Final language polish before submitting via Editorial Manager

JCF style facts (verified; re-confirm on the official guide)

Abstract ≤ 250 words. Avoid references in the abstract; define non-standard abbreviations at first mention.
1–7 keywords required.
In-text citations are author-date (Harvard-style) — name and year in parentheses, e.g., (Campbell and Peden, 2005).
"Your paper, your way" at first submission: references may be in any consistent style as long as required elements (authors, titles, year, volume, pages/article number) are present; DOIs encouraged. Formal Elsevier reference styling is applied only at revision/acceptance.
A generative-AI disclosure is required at submission; AI use must be disclosed with human oversight.

Abstract recipe (≤250 words)

The corporate-finance question and setting.
The data and identification in one clause.
The headline result with a magnitude.
The mechanism / interpretation.
The contribution / "so what."

No citations, no undefined abbreviations, no over-claiming.

Prose conventions

Clear, direct exposition; define each corporate-finance variable on first use.
State the design's limits honestly — single-anonymized reviewers see the authors and will not be impressed by spin.
Keep tense and notation consistent; spell out acronyms once.

Worked abstract (illustrative)

A compliant skeleton for a hypothetical governance paper — invented numbers, well under the 250-word cap:

We study whether mandated board independence changes corporate investment. Exploiting a governance
reform that forced a subset of firms to add independent directors, we estimate difference-in-differences
specifications with firm and industry-by-year fixed effects. Treated firms increase investment by 1.1
percentage points of assets — roughly 12 percent of the sample mean — with effects concentrated where
pre-reform boards were most insider-dominated. The evidence is consistent with independent directors
relaxing managerial conservatism rather than improving project selection. The results inform the debate
over one-size-fits-all board mandates.

Every sentence maps to the recipe: question, design, magnitude, mechanism, so-what — and there are no citations.

Introduction arc for a JCF paper

Paragraph 1: the corporate-finance decision and why it is unresolved — no literature dump.
Paragraph 2: the setting and identification in plain words; the reader should be able to referee the design from this paragraph alone.
Paragraph 3: headline results with magnitudes, in the order the tables deliver them.
Paragraph 4: mechanism evidence and which alternatives are ruled out.
Paragraph 5: contribution relative to the 2–3 closest papers (see jcf-literature-positioning).
Keep the intro lean; long royal-road introductions are a general-interest-journal habit that reads as padding at this venue.

Claim-calibration phrasebook

Match verbs to design strength — single-anonymized referees punish mismatches:

Evidence base                  | Allowed phrasing                   | Banned phrasing
Quasi-experiment + diagnostics | "causes", "leads to", "increases"  | nothing beyond the estimand's scope
IV with argued exclusion       | "consistent with a causal effect"  | unconditional "proves"
Matching / FE-only OLS         | "is associated with", "predicts"   | "causes", "drives"
Cross-sectional splits         | "consistent with the channel"      | "establishes the mechanism"
Calibrated theory              | "can rationalize", "implies"       | "demonstrates empirically"

When in doubt, the abstract takes the most conservative defensible verb; the body can argue for more.

Pre-submission language checklist

Abstract ≤ 250 words, no references, abbreviations defined
1–7 keywords chosen for discoverability
In-text citations author-date; reference list internally consistent; DOIs added
Generative-AI disclosure drafted
Magnitudes (not just significance) appear in the abstract

Anti-patterns

An abstract over 250 words or padded with citations.
Mixed citation styles within one reference list.
Deferring all reference cleanup — even "your way" requires consistency and complete elements.
Undisclosed AI assistance.

Output

【Abstract】≤250w, no refs, abbrevs defined? [Y/N] — word count
【Keywords】1–7 chosen? [Y/N]
【Refs】author-date, consistent, DOIs? [Y/N]  【AI disclosure】[Y/N]