misq-writing-style - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: misq-writing-style description: Use when polishing the prose of a MIS Quarterly manuscript — front-loading the IS contribution, writing for an interdisciplinary IS audience that spans four traditions, applying APA 7th / MISQ Style Guide conventions (including MISQ's lead-with-the-information in-text citation style, heading format, and 5–10 keywords), and keeping the manuscript inside its page limit. Late-stage polish; do not invoke while the contribution is unsettled.

Writing Style (misq-writing-style)

When to trigger

Prose is jargon-heavy, passive, or buries the IS contribution
Citations/headings do not match APA 7th or the MISQ Style Guide
The manuscript exceeds the category page limit
You are finalizing the first page (title, abstract, keywords)

Write for an interdisciplinary IS audience

MISQ readers come from all four traditions — behavioral, design science, economics, and organizational. A behavioral reader may not share an econometrician's vocabulary, and vice versa. Define tradition-specific terms on first use, state the IT artifact and the contribution in plain language up front, and avoid in-group jargon that only one subfield will parse. Front-load the argument: by the end of the introduction the reader should know the IS phenomenon, the artifact's role, the approach, and the contribution.

Apply the MISQ Style Guide and APA 7th

Citations/references: APA 7th edition. Note the MISQ convention that in-text citations lead with the cited information, not the author name — e.g., "... the best team in the nation (Smith & Jones, 1997)" rather than "Smith and Jones (1997) found...". Reconcile your reference manager's output to this.
Headings: major heads bold, all caps, centered; subheads in title case.
First page: title, abstract, and 5–10 specific keywords. (The exact abstract word cap is 待核实; keep the abstract tight and concrete.)
File: prepared as a Word (.doc/.docx) document per the submission guidelines.

Respect the page limit while editing

The page limit counts everything (text, tables, figures, references, appendices) and over-length manuscripts are returned. Editing for style here doubles as editing for length: cut redundancy, fold overlapping paragraphs, and tighten methods boilerplate so the contribution — not filler — fills the budget.

Keep anonymity in the prose

MISQ uses double-anonymous review and the manuscript must contain no identifying information. While polishing, scrub self-identifying citations ("in our prior work [Author, 2021]"), acknowledgements, grant numbers, and identifying dataset/site names from the main file.

Checklist

Contribution and IT artifact stated plainly in the introduction
Tradition-specific jargon defined; readable across the four IS traditions
APA 7th references; in-text citations lead with the information, not the author
Major heads bold/all caps/centered; subheads title case
First page has title, abstract, and 5–10 specific keywords
Within the category page limit; no identifying information in the file

Anti-patterns

A buried contribution that surfaces only in the discussion.
Author-led citation phrasing throughout, against MISQ's lead-with-the-information style.
Subfield jargon that locks out three of the four IS traditions.
Trimming substance instead of redundancy to meet the page limit.

Style execution pass for MIS Quarterly

Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the IS phenomenon, artifact/platform, theory mechanism, design or empirical warrant, and managerial implication; then test whether the manuscript addresses information-systems reviewers who expect strong IS theory, digital artifact or platform grounding, and evidence with organizational consequence.

Primary move: Rewrite the opening and transitions so the venue-level claim, evidence object, and contribution are visible before technical detail.
Decision ledger: return claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
Neighbor test: compare against Information Systems Research for quantitative IS, Journal of Management Information Systems for applied systems, Management Science for broader OR/MS; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
Verification floor: before submission-ready advice, re-open resources/official-source-map.md for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.

Output format

【Front-loading】contribution + artifact in intro: yes/fix
【Audience readability】jargon defined across traditions: yes/fix
【APA7 / MISQ style】citations/headings/keywords: pass/issues
【Length & anonymity】within limit; no identifiers: yes/fix
【Next step】misq-submission