brycewang-stanford Topic Selection — Is This an ARPsych Topic? (arpsych-topic-selection)
When to trigger
- A user wants to write "a review" and needs to know whether ARPsych is the right home
- An invitation is possible but the angle on the topic is undecided
- The candidate topic feels either too narrow (one lab's program) or too vast (all of memory)
- You must distinguish an ARPsych-scale survey from a Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis
The three gates a topic must pass
ARPsych commissions reviews that the whole field will read for a decade. A topic earns a slot only if it clears all three:
| Gate | Question | Fails when |
|---|---|---|
| Maturity | Is there enough accumulated, settled-enough work to synthesize? | The area is 3 papers old and moving weekly — premature; the review would date in a year |
| Importance | Will cognitive/social/developmental/clinical/neuro/I-O readers and adjacent fields care? | The topic matters only to one specialty's insiders |
| Synthesis-readiness | Is the literature fragmented in a way a framework could resolve? | The field is already tidy (a textbook chapter covers it) — nothing to add |
A topic that is mature + important but already well-synthesized does not need an ARPsych review; the value is the new organizing idea, not the recap.
Scoping the topic to the volume
ARPsych articles have a length assigned in the invitation letter (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准) — typically a focused subfield, not an entire domain. Calibrate scope so the review is:
- Comprehensive within its frame — a reader trusts it covers the relevant work (see
arpsych-comprehensiveness-and-balance) - Bounded — "X across the lifespan" or "the mechanisms of X", not "everything about X"
- Current — ARPsych prizes the recent frontier plus the foundational anchors; a pure history belongs elsewhere
- Forward-looking — the topic must support a genuine future-directions close, not just a wrap-up
A good test: can you name, in one phrase, the organizing question the review will answer (not the area it will cover)? "How do X and Y jointly shape Z?" beats "research on Z."
Sibling-venue triage (route away if mismatched)
| If the topic is really… | The home is… | Tell |
|---|---|---|
| a stand-alone meta-analysis you want to run and submit | Psychological Bulletin | you have an effect to estimate, not a field to map |
| a clinical-psychology survey | Annual Review of Clinical Psychology (sister) | the audience is clinical scientists specifically |
| a short, provocative argument or commentary | Perspectives on Psychological Science | it is an opinion essay, not a survey of record |
| an original study with new data | a primary journal | you ran the study yourself |
Checklist
- Topic clears Maturity, Importance, and Synthesis-readiness gates
- One-phrase organizing question is written (not just an area label)
- Scope is bounded to a plausible single-article length (per invitation norms)
- The topic supports a real future-directions agenda, not a recap
- Not better served by Psychological Bulletin / ARClinPsych / Perspectives
- Recent frontier + foundational anchors both exist in the literature
- The new contribution is an organizing idea, not a summary of known facts
Anti-patterns
- Proposing an entire domain ("emotion", "memory") — unscopeable in one review
- Pitching a topic that is one lab's research program dressed as a field
- Choosing a topic so new it cannot yet be synthesized (review will be obsolete fast)
- Choosing a topic already covered by a recent ARPsych/Annual Reviews article (check the archive)
- Confusing "I want to publish a meta-analysis" with "the field needs a review" (→ Psych Bulletin)
- No organizing question — only a subject heading
Output format
【Organizing question】"<the one question the review answers>"
【Maturity / Importance / Synthesis-readiness】pass/fail each + why
【Scope】subfield + boundary (in/out) + plausible length
【Future-directions potential】Y/N — what the open agenda would be
【Sibling check】not Psych Bulletin / ARClinPsych / Perspectives because…
【Next step】→ arpsych-proposal-and-commissioning (get it to the Editorial Committee)