brycewang-stanford English natural-science journal workflow (en-natsci-journal-workflow)
Purpose
This is the routing skill. It does not replace a single-journal profile; it first
classifies the manuscript by discipline, advance type, evidence shape, and
audience breadth, then routes into the matching per-journal skill for fit and
re-framing. It is a sibling to en-journal-workflow, which covers the
econ / finance / management 100.
Resources to Load When Needed
- If the target family is unclear, read
../../resources/worked-examples/venue-routing.mdbefore choosing a venue. - If a manuscript sits between broad and specialist venues, read
../../resources/exemplars/selection-patterns.md. - Before submission-ready advice, use
../../resources/journal-roster.mdand../../resources/official-source-map.mdto open the current official author instructions for the chosen journal.
Ask four things first
- Advance type: a single broadly-significant discovery, a mechanism, a new method/tool, a definitive clinical result, a theoretical/mathematical result, or an authoritative review/synthesis?
- Evidence shape: molecular/mechanistic experiment, in vivo / animal model, human clinical trial or cohort, observational/field data, simulation/theory, structure determination, benchmark/algorithm, or proof?
- Audience breadth: all of science (Nature/Science/PNAS), a whole discipline (Nature-subject / society flagship), or a specialty community?
- Submission goal: swing for a general-science or flagship venue, or optimize topic–venue fit and review odds at a strong specialty journal?
Quick routing
| Manuscript signature | Prefer skill |
|---|---|
| Single advance significant to all science | nature / science / pnas |
| Solid complete advance, broad but not flagship | nature-communications / science-advances / national-science-review / the-innovation |
| Complete mechanistic molecular story | cell / molecular-cell / nature-cell-biology / the-embo-journal |
| Genetics / genomics / functional genomics | nature-genetics / genome-biology / nucleic-acids-research |
| New method / tool / platform | nature-methods / nature-biotechnology |
| Stem cell / cancer biology / metabolism | cell-stem-cell / cancer-cell / cell-metabolism / developmental-cell |
| Immunology mechanism | immunity / nature-immunology / science-immunology / journal-of-experimental-medicine |
| Microbiology / host–microbe / microbiome | nature-microbiology / cell-host-and-microbe |
| Neuroscience / human behaviour | neuron / nature-neuroscience / nature-human-behaviour / molecular-psychiatry |
| Ecology / evolution / plant | nature-ecology-and-evolution / ecology-letters / molecular-biology-and-evolution / the-plant-cell / nature-plants→the-plant-cell |
| Open-access general biology | elife / plos-biology / current-biology |
| Practice-changing clinical trial, general medicine | nejm / the-lancet / jama / the-bmj / annals-of-internal-medicine |
| Translational mechanism-to-bedside | nature-medicine / science-translational-medicine / journal-of-clinical-investigation |
| Oncology (clinical / translational) | journal-of-clinical-oncology / the-lancet-oncology / cancer-discovery / annals-of-oncology→journal-of-clinical-oncology |
| Cardiology | circulation / journal-of-the-american-college-of-cardiology / european-heart-journal |
| GI / hematology / ID / neurology / diabetes | gastroenterology / gut / blood / the-lancet-infectious-diseases / the-lancet-neurology / diabetes-care |
| Public-health / OA medicine | plos-medicine / the-bmj |
| Physics Letter, broad + immediate | physical-review-letters / physical-review-x |
| Condensed matter / particles-gravitation | physical-review-b / physical-review-d |
| Physics conceptual advance / photonics / quantum | nature-physics / nature-photonics / prx-quantum |
| Authoritative physics review | reviews-of-modern-physics / reports-on-progress-in-physics |
| Astronomy / astrophysics | nature-astronomy / the-astrophysical-journal / monthly-notices-of-the-royal-astronomical-society |
| Broad chemistry, significant + general | journal-of-the-american-chemical-society / angewandte-chemie-international-edition / nature-chemistry |
| Catalysis / nano / Cell-Press chemistry | nature-catalysis / acs-nano / nature-nanotechnology / chem |
| Authoritative chemistry review | chemical-reviews / chemical-society-reviews / accounts-of-chemical-research |
| Materials / energy | nature-materials / advanced-materials / nature-energy / joule / energy-and-environmental-science |
| Earth / climate / sustainability / environment | nature-geoscience / nature-climate-change / nature-sustainability / one-earth / environmental-science-and-technology |
| AI/ML / robotics / CV methods | nature-machine-intelligence / science-robotics / ieee-transactions-on-pattern-analysis-and-machine-intelligence / journal-of-machine-learning-research |
| Pure mathematics, top result | annals-of-mathematics / inventiones-mathematicae / journal-of-the-american-mathematical-society |
Sibling-Journal Disambiguation
| Confusable targets | Decision rule |
|---|---|
| Nature/Science/Cell/PNAS vs specialist venues | Use broad venues only when the advance changes a field-wide model or practice; completeness alone is not enough. |
| NEJM/Lancet/JAMA/BMJ vs specialty clinical venues | General medicine needs practice-changing clinical evidence; disease-area nuance often belongs in specialty journals. |
| JACS/Angewandte/Nature Chemistry vs ACS Catalysis/materials venues | Decide whether the central advance is molecular chemistry, catalysis mechanism, or materials/device performance. |
| PRL/Nature Physics/Physical Review family | Route by immediacy and conceptual physics breadth, then by subfield and article format. |
| Mathematics vs physics vs CS | Theorem, physical insight, and algorithmic benchmark are different products; pick the reviewer community that evaluates the main claim. |
Decision rules
- Significance before submission. Nature/Science/Cell/PNAS triage most papers before review on "broad significance." If the advance is solid but incremental, route to the strong specialty or open-access multidisciplinary venue rather than burning a flagship desk-reject.
- "First to report X" is not a contribution at flagship venues — name the conceptual advance, the mechanism, or the definitive evidence.
- Descriptive ≠ mechanistic. A correlation, an omics catalogue, or a structure with no functional insight routes below Cell/Nature-subject; add mechanism or route to a data-resource venue.
- Clinical evidence hierarchy. A practice-changing randomized trial belongs at NEJM/Lancet/JAMA; an observational cohort or secondary analysis usually routes to a society specialty journal. Trial registration + the right reporting checklist (CONSORT/PRISMA/STROBE) are prerequisites, not nice-to-haves.
- Review vs. primary. Reviews of Modern Physics, Chemical Reviews, Accounts of Chemical Research, CA, and Trends are largely invited — do not route an unsolicited primary-data paper there.
- Format gates. A PRL must fit the Letter length limit; a Nature/Cell paper must survive editorial triage; an eLife paper enters the Reviewed-Preprint model.
- Always enter the single-journal skill's official-submission checklist before submitting; never rely on a stale template.
Output format
[Top journal skill] <skill-name>
[Alt 1] <skill-name> (reason)
[Alt 2] <skill-name> (reason)
[Do not submit to] <journal> (one-line mismatch reason)
[Biggest current gap] significance / mechanism / evidence / reporting-checklist / formatting / official requirements
[Next step] invoke <skill-name> for single-venue fit and re-framing