brycewang-stanford JAAR Workflow Router (jaar-workflow)
The orchestrator for a JAAR submission. JAAR's editorial office reads every submission and, before any peer review, asks one decisive question: does this article address a problem of "broad and fundamental interest to the study of religion" and reach beyond the sub-specialty it comes from? If not, the editor returns it for reframing before review. The router makes you answer that first.
When to trigger
- Starting a JAAR article and unsure where to begin
- Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
- A draft reads as a contribution to one tradition/subfield only (reframing risk)
- Returning with a decision letter (route to
jaar-revision-and-response)
The gate before everything: the reframing test
Before drafting, state in one sentence what your article teaches the study of religion as a whole
— not just Buddhist studies, or American religious history, or philosophy of religion. If you cannot,
go to jaar-topic-selection and jaar-scholarly-positioning and reframe now; the editor will
otherwise bounce it back unreviewed.
Routing map (stage → skill)
Idea / fit + reframing? → jaar-topic-selection
Where does it sit in the field? → jaar-scholarly-positioning
What's the argument / "point"? → jaar-argument-development
Texts, traditions, fieldwork? → jaar-sources-and-evidence
Theory & method (reflexivity)? → jaar-theory-and-method
How is the essay built? → jaar-structure-and-exposition
Does the prose read well? → jaar-writing-style
In-text citations + style? → jaar-citation-and-style
How will it be judged? → jaar-review-process
Ready to submit? → jaar-submission
Got a decision / R&R? → jaar-revision-and-response
Default order
topic-selection → scholarly-positioning → argument-development → sources-and-evidence → theory-and-method → structure-and-exposition → writing-style → citation-and-style → review-process → submission → revision-and-response
Anti-patterns
- Drafting a subfield-only article and hoping the editor sends it out anyway (it won't)
- Treating JAAR like an empirical-social-science venue (no datasets/statistics/replication here)
- Using footnotes for citations (JAAR uses in-text author-date; see
jaar-citation-and-style) - Planning an unsolicited book review (JAAR reviews are commissioned only)
Output format
【Stage】fit / positioning / argument / sources / theory-method / structure / prose / citation / review / submit / revise
【Reframing test】one sentence on what it teaches the study of religion writ large
【Route to】jaar-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that
Symptom-to-skill dispatch table
When an author arrives mid-project with a complaint rather than a clean stage, route by symptom. These are the recurring failure signatures at the AAR/Oxford University Press flagship.
| Symptom the author reports | Route to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "A reader called it descriptive" | jaar-argument-development | Needs a contestable point |
| "Only specialists will care" | jaar-topic-selection → jaar-scholarly-positioning | Reframe for broad interest |
| "Told it's undertheorized / confessional" | jaar-theory-and-method | Make method load-bearing; redraw the about/for line |
| "Translation/source was challenged" | jaar-sources-and-evidence | Originals, provenance, representativeness |
| "Readers get lost in the sections" | jaar-structure-and-exposition | Throughline and signposting |
| "Footnotes for citations flagged" | jaar-citation-and-style | Convert to in-text author-date |
| "Identity visible in the file" | jaar-submission | Anonymize for double-anonymous review |
| "R&R letter arrived" | jaar-revision-and-response | Point-by-point, protect broad significance |
Worked vignette: routing a stalled manuscript
An author says: "My essay on a Daoist liturgical manual is done, but a colleague said it only matters to Daoist-studies people, and another said the citations look wrong." The router resolves this in order:
- Reframing test first. Can the author state in one sentence what it teaches the study of religion
writ large? Not yet — so route to
jaar-topic-selection(reframe around what the manual shows about the analytic of "liturgy" or text-as-ritual-object) and thenjaar-scholarly-positioning. - Then the surface flag. The citation complaint routes to
jaar-citation-and-style(footnote-to- in-text conversion) — but only after the Gate-1 reframing risk is handled, since style cannot save a subfield-bound piece. - Sequence out. From there the default order resumes: argument → sources → theory-method → structure → writing-style, then review-process and submission.
Router anti-pattern → correction
| Author's instinct | Correction |
|---|---|
| "Fix the citations first, then worry about framing" | Clear the Gate-1 reframing risk first; style is downstream |
| "Skip positioning, my sources are strong" | Strong sources don't establish broad significance |
| "Submit and let the editor reframe it" | The editor returns it unreviewed; reframe before upload |
| "Plan a book review as an entry point" | Reviews are commissioned only — not a route in |
Hedged calibration: this router encodes the journal's stated gatekeeping logic (broad-interest screen, double-anonymous review, in-text citation, commissioned reviews) and the typical skill sequence; treat the ordering as advisory and confirm any process specifics against the journal's current submission guidelines.
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— reference and research tools for the study of religion../../resources/official-source-map.md— official JAAR URLs behind every fact in this pack