Econ register (econ)
The base is writing-general, and it is assumed loaded alongside this file. Everything below is
what is additional for finance and accounting journal prose. Nothing from the base is restated
here.
You are drafting and revising finance / accounting journal prose — the register of the Journal
of Finance, JFE, RFS, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, JAE, CAR
and RAST, and of the working papers and job-market papers aimed at them.
Everything here is measured, not asserted. The source is a control corpus of 11,198 pre-2017
articles / 8,733,332 sentences (/data/eh2889/aitic_corpus on rjds), contrasted against
5,560,816 sentences of T14 law review scholarship. Percentages are share of sentences containing
the feature, finance corpus first. Rates written n/M are hits per million sentences.
Register: what actually distinguishes this corpus
| feature |
finance |
law |
do |
we |
7.75% |
0.87% |
The authorial we is standard — nine times the law rate. Use it. |
we find / show / document |
0.58% |
0.02% |
The idiomatic way to state a result, 29× the law rate. We find that…, We document… |
regression / coefficient / standard error |
2.25% |
0.05% |
45× the law rate. The vocabulary of the method is the substance. |
| parentheticals |
4.73% |
1.93% |
Qualifications and magnitudes ride in parentheses rather than footnotes. |
e.g. / i.e. |
1.23% |
0.58% |
Twice the law rate. |
suggests that |
0.70% |
0.20% |
Standard hedge for an inference from evidence. |
Section 2 |
0.27% |
0.09% |
Cross-reference by Section, numerically. Never "Part II". |
This paper |
0.28% |
0.02% |
The self-reference. Lowercase p. |
This Article |
0.00% |
0.06% |
Wrong register. Do not write it. |
supra / infra / id. |
0.00% |
1.91% |
Absent. Never use Bluebook short forms here. |
| quotation marks |
1.68% |
8.36% |
Quote sparingly — a fifth of the law rate. Paraphrase and cite. |
| semicolons |
2.27% |
4.33% |
Half the law rate. Prefer two sentences. |
may / might |
1.99% |
3.56% |
Hedge less than law prose does. State the estimate and its standard error. |
Conventions
- Lead with the finding, not the literature. McCloskey's rule: no "this paper discusses"
boilerplate, no table-of-contents paragraph. Say what you found.
- Inline citations (
Fama and French (1993)), not footnotes. Footnotes carry robustness
qualifications and data caveats.
- Cross-reference by Section, numerically (
Section 3.2).
- Report magnitudes with their uncertainty. A coefficient without a standard error is not a
result. Give the economic magnitude, not just the significance.
- Name the identification assumption. Describing an empirical strategy without stating what makes
it identify anything is the canonical fatal omission; referees reject papers for it.
- Tables are self-explanatory. Words in headings, not acronyms —
Logarithm of Domestic Price,
not LPDOM.
McCloskey, run through the finance corpus
The source guide is McCloskey's Economical Writing, vendored in full at
${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/writing/references/economical-writing-full.md — read it there for the
full text of any rule below. Where this file and that guide disagree, this file controls.
McCloskey's prescriptions were checked against the same corpora and sorted three ways.
Ship
| rule |
why it holds |
No boilerplate opener — This paper discusses…, As we shall see, The rest of this paper is organized as follows |
It signals you have not found the hook. Open with the finding. |
| No table-of-contents paragraph |
Readers skip it, and it cannot be understood before the paper is read. |
| One concept, one word — no elegant variation |
industrialization / structural differentiation / development / growth for one thing makes the reader think there are four. Look back and reuse the word. |
No ersatz economics — skyrocketing (2.9/M), fair prices, vicious cycle, exploit as a verb of blame |
Rhetoric standing in for a magnitude. Give the number. |
| Repeat key words to link sentences |
English coheres by repetition — (AB)(BC)(CD). Not only… but also is not cohesion. |
| End the paragraph a notch lower |
A technical paragraph closing on a plain-English encapsulation is what makes it land. |
| Avoid invective |
This is pure nonsense arouses the suspicion that the argument is weak. |
Advisory
| rule |
measured reality |
what to actually do |
Delete every very |
very <adj> at 3,277/M |
Delete the ones doing no work. A blanket rule fires constantly and is not a tell. |
| Untie Teutonisms / noun pile-ups |
the X process shape at 4,482/M |
Untie the ones that hide an actor. factor price equalization is a term of art; leave it. |
Replace this / these / those with the |
pervasive in both corpora |
Only where the referent is genuinely ambiguous. |
| Never repeat without apologizing |
— |
Fine as a check on structure, useless as a prose rule. |
| Drop the metric conversions |
— |
Convert once, then trust the reader. Not worth a finding. |
Dropped
| rule |
why it is dropped |
agents → people |
1,728/M in the finance corpus. agents names the modelled decision-maker; people is a different claim. This rule rewrites the model, not the prose. |
hypothesize → suppose |
683/M in the finance corpus. It names a specific move in an empirical paper and has no plain-English synonym that keeps the meaning. |
Avoid the authorial we (inherited from the general layer) |
we runs 7.75% here, 8.9× the law rate. It is the register. |
| Prefer active voice on principle |
passive 8.55% finance vs 7.91% law — not a register marker. |
Vindicated in this corpus specifically
Beyond the shared list in writing-general: we acknowledge that runs 72.3/M here — sixteen
times the law rate — and is idiomatic in this register precisely where a reviewer would call it
hedging. Of course, runs 299.9/M. To be sure, is rarer here (11.5/M) than in law but is still
attested and still not an AI tell.
1---2name: writing-econ3description: ALWAYS load BEFORE drafting, revising or grading FINANCE or ACCOUNTING journal prose — 'write the paper', 'draft the introduction of my JF submission', 'revise Section 3', 'polish the job-market paper', 'does this read like a finance paper', 'tighten the abstract', 'is this well written for JFE/RFS/JAR/TAR', 'should I write we find or the paper shows', 'do I cross-reference by Section or Part', 'is agents jargon'. Covers Journal of Finance, JFE, RFS, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review, JAE, CAR, RAST, and the working and job-market papers aimed at them. This skill carries ONLY what is additional to the base register: load `writing-general` alongside it — the diction, tic, vindicated-phrase and formatting rules live there and are assumed here. Do NOT load this for a law review article or legal scholarship (use `writing-legal`) or for a comment letter, memo, brief or professional email (`writing-general` alone) — importing a finance rule into either of those makes the prose worse.4---56# Econ register (`econ`)78**The base is `writing-general`, and it is assumed loaded alongside this file.** Everything below is9what is *additional* for finance and accounting journal prose. Nothing from the base is restated10here.1112You are drafting and revising **finance / accounting journal prose** — the register of the *Journal13of Finance*, *JFE*, *RFS*, *Journal of Accounting Research*, *The Accounting Review*, *JAE*, *CAR*14and *RAST*, and of the working papers and job-market papers aimed at them.1516Everything here is measured, not asserted. The source is a control corpus of **11,198 pre-201717articles / 8,733,332 sentences** (`/data/eh2889/aitic_corpus` on rjds), contrasted against18**5,560,816 sentences** of T14 law review scholarship. Percentages are share of sentences containing19the feature, finance corpus first. Rates written `n/M` are hits per million sentences.2021## Register: what actually distinguishes this corpus2223| feature | finance | law | do |24|---|---|---|---|25| `we` | **7.75%** | 0.87% | The authorial `we` is standard — nine times the law rate. Use it. |26| `we find / show / document` | **0.58%** | 0.02% | The idiomatic way to state a result, 29× the law rate. `We find that…`, `We document…` |27| `regression` / `coefficient` / `standard error` | **2.25%** | 0.05% | 45× the law rate. The vocabulary of the method is the substance. |28| parentheticals | **4.73%** | 1.93% | Qualifications and magnitudes ride in parentheses rather than footnotes. |29| `e.g.` / `i.e.` | **1.23%** | 0.58% | Twice the law rate. |30| `suggests that` | **0.70%** | 0.20% | Standard hedge for an inference from evidence. |31| `Section 2` | **0.27%** | 0.09% | Cross-reference by **Section**, numerically. Never "Part II". |32| `This paper` | **0.28%** | 0.02% | The self-reference. Lowercase p. |33| `This Article` | 0.00% | **0.06%** | Wrong register. Do not write it. |34| `supra` / `infra` / `id.` | **0.00%** | 1.91% | Absent. Never use Bluebook short forms here. |35| quotation marks | 1.68% | **8.36%** | Quote sparingly — a fifth of the law rate. Paraphrase and cite. |36| semicolons | 2.27% | **4.33%** | Half the law rate. Prefer two sentences. |37| `may` / `might` | 1.99% | **3.56%** | Hedge less than law prose does. State the estimate and its standard error. |3839## Conventions4041- **Lead with the finding, not the literature.** McCloskey's rule: no "this paper discusses"42 boilerplate, no table-of-contents paragraph. Say what you found.43- **Inline citations** (`Fama and French (1993)`), not footnotes. Footnotes carry robustness44 qualifications and data caveats.45- **Cross-reference by Section**, numerically (`Section 3.2`).46- **Report magnitudes with their uncertainty.** A coefficient without a standard error is not a47 result. Give the economic magnitude, not just the significance.48- **Name the identification assumption.** Describing an empirical strategy without stating what makes49 it identify anything is the canonical fatal omission; referees reject papers for it.50- **Tables are self-explanatory.** Words in headings, not acronyms — `Logarithm of Domestic Price`,51 not `LPDOM`.5253## McCloskey, run through the finance corpus5455The source guide is McCloskey's *Economical Writing*, vendored in full at56`${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/writing/references/economical-writing-full.md` — read it there for the57full text of any rule below. **Where this file and that guide disagree, this file controls.**58McCloskey's prescriptions were checked against the same corpora and sorted three ways.5960### Ship6162| rule | why it holds |63|---|---|64| No boilerplate opener — `This paper discusses…`, `As we shall see`, `The rest of this paper is organized as follows` | It signals you have not found the hook. Open with the finding. |65| No table-of-contents paragraph | Readers skip it, and it cannot be understood before the paper is read. |66| One concept, one word — no elegant variation | `industrialization` / `structural differentiation` / `development` / `growth` for one thing makes the reader think there are four. Look back and reuse the word. |67| No ersatz economics — `skyrocketing` (2.9/M), `fair prices`, `vicious cycle`, `exploit` as a verb of blame | Rhetoric standing in for a magnitude. Give the number. |68| Repeat key words to link sentences | English coheres by repetition — (AB)(BC)(CD). `Not only… but also` is not cohesion. |69| End the paragraph a notch lower | A technical paragraph closing on a plain-English encapsulation is what makes it land. |70| Avoid invective | `This is pure nonsense` arouses the suspicion that the argument is weak. |7172### Advisory7374| rule | measured reality | what to actually do |75|---|---|---|76| Delete every `very` | `very <adj>` at 3,277/M | Delete the ones doing no work. A blanket rule fires constantly and is not a tell. |77| Untie Teutonisms / noun pile-ups | `the X process` shape at 4,482/M | Untie the ones that hide an actor. `factor price equalization` is a term of art; leave it. |78| Replace `this` / `these` / `those` with `the` | pervasive in both corpora | Only where the referent is genuinely ambiguous. |79| Never repeat without apologizing | — | Fine as a check on structure, useless as a prose rule. |80| Drop the metric conversions | — | Convert once, then trust the reader. Not worth a finding. |8182### Dropped8384| rule | why it is dropped |85|---|---|86| `agents` → `people` | **1,728/M** in the finance corpus. `agents` names the modelled decision-maker; `people` is a different claim. This rule rewrites the model, not the prose. |87| `hypothesize` → `suppose` | **683/M** in the finance corpus. It names a specific move in an empirical paper and has no plain-English synonym that keeps the meaning. |88| Avoid the authorial `we` (inherited from the general layer) | `we` runs **7.75%** here, 8.9× the law rate. It is the register. |89| Prefer active voice on principle | passive 8.55% finance vs 7.91% law — not a register marker. |9091## Vindicated in this corpus specifically9293Beyond the shared list in `writing-general`: `we acknowledge that` runs **72.3/M** here — *sixteen94times* the law rate — and is idiomatic in this register precisely where a reviewer would call it95hedging. `Of course,` runs 299.9/M. `To be sure,` is rarer here (11.5/M) than in law but is still96attested and still not an AI tell.
edwinhu