# Jar Writing Style > Use when polishing the prose of a Journal of Accounting Research (JAR) manuscript — a design-forward, economically literate style that states the question, setting, and identification early and reads like recent empirical-archival accounting papers. Polishes prose and house style; it does not build the contribution (jar-contribution-framing) or format exhibits (jar-tables-figures). - Skill: `thedixitjain/jar-writing-style` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add thedixitjain/jar-writing-style` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/thedixitjain/jar-writing-style/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: thedixitjain (https://skillmd.com/u/thedixitjain) - Updated: 2026-09-08 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/thedixitjain/jar-writing-style --- # Writing Style (jar-writing-style) ## When to trigger - The intro buries the question, setting, and identification under literature review - The prose is vague about what was done empirically ("we examine the relationship…") - A referee says the paper is hard to follow or the design is unclear - You need the citation/reference formatting to match JAR house style ## Write like an empirical-archival accounting paper JAR readers are accounting economists who want the **research design up front**. A strong JAR introduction, within its first page or two, states: the **question**, the **setting and source of identifying variation**, the **main finding with its sign and economic magnitude**, and the **contribution**. Do not make the reader wait until page eight to learn what you did. The voice is precise and economically literate — name the friction, the agents, and the identification, and prefer concrete statements ("a 2014 rule change that staggered adoption across states") over abstractions ("we leverage exogenous variation"). ## Structure and signposting - **Front-load.** Question → setting/identification → result/magnitude → contribution, all early. - **One paragraph, one job.** Motivation, setting, predictions, design, results, contribution — each clearly delimited. - **Hypotheses (if used) read as economics**, not psychology construct-chains: state the predicted sign and the incentive/information reason. - **Results prose tracks the tables**: describe the coefficient, its inference, and its economic magnitude; do not narrate every cell. - **Discussion** restates the contribution and the scope conditions, not the results. ## House style and mechanics JAR uses a **custom author-date house style** (consistent with Chicago author-date conventions used across Chicago Booth journals) — **not APA numeric**. Configure your reference manager accordingly and then reconcile against **recent JAR articles**; the journal directs authors to match published style rather than a named manual. Keep variable names, hypothesis labels, and table references consistent throughout. Disclose any AI-tool use per policy; AI cannot be an author. ## First-page rewrite pass Before copyediting, rewrite the first two pages as a JAR triage memo: | Sentence slot | Required content | |---------------|------------------| | Question | The accounting question and why it matters for reporting, contracting, disclosure, audit, tax, or capital-market behavior. | | Setting | The institutional source of variation, including who changes behavior and why the setting is credible. | | Design | The identification strategy in concrete terms, with the comparison group or identifying assumption named. | | Finding | Sign, magnitude, and economic interpretation, not only statistical significance. | | Contribution | What accounting researchers learn that finance/economics/management readers would not already know. | If any slot needs more than one evasive sentence, the issue is substantive rather than stylistic; route back to `jar-contribution-framing` or `jar-methods`. ## Checklist - [ ] Intro states question, setting/identification, finding+magnitude, contribution on page 1-2 - [ ] Design is described concretely (the actual shock/threshold/instrument), not abstractly - [ ] Predictions read as economic arguments with stated signs - [ ] Results prose reports coefficients, inference, and economic magnitude (not every cell) - [ ] Discussion restates contribution and scope, not results - [ ] Author-date citations and references match recent JAR articles (not APA-numeric) - [ ] Variable names, hypothesis labels, and table references consistent ## Anti-patterns - **Lit-review-first intros** that hide the question and design. - **Vague design language** ("we exploit variation") with no named source. - **Significance narration**: reciting stars instead of interpreting magnitudes. - **Construct-chain prose** imported from psychology-style fields. - **Reference-manager APA output** left unreconciled with JAR style. ## Output format ``` 【Intro front-loading】question/setting/finding/contribution on p.1-2? fix: ... 【Design clarity】concrete identifying variation named? ... 【Predictions voice】economic (signed) vs construct-chain ... 【Results prose】magnitude interpreted, not cell-by-cell? ... 【House style】author-date matches recent JAR? AI disclosed? ... 【Consistency】labels/tables/variables aligned? ... 【Next step】jar-submission ``` ## Resources - [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — official JAR/Chicago Booth/Wiley URLs (accessed 2026-06-01) - [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — reference managers and JAR author-date styling notes --- **Source:** [`brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills`](https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) → `Journal-of-Accounting-Research-Skills/skills/jar-writing-style/SKILL.md`