jaar-writing-style
Use when drafting or polishing the prose of a Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR) article so it is clear, analytic, gender-neutral, and readable across the study of religion. Improves scholarly prose; it does not invent content. For reference formatting use jaar-citation-and-style.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill jaar-writing-style --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Writing Style (jaar-writing-style) A JAAR article should read as rigorous humanities scholarship that a religion scholar **outside** your area can follow with pleasure. The prose must carry an argument (not just inform), define its terms, and meet JAAR's house conventions (gender-neutral language, serial comma, italicized foreign terms). ## When to trigger - Drafting the introduction/conclusion or doing a final prose pass - The argument is strong but the writing is dense, jargon-heavy, or flat - Aligning to JAAR's language conventions before submission - Handling foreign-language terms, transliteration, and technical vocabulary ## Prose principles for JAAR 1. **Argument-forward.** Lead paragraphs with claims; use evidence to support them. The reader should always know what you are arguing and why this paragraph matters. 2. **Accessible across the field.** Define specialist terms and transliterations on first use; gloss tradition-specific concepts; spell out what a non-specialist needs — without condescending. 3. **Analytic, not confessional or hagiographic.** Describe believers' claims precisely; keep your analytic voice distinct (ties to `jaar-theory-and-method`). 4. **House con
- When to trigger
- Prose principles for JAAR
- Quotations and terms
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Register table: write for two readers without losing either
- Worked vignette: tightening a confessional paragraph
- Prose pushback → the fix
- Supplementary resources
What does the jaar-writing-style skill do?
Use when drafting or polishing the prose of a Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR) article so it is clear, analytic, gender-neutral, and readable across the study of religion. Improves scholarly prose; it does not invent content. For reference formatting use jaar-citation-and-style.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill jaar-writing-style --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.