phg-critical-intervention
Use when making the critical move at the heart of a Progress in Human Geography (PiHG) review essay — naming what the field misses, mistakes, or takes for granted, and re-ordering the debate. Sharpens the critical turn; it does not build the synthetic spine (see phg-argument-synthesis) or frame the forward agenda (see phg-contribution-framing).
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill phg-critical-intervention --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.
# Critical Intervention (phg-critical-intervention) PiHG is a **critical** review journal. A survey that is comprehensive and fair but says nothing the field does not already know is a desk-reject. The essay must make a **critical intervention**: identify what the literature has been getting wrong — an unexamined assumption, a false binary, a blind spot, a concept doing covert work — and **re-order the debate** around a better account. This is the move that turns a review into a *Progress* essay. ## When to trigger - You have a synthesis but reviewers would ask "so what does this change?" - Deciding what, specifically, the field has been getting wrong - Distinguishing genuine critique from mere summary-with-attitude - A reviewer said the piece is "even-handed but toothless" or "adds nothing" ## What counts as a critical move | Move | The intervention | Example shape | |------|------------------|---------------| | **Expose an assumption** | Name a premise the field shares without arguing for it | "All three camps assume the platform is a bounded object" | | **Dissolve a binary** | Show a supposed opposition is a false or unhelpful one | "Structure-vs-agency here is a category mistak
- When to trigger
- What counts as a critical move
- From critique to re-ordering (the two-step)
- Keep it fair and generous (rigor, not polemic)
- The "does this change practice?" test
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the phg-critical-intervention skill do?
Use when making the critical move at the heart of a Progress in Human Geography (PiHG) review essay — naming what the field misses, mistakes, or takes for granted, and re-ordering the debate. Sharpens the critical turn; it does not build the synthetic spine (see phg-argument-synthesis) or frame the forward agenda (see phg-contribution-framing).
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill phg-critical-intervention --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.