pnas-fit
Use before any writing begins to stress-test whether a result clears PNAS's bar — high quality and broad significance to a general scientific readership — and to make the realistic call between PNAS, Science/Nature, and a specialist field journal.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill pnas-fit --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.
# Scope & Significance Fit (pnas-fit) ## Why this is skill #1 PNAS is selective, but its gate is different from Science/Nature. The bar is **high-quality, broadly significant science** — not *only* the single flashiest discovery of the year. A rigorous, important, well-supported paper that a general scientific audience would value has a real home at PNAS even if it is not top-1% headline news. Run this before investing in prose, and use it to make the **realistic step-down** call from Science/Nature. ## When to trigger - Before drafting, to decide if PNAS is the right venue. - After a Science/Nature desk reject or transfer, to judge whether PNAS is the right next stop. - When choosing among Science/Nature, PNAS, and a top field journal. - When a co-author who is an NAS member offers to communicate the paper (then also run `pnas-track`). ## PNAS's bar vs Science/Nature | Bar level | Venue | |-----------|-------| | Top-1% general-interest discovery, decisive and timely | **Science / Nature** (use those packs) | | High-quality, important, broadly significant — solid science a general audience values | **PNAS** | | Deep but mostly of interest to one subfield | top **field journal** | |
- Why this is skill #1
- When to trigger
- PNAS's bar vs Science/Nature
- The general-significance test
- Significance ladder (weak → strong)
- Venue routing
- Fatal weak-fit triggers
- Output format
- Anti-patterns
What does the pnas-fit skill do?
Use before any writing begins to stress-test whether a result clears PNAS's bar — high quality and broad significance to a general scientific readership — and to make the realistic call between PNAS, Science/Nature, and a specialist field journal.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill pnas-fit --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.