rfs-topic-selection
Use when the research question or contribution is the bottleneck for a The Review of Financial Studies (RFS) manuscript. Pressure-tests novelty-plus-rigor fit and drafts the contribution claim; does NOT design the empirics or position the literature in detail.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill rfs-topic-selection --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.
# Topic Selection & Novelty Fit (rfs-topic-selection) ## When to trigger - The idea feels incremental, derivative, or "me-too" - You can describe a method or dataset but not the *new question* it answers - You are unsure whether the topic clears RFS's novelty bar (vs. a field journal) - A coauthor says "this is clean but is it interesting enough for RFS?" ## The RFS fit test: novelty AND rigor RFS prizes both. Score the idea on both axes before investing in empirics. **Novelty axis — what is genuinely new?** At least one must be a strong "yes": 1. **New question** — a first-order finance question not previously framed this way. 2. **New mechanism / theory** — a model that reorganizes how we think about an old fact. 3. **New data** — a dataset that lets you see something previously invisible. 4. **New method** — a credibly better tool for an important question. **Rigor axis — can it be established cleanly?** The answer must survive `rfs-identification` and `rfs-robustness`. Novelty without a credible research design is a desk-reject risk; rigor on a stale question is a field-journal paper. **RFS-only consideration — the Registered Reports route.** RFS was the **first journal in fina
- When to trigger
- The RFS fit test: novelty AND rigor
- RFS-favored frontiers (durable, verify current calls for papers)
- Contribution claim template
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
What does the rfs-topic-selection skill do?
Use when the research question or contribution is the bottleneck for a The Review of Financial Studies (RFS) manuscript. Pressure-tests novelty-plus-rigor fit and drafts the contribution claim; does NOT design the empirics or position the literature in detail.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill rfs-topic-selection --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.