---
name: ajps-topic-selection
description: Use when deciding whether a political-science project fits the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS) and which submission type (Article, Research Note, Correspondence) to target. AJPS is a generalist but quantitatively leaning venue that rewards a sharp, well-identified question with a generalizable payoff. Helps frame the question and pick the type; it does not collect data.
---

# Topic Selection & Fit (ajps-topic-selection)

AJPS publishes across the discipline but most of its pages carry **rigorous empirical, experimental,
computational, or formal-empirical** work. The test is not "novel to my subfield" alone — it is a
**clear, well-identified contribution** that a broad political-science audience will cite. Use this
skill to pressure-test fit before you invest.

## When to trigger

- Choosing among possible projects or framings for an AJPS submission
- A colleague said the paper feels "descriptive," "thin on identification," or "too narrow"
- Deciding between a full **Article** and a **Research Note**
- Considering a **Correspondence** critique of a published AJPS finding

## The AJPS fit test

A strong AJPS paper usually clears all four:

1. **A sharp question with a generalizable answer.** Not "what happened in case X" but "what does X
   teach us about the general phenomenon (behavior, institutions, conflict, representation)?"
2. **Credible identification or inference.** AJPS reviewers expect the design to support the causal or
   inferential claim being made (see `ajps-research-design`) — empirics carry the paper.
3. **A real contribution, not a finding.** It moves a theory, a measure, or a method forward, or
   corrects the record — not "we ran the standard model on new data."
4. **Answerable within the cap.** Sharp enough to settle convincingly in <= 10,000 words (Article) or
   <= 4,000 (Research Note / Correspondence).

## Choosing the submission type

| You have... | Type | Note |
|-------------|------|------|
| A full original study | **Article** (<= 10,000 words) | the default research format |
| A **methodological** advance (incl. methodology in normative theory) | **Research Note** (<= 4,000) | reserved for methods + meta-analyses |
| A **meta-analysis** of an existing literature | **Research Note** (<= 4,000) | not a narrative review |
| A correction/critique of a paper **published in AJPS** | **Correspondence** (<= 4,000) | minor-error-only critiques risk desk rejection |

> Do not pad a small empirical result into a Research Note: the Note type at AJPS is **methodology and
> meta-analysis**, not a short empirical paper. A focused empirical study is still an Article.

## Anti-patterns

- "First to study X in country Y" as the entire contribution (descriptive, not generalizable)
- A clever identification strategy with no substantive political-science payoff
- A sprawling question that cannot be settled within the word cap
- Routing a short empirical study into the methodology-only Research Note type
- A Correspondence that flags only a trivial typo-level error (desk-rejection risk)

## Output format

```
【Question】one sentence
【Generalizable payoff】who beyond the case cites this, and why
【Contribution type】theory / identification / measurement / method / meta-analysis / corrected record
【Submission type】Article / Research Note / Correspondence
【Fit verdict】strong / needs reframing / off-fit (why)
【Next】ajps-literature-positioning
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — data sources by subfield
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — AJPS submission types and word caps