---
name: fcr-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Field Crops Research (FCR) manuscript against the agronomy and crop-science literature so it reads as a general contribution to field-crop science, not a local report. FCR requires new scientific insight of general relevance and rejects corroborative or merely descriptive work, so the literature must establish the gap and the agronomic stakes. Stakes the contribution; it does not write the lit review.
---

# Literature Positioning (fcr-literature-positioning)

FCR will not consider findings that are **corroborative, descriptive, or of only local significance**.
Positioning is therefore where you prove the work is **new and general**. The goal is to place the
paper where an agronomist or crop scientist anywhere can see the gap, the mechanism, and the advance.

## When to trigger

- Drafting or revising the introduction and the "objectives / contribution" paragraph
- A reviewer said the work is "already known," "confirmatory," or "only locally relevant"
- Your local results are solid but the paper doesn't connect to the broader field-crop literature
- You need to distinguish the contribution from the closest prior agronomy papers

## How FCR wants the literature engaged

1. **Build to a sharp objective.** The introduction should be a **brief, unbiased, up-to-date** review
   that flows to clear objectives or hypotheses — not a citation pile.
2. **Name the gap in general terms.** Not "this has not been done in my region" — say what biophysical
   process, management response, or yield-gap question is **unresolved, contested, or mismeasured**
   across environments, and why resolving it matters for field crops broadly.
3. **Position against mechanisms, not just sites.** "Prior work attributes the yield response to M; we
   show it is conditional on environment E / better explained by process P." Engage the physiology /
   agronomy that generates the claim, not only papers from the same crop or country.
4. **Connect to yield and the biophysical processes.** FCR rewards work tied to crop growth,
   development, and **yield formation** — frame the gap in those terms.
5. **Pre-empt the "so what."** Show generality: multiple environments, a transferable mechanism, or a
   model that extrapolates beyond the trial sites (hand off to `fcr-experimental-design`).

## Cross-topic engagement (a distinctive FCR demand)

| If your paper is… | also engage… |
|-------------------|--------------|
| an agronomic / management study | the crop-physiology literature explaining the response |
| a physiology study | the agronomy/yield literature it bears on |
| a yield-gap analysis | the modelling and benchmarking literature (e.g., GYGA, simulation) |
| a modelling paper | the field-experiment literature used for calibration/validation |
| a breeding/genetics study | the G×E and agronomy literature linking traits to field yield |

## Local-to-general conversion table

The single most common positioning failure at FCR is a real, well-run study framed as a regional report.
Each row turns a local frame the editors would screen out into the general, mechanism-anchored claim the
journal rewards.

| Local framing (screened out) | General framing FCR rewards |
|------------------------------|-----------------------------|
| "First N-response curve for cultivar C in region R" | "N-use efficiency of stay-green genotypes is set by post-anthesis uptake, not total N — tested across 6 environments" |
| "Intercropping raised yield on our station" | "Intercrop overyielding is conditional on radiation-limited vs. water-limited environments — a transferable rule" |
| "Our model fit the local trial well" | "A recalibrated phenology routine closes the simulated-vs-observed anthesis bias across a rainfall gradient" |
| "Residue retention helped here" | "Residue effect on yield reverses sign between cool-wet and hot-dry seasons, explaining literature disagreement" |

## Worked positioning vignette (illustrative)

*Illustrative scenario; the contested-effect framing is the point, not the numbers.* Prior papers
disagree on whether a deficit-irrigation schedule lifts or lowers maize water-use efficiency (WUE).
A team has **2 seasons × 3 sites** spanning a vapour-pressure-deficit gradient and finds WUE rises
~12% under deficit at high-VPD sites but falls ~5% at the cool site. The weak (rejected) framing:
"deficit irrigation improves WUE in our trials." The FCR framing positions against the **mechanism and
the disagreement**: prior work conflates two environment types; the WUE response is conditional on
evaporative demand, which reconciles the contested literature and predicts where the practice travels.
That move — naming the unresolved general question, then resolving it across environments with a
transferable mechanism — is what lifts the paper above "local and corroborative."

## Anti-patterns

- A "literature dump" with no organising agronomic question
- Framing novelty as "first in country/region X" (FCR treats this as local/descriptive)
- Citing only same-crop, same-region work; ignoring the general mechanism
- Hiding the closest competing study or overclaiming "first to show"
- An introduction with no link to yield or biophysical process

## Output format

```
【Open question】the unresolved agronomic/physiological issue
【Key works】the 4-8 that define it (incl. cross-topic and beyond your region)
【Gap】what is contested / mismeasured / unexplained across environments
【Move】how this paper advances field-crop science generally
【Generality】why it travels beyond the trial sites
【Next】fcr-experimental-design
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — yield-gap and reference datasets for benchmarking
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — FCR novelty/generality requirement and exclusions