---
name: jar-writing-style
description: Use when polishing the prose of a Journal of Accounting Research (JAR) manuscript — a design-forward, economically literate style that states the question, setting, and identification early and reads like recent empirical-archival accounting papers. Polishes prose and house style; it does not build the contribution (jar-contribution-framing) or format exhibits (jar-tables-figures).
---

# Writing Style (jar-writing-style)

## When to trigger

- The intro buries the question, setting, and identification under literature review
- The prose is vague about what was done empirically ("we examine the relationship…")
- A referee says the paper is hard to follow or the design is unclear
- You need the citation/reference formatting to match JAR house style

## Write like an empirical-archival accounting paper

JAR readers are accounting economists who want the **research design up front**. A strong JAR introduction, within its first page or two, states: the **question**, the **setting and source of identifying variation**, the **main finding with its sign and economic magnitude**, and the **contribution**. Do not make the reader wait until page eight to learn what you did. The voice is precise and economically literate — name the friction, the agents, and the identification, and prefer concrete statements ("a 2014 rule change that staggered adoption across states") over abstractions ("we leverage exogenous variation").

## Structure and signposting

- **Front-load.** Question → setting/identification → result/magnitude → contribution, all early.
- **One paragraph, one job.** Motivation, setting, predictions, design, results, contribution — each clearly delimited.
- **Hypotheses (if used) read as economics**, not psychology construct-chains: state the predicted sign and the incentive/information reason.
- **Results prose tracks the tables**: describe the coefficient, its inference, and its economic magnitude; do not narrate every cell.
- **Discussion** restates the contribution and the scope conditions, not the results.

## House style and mechanics

JAR uses a **custom author-date house style** (consistent with Chicago author-date conventions used across Chicago Booth journals) — **not APA numeric**. Configure your reference manager accordingly and then reconcile against **recent JAR articles**; the journal directs authors to match published style rather than a named manual. Keep variable names, hypothesis labels, and table references consistent throughout. Disclose any AI-tool use per policy; AI cannot be an author.

## Checklist

- [ ] Intro states question, setting/identification, finding+magnitude, contribution on page 1-2
- [ ] Design is described concretely (the actual shock/threshold/instrument), not abstractly
- [ ] Predictions read as economic arguments with stated signs
- [ ] Results prose reports coefficients, inference, and economic magnitude (not every cell)
- [ ] Discussion restates contribution and scope, not results
- [ ] Author-date citations and references match recent JAR articles (not APA-numeric)
- [ ] Variable names, hypothesis labels, and table references consistent

## Anti-patterns

- **Lit-review-first intros** that hide the question and design.
- **Vague design language** ("we exploit variation") with no named source.
- **Significance narration**: reciting stars instead of interpreting magnitudes.
- **Construct-chain prose** imported from psychology-style fields.
- **Reference-manager APA output** left unreconciled with JAR style.

## Output format

```
【Intro front-loading】question/setting/finding/contribution on p.1-2? fix: ...
【Design clarity】concrete identifying variation named? ...
【Predictions voice】economic (signed) vs construct-chain ...
【Results prose】magnitude interpreted, not cell-by-cell? ...
【House style】author-date matches recent JAR? AI disclosed? ...
【Consistency】labels/tables/variables aligned? ...
【Next step】jar-submission
```

## Resources

- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — official JAR/Chicago Booth/Wiley URLs (accessed 2026-06-01)
- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — reference managers and JAR author-date styling notes