---
name: jcf-writing-style
description: Use when drafting or polishing prose for a Journal of Corporate Finance (JCF) manuscript — the ≤250-word abstract, 1–7 keywords, author-date (Harvard) in-text citations, and the "your paper, your way" first-submission reference flexibility. It enforces JCF house conventions; it does not generate results.
---

# Writing Style (jcf-writing-style)

## When to trigger

- Writing or trimming the abstract and keywords
- Setting in-text citation and reference style for first submission
- Final language polish before submitting via Editorial Manager

## JCF style facts (verified; re-confirm on the official guide)

- **Abstract ≤ 250 words.** Avoid references in the abstract; define non-standard abbreviations at first mention.
- **1–7 keywords** required.
- **In-text citations are author-date (Harvard-style)** — name and year in parentheses, e.g., (Campbell and Peden, 2005).
- **"Your paper, your way" at first submission**: references may be in **any consistent style** as long as required elements (authors, titles, year, volume, pages/article number) are present; **DOIs encouraged**. Formal Elsevier reference styling is applied only at **revision/acceptance**.
- A **generative-AI disclosure** is required at submission; AI use must be disclosed with human oversight.

## Abstract recipe (≤250 words)

1. The corporate-finance question and setting.
2. The data and identification in one clause.
3. The headline result **with a magnitude**.
4. The mechanism / interpretation.
5. The contribution / "so what."

No citations, no undefined abbreviations, no over-claiming.

## Prose conventions

- Clear, direct exposition; define each corporate-finance variable on first use.
- State the design's limits honestly — single-anonymized reviewers see the authors and will not be impressed by spin.
- Keep tense and notation consistent; spell out acronyms once.

## Worked abstract (illustrative)

A compliant skeleton for a hypothetical governance paper — invented numbers, well under the 250-word cap:

```text
We study whether mandated board independence changes corporate investment. Exploiting a governance
reform that forced a subset of firms to add independent directors, we estimate difference-in-differences
specifications with firm and industry-by-year fixed effects. Treated firms increase investment by 1.1
percentage points of assets — roughly 12 percent of the sample mean — with effects concentrated where
pre-reform boards were most insider-dominated. The evidence is consistent with independent directors
relaxing managerial conservatism rather than improving project selection. The results inform the debate
over one-size-fits-all board mandates.
```

Every sentence maps to the recipe: question, design, magnitude, mechanism, so-what — and there are no citations.

## Introduction arc for a JCF paper

- Paragraph 1: the corporate-finance decision and why it is unresolved — no literature dump.
- Paragraph 2: the setting and identification in plain words; the reader should be able to referee the design from this paragraph alone.
- Paragraph 3: headline results with magnitudes, in the order the tables deliver them.
- Paragraph 4: mechanism evidence and which alternatives are ruled out.
- Paragraph 5: contribution relative to the 2–3 closest papers (see jcf-literature-positioning).
- Keep the intro lean; long royal-road introductions are a general-interest-journal habit that reads as padding at this venue.

## Claim-calibration phrasebook

Match verbs to design strength — single-anonymized referees punish mismatches:

```text
Evidence base                  | Allowed phrasing                   | Banned phrasing
Quasi-experiment + diagnostics | "causes", "leads to", "increases"  | nothing beyond the estimand's scope
IV with argued exclusion       | "consistent with a causal effect"  | unconditional "proves"
Matching / FE-only OLS         | "is associated with", "predicts"   | "causes", "drives"
Cross-sectional splits         | "consistent with the channel"      | "establishes the mechanism"
Calibrated theory              | "can rationalize", "implies"       | "demonstrates empirically"
```

When in doubt, the abstract takes the most conservative defensible verb; the body can argue for more.

## Pre-submission language checklist

- [ ] Abstract ≤ 250 words, no references, abbreviations defined
- [ ] 1–7 keywords chosen for discoverability
- [ ] In-text citations author-date; reference list **internally consistent**; DOIs added
- [ ] Generative-AI disclosure drafted
- [ ] Magnitudes (not just significance) appear in the abstract

## Anti-patterns

- An abstract over 250 words or padded with citations.
- Mixed citation styles within one reference list.
- Deferring all reference cleanup — even "your way" requires **consistency** and complete elements.
- Undisclosed AI assistance.

## Output

```
【Abstract】≤250w, no refs, abbrevs defined? [Y/N] — word count
【Keywords】1–7 chosen? [Y/N]
【Refs】author-date, consistent, DOIs? [Y/N]  【AI disclosure】[Y/N]
```