---
name: jmf-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF) manuscript against the literature so it reads as a family-science contribution. JMF readers span sociology, psychology, demography, and family studies, so the paper must engage the family literatures they expect across disciplines. Stakes the contribution; it does not write the literature review.
---

# Literature Positioning (jmf-literature-positioning)

JMF is interdisciplinary, so a paper that engages only one discipline's family literature reads as
under-positioned. The goal is to place the work where a **family-science** audience — demographers,
family sociologists, relationship and developmental psychologists — can see the gap and the move.

## When to trigger

- Drafting or revising the introduction and the "contribution" paragraph
- A reviewer said you "missed obvious family-science work" or "don't engage the debate"
- Your home-discipline literature is solid but the paper doesn't connect across family science
- You need to distinguish your contribution from the closest prior family studies

## How JMF wants the literature engaged

1. **Engage the family-science conversation, not a citation pile.** Identify the live question in the
   field your paper speaks to (e.g., does cohabitation function like marriage; how family structure
   shapes child outcomes; selection vs. causation in union effects).
2. **Cross disciplines deliberately.** A demographic paper on divorce should engage the
   psychological literature on relationship quality where relevant, and vice versa. JMF readers expect
   the paper to know the family-science frontier, not just its own subfield.
3. **Name the gap precisely.** Not "little is known" — say what is contested, mismeasured,
   under-theorized, confounded by selection, or untested across groups/time/context.
4. **Position the contribution as a move.** "Prior work shows association A; we show it is conditional
   on family structure C / disappears net of selection / operates through process M."
5. **Pre-empt the obvious rival.** JMF reviewers are expert; name the strongest alternative account
   (especially **selection**) and say how the design adjudicates it (hand off to `jmf-research-design`).

## Cross-discipline engagement (a distinctive JMF demand)

| If your paper is… | also engage… |
|-------------------|--------------|
| family-demographic (rates, transitions) | the relationship-process and child-outcome literatures it bears on |
| couple/dyadic-psychological | the demographic and life-course context (who partners, when, how long) |
| parenting / child-wellbeing | family-structure, economic, and policy literatures |
| work–family / gender | the inequality and household-division literatures across disciplines |

## Anti-patterns

- A "literature dump" with no organizing family-science question
- Engaging only your home discipline (a common JMF positioning weakness)
- Ignoring **selection** as the leading rival explanation in observational family research
- Self-citation that breaks anonymity (JMF is double-blind — see `jmf-submission`)
- Claiming "first to study" when the contribution is incremental


## Positioning pass for Journal of Marriage and Family

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the family process, population/sample frame, measurement validity, and longitudinal or comparative leverage; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: family scholars who inspect measurement, household process, longitudinal design, and implications for family theory.

- **Do the pass:** Build a three-column map: incumbent conversation, unresolved tension, and this manuscript's delta; include one sibling-venue omission that would make a referee doubt the fit.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** compare against Demography for population-process emphasis, Social Forces for general sociology, Child Development for child-centered outcomes; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's `resources/official-source-map.md` has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Question】the live family-science debate / open question
【Key works】the 4-6 that define it (incl. cross-discipline)
【Gap】what is contested / mismeasured / confounded / untested
【Move】how this paper changes the conversation
【Strongest rival】(often selection) and how the design will adjudicate it
【Next】jmf-theory-and-conceptual-framework
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — family-science data sources to ground the literature
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — JMF scope and interdisciplinary remit