Crim writing style

Writing Style (crim-writing-style)

A Criminology paper must be readable across the field's disciplines (sociology, psychology, criminal justice, economics), formatted to the journal's APA-based style, and written in bias-free, person-first language. This skill is about reaching the field and respecting the format — not about generating claims.

When to trigger

• Drafting the introduction, framing the contribution, or final polish
• Aligning citations/headings/format to the journal's APA-based style
• Checking language about offenders, victims, and justice-involved people
• Tightening prose before submission

Reach the interdisciplinary field

1. Front-load the contribution. By the end of the introduction the reader knows the question, the theory, the design, and why it matters to criminology. Don't make a reader dig for the "so what."
2. Lead with the mechanism, not the dataset. Frame around the criminological argument; the data are evidence for it, not the point of the paper.
3. Minimize within-discipline jargon or define it on first use; a developmental psychologist and a criminal-justice scholar should both follow the paper. Spell out acronyms (UCR, NIBRS, NCVS, GBTM).
4. Signpost. Clear theory → design → results → implications structure.

Format to the journal's APA-based style

• Citations: the journal uses a form of APA; for anything unspecified, follow APA (6th ed.) — author-date in text, an alphabetical reference list. Keep one consistent style (manage with Zotero/BibTeX).
• Manuscript: prepare an anonymized main document plus a separate title page (the review model is double anonymized). Include a short author biography per author on the title page (< 100 words each).
• Formatting: double-space everything (text, notes, tables, references); follow current Wiley online submission file requirements.
• Length / abstract: no numeric cap is encoded here; confirm on the live author-guidelines page and stay within it.

Bias-free, person-first language (a Criminology expectation)

• Follow APA bias-free language guidance. Prefer "people who committed an offense," "people who were incarcerated," "people who experienced victimization" over stigmatizing labels ("offenders," "felons," "victims" as identities) where feasible.
• Apply the same care when discussing race, ethnicity, and the criminal-legal system.

Anti-patterns

• An intro that describes a dataset before stating the criminological question
• Burying the theoretical contribution in the middle of the paper
• Mixed citation styles; self-references or acknowledgments that break anonymity in the main document
• Stigmatizing labels for justice-involved people
• Unspelled acronyms that exclude readers from other disciplines

Style execution pass for Criminology

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the crime/justice process, measurement validity, research design, and policy consequence; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: criminology reviewers who expect theory-linked crime, justice, or harm mechanisms plus transparent measurement.

• Do the pass: Rewrite the first two pages so each paragraph starts from the venue-level claim, not from chronology or method inventory; preserve exact source-map limits and move technical overflow to appendix or supplement.
• 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 Justice Quarterly for applied justice, Journal of Quantitative Criminology for methods focus, Social Problems for broader sociological framing; 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

【Contribution + theory stated by end of intro?】[Y/N]
【Reads across disciplines?】jargon defined / acronyms spelled? [Y/N]
【APA-based style consistent】[Y/N]
【Anonymized main doc + separate title page】[Y/N]
【Bias-free / person-first language】[Y/N]
【Length/abstract within live cap】[Y/N]
【Next】crim-data-and-transparency

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference managers and APA-style tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — APA-based style, double-anonymized review, bias-free language, live length/abstract guardrail