Jaar workflow

JAAR Workflow Router (jaar-workflow)

The orchestrator for a JAAR submission. JAAR's editorial office reads every submission and, before any peer review, asks one decisive question: does this article address a problem of "broad and fundamental interest to the study of religion" and reach beyond the sub-specialty it comes from? If not, the editor returns it for reframing before review. The router makes you answer that first.

When to trigger

• Starting a JAAR article and unsure where to begin
• Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
• A draft reads as a contribution to one tradition/subfield only (reframing risk)
• Returning with a decision letter (route to jaar-revision-and-response)

The gate before everything: the reframing test

Before drafting, state in one sentence what your article teaches the study of religion as a whole — not just Buddhist studies, or American religious history, or philosophy of religion. If you cannot, go to jaar-topic-selection and jaar-scholarly-positioning and reframe now; the editor will otherwise bounce it back unreviewed.

Routing map (stage → skill)

Idea / fit + reframing?           → jaar-topic-selection
Where does it sit in the field?   → jaar-scholarly-positioning
What's the argument / "point"?    → jaar-argument-development
Texts, traditions, fieldwork?     → jaar-sources-and-evidence
Theory & method (reflexivity)?    → jaar-theory-and-method
How is the essay built?           → jaar-structure-and-exposition
Does the prose read well?         → jaar-writing-style
In-text citations + style?        → jaar-citation-and-style
How will it be judged?            → jaar-review-process
Ready to submit?                  → jaar-submission
Got a decision / R&R?             → jaar-revision-and-response

Default order

topic-selection → scholarly-positioning → argument-development → sources-and-evidence → theory-and-method → structure-and-exposition → writing-style → citation-and-style → review-process → submission → revision-and-response

Anti-patterns

• Drafting a subfield-only article and hoping the editor sends it out anyway (it won't)
• Treating JAAR like an empirical-social-science venue (no datasets/statistics/replication here)
• Using footnotes for citations (JAAR uses in-text author-date; see jaar-citation-and-style)
• Planning an unsolicited book review (JAAR reviews are commissioned only)

Output format

【Stage】fit / positioning / argument / sources / theory-method / structure / prose / citation / review / submit / revise
【Reframing test】one sentence on what it teaches the study of religion writ large
【Route to】jaar-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that

Symptom-to-skill dispatch table

When an author arrives mid-project with a complaint rather than a clean stage, route by symptom. These are the recurring failure signatures at the AAR/Oxford University Press flagship.

Symptom the author reports	Route to	Why
"A reader called it descriptive"	jaar-argument-development	Needs a contestable point
"Only specialists will care"	jaar-topic-selection → jaar-scholarly-positioning	Reframe for broad interest
"Told it's undertheorized / confessional"	jaar-theory-and-method	Make method load-bearing; redraw the about/for line
"Translation/source was challenged"	jaar-sources-and-evidence	Originals, provenance, representativeness
"Readers get lost in the sections"	jaar-structure-and-exposition	Throughline and signposting
"Footnotes for citations flagged"	jaar-citation-and-style	Convert to in-text author-date
"Identity visible in the file"	jaar-submission	Anonymize for double-anonymous review
"R&R letter arrived"	jaar-revision-and-response	Point-by-point, protect broad significance

Worked vignette: routing a stalled manuscript

An author says: "My essay on a Daoist liturgical manual is done, but a colleague said it only matters to Daoist-studies people, and another said the citations look wrong." The router resolves this in order:

• Reframing test first. Can the author state in one sentence what it teaches the study of religion writ large? Not yet — so route to jaar-topic-selection (reframe around what the manual shows about the analytic of "liturgy" or text-as-ritual-object) and then jaar-scholarly-positioning.
• Then the surface flag. The citation complaint routes to jaar-citation-and-style (footnote-to- in-text conversion) — but only after the Gate-1 reframing risk is handled, since style cannot save a subfield-bound piece.
• Sequence out. From there the default order resumes: argument → sources → theory-method → structure → writing-style, then review-process and submission.

Router anti-pattern → correction

Author's instinct	Correction
"Fix the citations first, then worry about framing"	Clear the Gate-1 reframing risk first; style is downstream
"Skip positioning, my sources are strong"	Strong sources don't establish broad significance
"Submit and let the editor reframe it"	The editor returns it unreviewed; reframe before upload
"Plan a book review as an entry point"	Reviews are commissioned only — not a route in

Hedged calibration: this router encodes the journal's stated gatekeeping logic (broad-interest screen, double-anonymous review, in-text citation, commissioned reviews) and the typical skill sequence; treat the ordering as advisory and confirm any process specifics against the journal's current submission guidelines.

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference and research tools for the study of religion
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official JAAR URLs behind every fact in this pack