Psci Literature Positioning

---
name: psci-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Psychological Science manuscript against the literature within the journal's tight word budget. With roughly 40 references and a 2,000-word Introduction+Discussion, positioning must be sharp — establish the gap and the contribution fast. Stakes the contribution; it does not write the literature review.
---

# Literature Positioning (psci-literature-positioning)

Psychological Science gives you almost no room for a traditional literature review: roughly **40
references** and an Introduction that shares a **2,000-word** budget with the Discussion. Positioning
must be **surgical** — name the open question, the contribution, and the broad relevance in a few
tight paragraphs.

## When to trigger

- Drafting or compressing the Introduction
- A reviewer said the contribution is "incremental" or "not clearly novel"
- You have far more citations than the format allows and must prioritize
- Connecting a specific finding to a broad psychological question

## How to position in tight space

1. **Open with the question and its stakes**, not a textbook history. Two or three sentences on why
   the phenomenon matters across psychology.
2. **Name the gap precisely.** What is unresolved, contested, or untested — and why settling it
   matters. Avoid "little is known."
3. **State the contribution early.** By the end of a short Introduction the reader knows the question,
   the approach, and what is new (novel finding, robust replication, decisive test, or extension).
4. **Cite to anchor, not to pad.** Choose the works that *define* the question and the closest prior
   studies. ~40 references is plenty for a focused contribution; prune redundancy.
5. **Make breadth explicit.** Show a psychologist outside the subarea why the result matters to them.

## Replications and extensions

- Frame a replication around **why it matters now** (theoretical stakes, prior result's influence,
  power/credibility of the original), not as a bare repetition. Extensions should state the new
  boundary or mechanism tested.

## Anti-patterns

- A long, chronological literature review that the word format cannot hold
- Burying the contribution after pages of background
- Citing exhaustively to seem thorough (the format rewards precision, not breadth)
- "First to show" claims for an incremental effect
- Positioning only within a narrow paradigm with no broad relevance

## Output format

```
【Question + stakes】why it matters across psychology
【Gap】what is unresolved / contested / untested
【Contribution】novel / replication / decisive test / extension — stated early?
【Anchor citations】the defining works + closest priors (≈ within ~40 total)
【Breadth】who outside the subarea cares
【Next】psci-theory-and-hypotheses
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — reference count and word format