Paper Journal Selection

---
name: paper-journal-selection
description: "Use when choosing among Nature, Nature Methods, or Nature Biotechnology, or preparing a Nature Portfolio submission."
---

# Nature Portfolio Playbook

## Overview

Use this skill when the venue decision itself is still live, or when a manuscript already targets `Nature`, `Nature Methods`, or `Nature Biotechnology` and needs venue-specific framing before a heavy revision pass.

This skill is about fit and policy. It does not replace `scientific-writing`, `manuscript-optimizer`, or `submission-audit`.

## When To Use

Use this skill when:
- the user asks whether a story fits `Nature`, `Nature Methods`, or `Nature Biotechnology`
- the paper has a `Nature`-style tone but the actual venue is undecided
- the contribution could be framed as an `Article`, `Resource`, `Analysis`, or short-format methods report
- a manuscript is close to submission and needs a Nature Portfolio-specific preflight

Do not use this skill when:
- the task is generic sentence-level editing
- the venue is a conference or a non-Nature journal
- the manuscript structure itself is still unstable and needs `manuscript-optimizer` first

## Venue Routing

### Flagship `Nature`

Default to `Nature` only when the paper makes a broad conceptual advance that matters outside the immediate specialty and can be explained to non-specialists without heavy field-specific scaffolding.

Use these framing defaults:
- prioritize broad readership over specialist density
- keep title and abstract low-jargon
- preserve the non-specialist-friendly summary paragraph expectation
- if fit is uncertain, explicitly test whether the broad-readership case is real before optimizing prose too far

### `Nature Methods`

Prefer `Nature Methods` when the central contribution is a method, assay, platform, computational approach, or resource whose main claim is enabling power.

Before calling a story `Nature Methods`-fit, check that the manuscript can support all of these:
- a clear technical advance over available approaches
- validation and benchmarking against credible baselines or alternatives
- enough detail or protocol access for reproducibility
- demonstrated general utility, not just one narrow showcase
- a compelling biological or biomedical application that shows why the method matters

### `Nature Biotechnology`

Prefer `Nature Biotechnology` when the paper's value is not just technical novelty but biotechnology significance: enabling capability, translational relevance, engineering depth, platform utility, or community-scale resource value.

Before calling a story `Nature Biotechnology`-fit, check that the manuscript can make legible:
- why the advance matters for biotechnology or medicine, not just for one specialist benchmark
- why the story is substantial enough for a full article rather than a narrower methods report
- whether the paper is truly an `Article` or would be better framed as a `Resource`

## Article-Type Check

Do this early. Do not treat article type as formatting cleanup.

- `Article`: full research story with multiple linked claims and a substantial evidence chain
- `Resource`: community-useful dataset, platform, atlas, database, or screening asset whose lasting value is broad reuse
- `Analysis`: integrative or comparative analytical study when the core contribution is the analytical insight rather than a new experimental method
- short-format method/report categories: use only when the story is tighter, more self-contained, and the journal explicitly supports that format

If the manuscript keeps oscillating between `method paper` and `resource paper`, resolve that before rewriting the abstract or Results.

## Nature Portfolio Preflight

Run this before calling a draft submission-ready:

1. Reporting standards
   - confirm whether a reporting summary will be required
   - make sure the manuscript and supplement already contain the information that summary will demand
2. Data and code availability
   - check that repository names, accession IDs, download links, and access restrictions are ready to disclose
   - do not wait until after acceptance to figure out the data/code statement
3. Protocol and reproducibility readiness
   - for methods papers, ensure the usable protocol path is clear: supplement, protocol repository, or public method record
4. Image integrity and raw data
   - ensure unprocessed source images and raw blot/gel material can be produced if requested
   - remove any figure-preparation habit that could look like selective enhancement
5. AI and attribution
   - disclose qualifying use of generative AI tools where the journal requires it
   - do not treat AI-made images or undisclosed AI-written content as safe by default
6. Related-manuscript and preprint disclosures
   - disclose preprints, overlapping submissions, related manuscripts, and conference-proceedings history when relevant

## Working Rule

Use this decision order:

1. choose audience and venue family
2. choose article type
3. check whether the evidence package matches the venue promise
4. only then optimize framing and prose

## Official Source Pointers

Keep these Nature Portfolio pages as the primary references:
- `Nature` formatting guide
- `Nature` editorial criteria and processes
- `Nature Methods` aims, content, and editorial-policies pages
- `Nature Biotechnology` aims, content, and editorial-policies pages
- Nature Portfolio policies on reporting standards, image integrity, AI, and preprints/conference proceedings