Journal-Match (rt-journal-match)

The missing front-door question — which venue? — across the whole repository. Full methodology + the stable venue index live in shared-resources/journal-selection/journal-match.md and venue-index.tsv.

Worked end to end, with real output: worked-example.md.

When to trigger

• The author has a result/draft and no settled target.
• A paper was rejected and needs the best next venue.
• A "not a fit" signal means the scope/venue needs rethinking.

What it does

1. Profile the paper — discipline + subfield, method/design, contribution type, setting/data/region, ambition (be honest). Write it down once, in the shape of paper-profile.yml; every later skill reads the same file instead of re-deriving it.

2. Shortlist — run the matcher rather than reading the index by eye:

   python3 tools/match_venues.py \
       --title "..." --abstract "..." \
       --discipline economics/labor --lane empirical --top 15
   

   --discipline is a prior, not a filter: the discipline and its adjacents (discipline-adjacency.tsv) are boosted, but a strong match elsewhere still surfaces, because Step 1 is a judgement that is sometimes wrong. Add --only-discipline when you are certain, --exclude <venue_id> for venues that have already rejected the paper, --json to pipe it. --list-disciplines prints the vocabulary.

   Every row names where to read more — source_map for a depth pack, profile_path for a breadth profile — and the terms it matched on, so a nonsense hit is visible as a nonsense hit.

   Read the warnings. The matcher flags weak evidence when its leading candidates each rest on one or two shared words — a ranking built on that is close to noise, because words the language reuses ("sensor", "generation", "network") will out-score a genuine subject match. It flags a coverage gap when nothing in the discipline you named scored at all: the prior can only re-rank venues that matched, never conjure one. Either warning means do not pass the list on as a shortlist — add the abstract, re-check the discipline label, or report that the subject area is thin in the index and route to rt-venue-integrity.

   The matcher is measured: R@10 = 41.5% from a bare title, on a held-out half of a 1,738-paper gold set (eval/RESULTS.md). That is a floor for one thin query, not the capability — it is why step 3 exists. The per-discipline table there is worth reading before trusting a result: coverage is uneven, and life sciences and natural science are visibly the thinnest.

3. Score each candidate on Fit × acceptance-odds × turnaround × cost/policy × audience, reading the live facts from each candidate's resources/official-source-map.md. Never quote a fee, acceptance rate, turnaround or page limit from memory.

4. Return reach / match / safe (≈2–3 each) with one-line rationales + the live facts, then a submit order and resubmission ladder — seed the ladder from ladder.tsv (candidate adjacency, not a ranking) and apply your own fit/odds judgement to it.

5. Cost the ladder with rt-ladder-ev whenever the author is under a clock or is choosing between two orders. The sequence, not the venue, is what costs a year.

Hard rules

• Live facts from the source-map, never from memory (fees, acceptance, turnaround, page limits, data policy).
• Fit judgment defers to the venue's *-topic-selection / *-contribution-framing.
• Be honest about odds; don't inflate a paper into a reach it can't clear.
• Coverage honesty: if a plausible venue is outside the index and its bundle, say so — and hand to rt-venue-integrity before the author submits somewhere unverified.
• The matcher retrieves; you recommend. Never pass its ranking through as a shortlist: open the packs first.

Output format

【Paper profile】discipline / method / contribution / setting / ambition
【Reach】V — why; key live facts (desk-reject, turnaround, fee)
【Match】V — …
【Safe】V — …
【Submit order & ladder】V_top → if reject → V_next (what to change) → …
【Open questions】facts to re-verify in the source-map before submitting

Anti-patterns

• Recommending only reaches (wastes the timeline) or only safes (undersells the paper).
• Ignoring lane — sending a qualitative/theory paper to an empirical-only venue.
• Treating the tier column as a precise ranking (it is an indicative bucket).
• Reporting the matcher's top-10 as the answer. It is a reading list.