jppm-writing-style

• SKILL.mdcore · 5,586 bytes

# Writing Style (jppm-writing-style)

## When to trigger

- The introduction opens with a literature gap instead of the policy problem
- The abstract never says who should do what differently
- Method jargon (ATTs, bandwidths, moderated mediation) floods sections a practitioner must read
- The tone slips from findings into editorializing about what government "must" do
- Prose is the last bottleneck — estimates, framing, and exhibits are stable

## Write for the reader who can act

A JPP&M paper is read by marketing academics, by scholars in law and policy, and — if it succeeds — by people inside agencies and NGOs. The prose contract: the **policy problem carries the story**, the evidence carries the authority, and any reader should be able to extract the actionable takeaway without decoding the econometrics. That means plain-language topic sentences, technical depth layered underneath rather than in front, and a strict separation between what the data show and what the authors prefer. The manuscript is double-spaced, at most 50 pages including everything, with a **200-word unstructured abstract** and at least three keywords (per the AMA journals guidelines; re-check current specifics on ama.org).