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ajs-research-design

Use when defending the research design of an American Journal of Sociology (AJS) manuscript on its own methodological terms — quantitative, comparative-historical, ethnographic, network, or formal. AJS judges each kind of work by the standards of its tradition; the design must support the theoretical claim. Defends the design; it does not run the analysis.

American-Journal-of-Sociology-Skills/skills/ajs-research-design/SKILL.md

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# Research Design (ajs-research-design)

AJS is method-pluralist: it publishes leading quantitative, **comparative-historical**, ethnographic,
network, and formal work, and it judges each by the standards of *its own tradition*. The job here is
to make the design defensible to a generalist, possibly cross-method, double-blind reviewer — and to
show the design actually supports the theoretical claim from `ajs-theory-building`.

## When to trigger

- Choosing or justifying the design before data collection or analysis
- A reader questioned identification, case selection, sampling, or evidentiary warrant
- Aligning the design with the mechanism and observable implications
- Mixed-methods work that must defend each component on its own terms
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