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ajs-theory-building

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Use when building the theoretical argument of an American Journal of Sociology (AJS) manuscript into a portable, discipline-level contribution. AJS prizes theoretical ambition above a bare finding — explicit concepts, mechanisms, and scope conditions, in the idiom of the work (quantitative, comparative-historical, ethnographic, or formal). Structures the argument; it does not run analyses.

American-Journal-of-Sociology-Skills/skills/ajs-theory-building/SKILL.md

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# Theory & Argument Building (ajs-theory-building)

AJS is, historically and today, the discipline's most **theory-forward** flagship — it was founded
(1895) to "build up a fund of social theory," and it still rewards a portable idea over a bare result.
A finding is not an AJS contribution until it is attached to an **argument sociologists can carry to
other problems.** This skill turns evidence into theory.

## When to trigger

- The empirics are strong but the "so what / why does the field care" is thin
- A reader said the paper is "atheoretical," "ad hoc," "merely descriptive," or "just a finding"
- You need explicit concepts, mechanisms, and scope conditions
- Comparative-historical or ethnographic work whose theory is implicit and needs surfacing
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