qje-writing-style

Writing Style (qje-writing-style)

When to trigger

• The prose buries the idea; a reader cannot find the contribution quickly
• The abstract does not state the finding, or leads with method
• The introduction wanders before reaching the question and the result
• Sentences are technical-jargon-dense for a general-interest audience

QJE house style: ambitious, narrative, long

QJE is read across all of economics, and its papers are characteristically long, narrative-driven, and ambitious — there is no hard page limit, and an extensive online appendix is the norm. That freedom is a trap: the body must still make a big idea legible to a smart non-specialist in the first two pages, with the heavy machinery pushed to the appendix. The model is the canonical QJE empirical-micro paper (e.g., Chetty, Hendren, Kline & Saez on mobility, QJE 2014): a sharp question stated plainly, a clean source of variation, a memorable headline number, and a broad lesson — all before the reader hits the data section. Format facts that shape the writing: the abstract is short (~150 words), citations are author-date (Chicago), and double-blind review means the prose must not out the authors. Late-stage skill: only polish once identification and results are settled.

The introduction arc (QJE template)

1. The question — one or two sentences, plain language, stakes clear.
2. Why it is hard — the identification problem that has blocked a clean answer.
3. The setting & variation — the natural experiment / data that solves it, in one paragraph.
4. The headline result — the number, with units, stated early and memorably.
5. Interpretation & mechanism — what it means; the conceptual frame in a sentence.
6. Contribution & broad lesson — placement in the literature + "beyond this setting."
7. Roadmap — brief; do not over-signpost.

Abstract: state the finding (keep it ~150 words)

• Open with the question and the design in one breath, then state the result with a number.
• Close with the broad lesson. No throat-clearing, no "this paper studies the important issue of."
• Keep it to roughly the QJE abstract length (~150 words); a general-interest reader should know what you found from the abstract alone.

Sentence-level craft

• Active voice; short declaratives for the key claims.
• Define notation once; do not make the reader hold five symbols to parse a sentence.
• Quantify ("raises earnings by 8%") rather than vague intensifiers ("substantially affects").
• Hedge only where the evidence requires it; calibrated confidence reads as competence.
• The license to write long is not a license to wander — every long stretch should earn its place, with technical detail relocated to the online appendix.

Checklist

• Abstract states the actual finding with a number, not just the topic, and is ~150 words
• The question is on page one in plain language
• The headline result appears early in the introduction, with units
• The broad lesson ("beyond this setting") is explicit
• Jargon minimized; a non-specialist top-5 reader can follow the intro
• Claims are quantified, not vaguely intensified
• Author-date (Chicago) citations; numbers and units consistent throughout

Anti-patterns

• An abstract that describes the topic but never states the result (or runs well past ~150 words)
• Leading the intro with method ("We use a Sun–Abraham estimator ...") instead of the question
• "This paper is the first to study the important question of ..." throat-clearing
• Using QJE's no-page-limit freedom to ramble instead of relocating detail to the appendix
• Vague magnitude language ("significantly", "substantially") with no number
• Notation overload in the introduction

Output format

【Abstract verdict】states finding+number, ~150 words? [Y/N] — fix: ...
【Intro arc】question / hardness / variation / result / interpretation / contribution present? [Y/N each]
【Headline number in intro】present + units? [Y/N]
【Broad lesson stated】[Y/N]
【Jargon flags】[...]
【Next step】qje-replication-package or qje-referee-strategy