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ajs-data-and-transparency

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Use when handling data documentation, sharing, and confidentiality for an American Journal of Sociology (AJS) manuscript. AJS does NOT advertise a mandatory editor-verified replication package like APSR/AJPS; document thoroughly, share what you ethically can, and verify the current policy. Prepares documentation; it does not over-state requirements.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/American-Journal-of-Sociology-Skills/skills/ajs-data-and-transparency/SKILL.md

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Data & Transparency (ajs-data-and-transparency)

AJS's public author guidance is less prescriptive on mandatory replication than APSR or AJPS: there is no advertised editor-verified reproducibility deposit comparable to a Dataverse verification step. Do not assert a requirement that AJS does not state. The right posture is: document thoroughly, share what you ethically can, protect informants, and confirm the current supplementary-materials / data-availability policy on the live AJS pages before submission.

When to trigger

  • Preparing data documentation and any supplementary materials
  • Deciding what can be shared given confidentiality, IRB, or proprietary constraints
  • Documenting comparative-historical or ethnographic evidence so claims are checkable
  • A reader asked how others could verify or build on the analysis

What AJS does / does not require (verify current wording)

  • No advertised mandatory, editor-verified replication package. Treat reproducibility as good practice you choose, not a stated gate; live-check current data-availability or supplementary policy before submission.
  • Originality / overlap: if the paper overlaps your prior published or under-review work, prepare a brief originality statement saying what is new here.
  • Ethics: concurrent submission to more than one journal violates the Press's ethical standards and leads to rejection.

Good practice (do this even though AJS may not pre-verify)

  • Document provenance and construction. A README/codebook describing sources, sample construction, variable definitions, and analysis steps so the work is checkable.
  • Quantitative: keep a master script + pinned versions + seeds; be ready to share code even when restricted data cannot be redistributed (give an access path).
  • Comparative-historical: cite primary sources precisely enough that the evidentiary trail can be followed.
  • Ethnographic / interview: protect informants — anonymize, aggregate, or restrict sensitive material; a controlled-access repository (e.g., QDR) where appropriate; share what supports the claims without exposing participants.
  • Confidentiality first. Human-subjects protection overrides sharing; state clearly when and why data cannot be shared, and what can (synthetic data, code, documentation).

Transparency posture by tradition (an AJS decision table)

AJS is method-pluralist, so "transparency" means a checkable evidentiary trail proportionate to the claim, not a one-size deposit. Confirm current policy wording against the journal's current submission guidelines.

TraditionMinimum documentationSubstitute when full sharing is impossible
Quantitative (public data)master script, codebook, pinned versions, seedspost code + derivation steps
Quantitative (restricted)as above + an access pathsynthetic data + application instructions
Comparative-historicalprimary-source citations, archive locatorsa source appendix readers can retrieve
Ethnographic / interviewcoding scheme, within-case sampling logicaggregated excerpts; controlled-access deposit (QDR)
Network / computationalboundary rules, tie definitions, missingnessanonymized edgelist + generation code

Calibration (where AJS sits, hedged)

AJS's craftsmanship culture means referees value a documentation trail that lets a skeptical reader follow the inference — even though AJS does not advertise an editor-verified replication gate the way some political-science journals do. Unlike a parsimony-first sibling that may lean on one mandatory deposit, at AJS the depth and checkability of the tradition-appropriate trail carry the day; treat thorough documentation as a craft choice, and confirm the live data-availability policy before submission.

Illustrative: a welfare-state study draws on three archives plus a restricted panel that cannot be redistributed. Applying the table, the author posts the script and codebook, adds a source appendix with exact archive locators (an illustrative ~140 primary sources), and supplies a synthetic panel plus data-access steps — documentation chosen to make the inference checkable, not overstated as an AJS-verified deposit.

Anti-patterns

  • Over-stating AJS policy as a mandatory verified replication deposit (it does not advertise one)
  • Promising open data that IRB / confidentiality will not allow
  • No codebook or documentation, making the analysis uncheckable
  • Exposing identifiable information about ethnographic informants
  • Submitting elsewhere while under AJS review (violates the Press's ethical standards)
  • Treating transparency as one fixed deposit rather than a tradition-appropriate evidentiary trail

Output format

【Sharing posture】what can be shared (data / code / docs / synthetic) and what cannot, and why
【Documentation】README/codebook + provenance + (quant) seeds/pinned versions? [Y/N]
【Confidentiality】informant/participant protection handled? [Y/N]
【Originality statement】prepared if overlap with prior work? [Y/N/NA]
【Policy check】current AJS data/supplementary policy confirmed on live page? [Y/N/live-check needed]
【Next】ajs-review-process

Supplementary resources