| name | phg-writing-style |
| description | Use when polishing a Progress in Human Geography (PiHG) review essay to house style — the argument-forward review voice, SAGE Harvard referencing, the ~8,000-word inclusive cap, ~100-word unstructured abstract, and 5+ keywords. Polishes prose and format; it does not build the argument. |
Writing Style (phg-writing-style)
A PiHG essay should read as an authoritative, argument-led intervention by someone who commands a
field — not as a neutral survey and not as an empirical report. This skill sets the voice, enforces the
journal's format constraints, and catches the stylistic tells that mark a piece as annotated bibliography
or misfit empirical study. Apply it after the argument is built, as a polish pass.
When to trigger
- The argument is settled and you are drafting/revising prose
- Fitting an over-length essay into the short inclusive cap
- Writing the abstract, keywords, and introduction to lead with the contribution
- A reviewer said the prose "buries the argument" or "reads like a summary"
The PiHG voice
- Argument-forward. Every section advances the thesis; the reader always knows what is being argued and
why. Topic sentences state ideas, not authors (
phg-argument-synthesis).
- Authoritative but fair. Command without polemic; steelman before critique (
phg-critical-intervention).
- Synthetic register. Write about the field, not about each paper — cite in support of claims, in
clusters, rather than walking through sources one by one.
- Conceptually clear. Define coined terms on first use; do not hide a thin argument behind dense theory
vocabulary. Clarity is a marker of command, not simplicity.
- International readership. Avoid unexplained national-policy shorthand and Global-North-only framing;
PiHG is read across the discipline worldwide.
Format constraints (verify on the live SAGE page)
| Item | PiHG expectation (检索于 2026-07-16；以官网为准) |
|---|
| Length | Review article ~4,000–8,000 words, incl. endnotes, excl. bibliography — short for a review |
| Abstract | Unstructured, ~100 words — state the intervention and agenda, not just the topic |
| Keywords | Minimum 5, as specific to the topic as possible |
| Referencing | SAGE Harvard (author–date); one consistent style throughout |
| Notes | Endnotes count toward the cap; use sparingly |
| Anonymity | Double-anonymous — no identifying self-reference in the manuscript body |
Budgeting the short cap
The 8,000-word ceiling includes endnotes. Reviews overrun because "comprehensiveness" tempts padding.
- Cut paper-by-paper walk-throughs; replace with claim-led clusters of citations.
- Move genuinely optional detail out; a review does not need a methods section or a data appendix.
- Kill throat-clearing ("It is important to note that…") and over-signposted seven-part roadmaps.
- Keep the introduction doing real work: state the debate, the intervention, and the agenda early.
The abstract in ~100 words
An unstructured 100-word abstract is tight. Spend it on the intervention, not the topic:
Weak: "This paper reviews the literature on platform labor geographies and discusses key themes."
Strong: "Geographical work on platform labor has split into parallel conversations on precarity, control,
and resistance. This essay argues they are one relation seen from different nodes of a spatial circuit,
a framing obscured by treating the platform as a bounded object. Reading across economic, urban, and
feminist geography, it proposes the circuit — not the platform — as the unit of analysis, and sets out
a research and political agenda that follows labor relations across space."
Checklist
Anti-patterns
- Prose that reads as a summary or annotated bibliography
- Burying the argument until the conclusion
- Overrunning the cap by treating "comprehensive" as the goal
- A topic-describing abstract that never states the intervention
- Non-Harvard or inconsistent referencing; undefined jargon
- An empirical-paper skeleton (methods/results) grafted onto a review
Output format
【Voice】argument-forward + synthetic + fair? [Y/N]
【Length】words incl. endnotes vs. ~8,000 cap
【Abstract】~100 words, states the intervention? [Y/N]
【Keywords】5+ specific? [Y/N]
【Style】SAGE Harvard, consistent; jargon defined? [Y/N]
【Next】phg-submission
Supplementary resources
