narrative-building

name	narrative-building
description	Drafts or audits the introduction and framing of a scientific paper — the motivating real-world "why", the evidence audit, the funnel from theory to a falsifiable if-then with a named estimand, bridges between multiple experiments, and a contribution list that matches what the design can deliver. Use when the user asks to write, restructure, or critique an introduction, motivate or frame a paper, fix a gap-in-the-literature opening, sharpen or calibrate a contribution claim, or connect several experiments into one argument. For sentence-level flow and wording, use prose-revision instead.
argument-hint	[describe your paper topic or introduction challenge]

Scientific Narrative Builder

Related skills. This skill composes with hypothesis-building (where the "Why" funnel lands as a falsifiable "If-Then" with a named estimand), methods-reporting (where the design the narrative promises gets documented to APSA/JARS/DA-RT standards), and pre-registration-writing (where the narrative locks in before data collection).

Workflow

When drafting, walk the five steps in order — each step's output is the next step's input, so do not draft ahead of a missing output. When auditing an existing introduction, enter at the step the user is asking about and check upstream dependencies only where the answer turns on them. See reference/example-funnel.md for a worked example.

Step 1 — Why: establish the substantive motivation

Output: one or two paragraphs naming the real-world social/political tension the study addresses, the specific "invisible" the design will reveal, and the analytical joint where existing theory is silent or conflicted. Do not frame the motivation as a gap-in-literature; frame it as a stake in the world.