tailoring-qec-papers-for-physical-review-and-quantum

name	tailoring-qec-papers-for-physical-review-and-quantum
description	Provides guidance for positioning QEC manuscripts for Physical Review venues and Quantum, with explicit venue-fit reasoning and conservative treatment of submission-policy details.
version	0.1.0
author	QEC Research Skills
license	MIT
tags	["QEC","Writing","Physical Review","Quantum"]
dependencies	["qec-research","writing-qec-papers"]

Tailoring QEC Papers For Physical Review And Quantum

What This Skill Is For

Use this skill when a QEC paper needs venue-specific positioning:

• decide which venue family best matches the contribution,
• adapt the abstract and introduction to the expected audience,
• tighten the paper around the appropriate level of breadth, rigor, and claim strength,
• surface where current evidence is not yet strong enough for the target venue.

When To Use It Versus Alternatives

Use this skill after the basic claim-and-evidence structure already exists.

Use writing-qec-papers first when the task is still about defining the paper itself.

Do not use this skill to encode exact submission rules, page limits, or style policies as if they were stable. Always verify current author instructions before submission.

Required Artifacts And Assumptions

Expected inputs:

• a draft title or contribution statement,
• an abstract or outline,
• the candidate evidence set,
• one or more candidate venues.

Expected outputs:

• a venue recommendation,
• a short why-this-fits explanation,
• a venue positioning brief,
• a list of evidence or framing gaps for the chosen venue.

Assumptions to make explicit:

• whether the paper aims for broad significance or narrow technical depth,
• whether the audience is primarily quantum information, AMO, condensed matter, or research-tools oriented,
• whether reproducibility and software packaging are central to the contribution.

Standard Workflow Checklist

1. Read the current outline and identify the paper's real strongest result.
2. Compare that result against the venue-fit matrix in references/venue-positioning.md.
3. Choose the narrowest honest venue that matches the current evidence, not the most aspirational one.
4. Fill templates/venue-positioning-brief.template.md before changing the title or abstract.
5. Rewrite the title, abstract lead, and contribution bullets for that audience.
6. Record any missing experiment, theorem, or comparison that blocks the preferred venue.

Validation Loop

Before closing work:

1. confirm the venue recommendation is justified in one or two explicit sentences,
2. confirm the abstract and introduction signal the right audience and ambition level,
3. confirm any policy-like guidance is labeled as heuristic rather than official rules,
4. confirm the paper is not being positioned above its current evidence level.

Common Issues And Fixes

Venue overreach

Problem: the paper is framed for maximum prestige rather than actual fit.

Fix: downgrade the target venue until the claims, evidence, and audience line up cleanly.

Wrong audience cues

Problem: a tooling or formalization paper is written as if the main story were a broad physics result.

Fix: retune the introduction so the first-page framing matches the actual contribution class and audience.

Frozen policy assumptions

Problem: the draft hardcodes formatting or submission assumptions that may change.

Fix: keep venue guidance at the level of narrative fit and add an explicit reminder to verify current official instructions.

References

• ../writing-qec-papers/SKILL.md
• references/venue-positioning.md
• templates/venue-positioning-brief.template.md
• templates/venue-readiness-checklist.template.md
• ../../docs/MANUSCRIPT_ARTIFACTS.md