aaag-topic-selection

name	aaag-topic-selection
description	Use when deciding whether a topic fits the Annals of the American Association of Geographers and which of its four areas to target. Tests geographic significance and area fit; it does not design the study or write the paper.

Topic Selection & Area Fit (aaag-topic-selection)

The Annals is the AAG's broad four-area flagship. A topic earns a place by being geographic — space, place, scale, region, or spatial process is constitutive of the question — and by speaking to one of the journal's areas with enough reach that geographers outside that subfield see why it matters.

When to trigger

• Choosing a project, or deciding if a draft fits the Annals vs. a specialty venue
• A reviewer or colleague said "this isn't really geography" or "this is too narrow"
• Unsure whether to declare Geographic Methods, Human, Nature-Society, Physical, or General Geography

The two-part fit test

1. Geographic-ness. Could you delete every spatial/place/scale element and keep the argument? If yes, it is not yet a geography paper — the geography must do theoretical work, not just locate data.
2. Area reach. Within the declared area, would a geographer in a neighboring subfield see the stake? An over-narrow result that only its sub-sub-field cares about is an Annals off-fit.

Declare the area (it routes the paper and sets the bar)

Area	Core of a strong topic	Off-fit signal
Geographic Methods	a method/model that improves geographic inference (spatial dependence, scale, MAUP, uncertainty)	a generic ML/stats trick with a coordinate column bolted on
Human Geography	a spatially/relationally theorized account of social process	a sociology/anthropology paper with a study-area map
Nature and Society	a coupled human-environment dynamic where both sides are theorized	one side asserted as backdrop to the other
Physical Geography, Earth & Environmental	an earth-surface/environmental process with geographic framing and earth-science rigor	a lab/RS result with no geographic question
General Geography	a contribution that reorders how all geographers see something	a paper that just won't pick an area

Calibrating ambition (Annals vs. specialty venue)

• Specialty venue (e.g., IJGIS, Geomorphology, Environment and Planning D) when the audience is the sub-field and the advance is incremental within it.
• The Annals when the contribution is legible to the area broadly and connects to geographic theory or to a cross-cutting concern (scale, place, environment-society, spatial method).
• The cross-disciplinary/General track when the contribution genuinely spans areas.

Sibling-journal guard (do not mis-pitch)

• Progress in Human Geography — review/agenda essays, not original empirical studies.
• Geographical Analysis — formal spatial-analytic methods; the Annals Methods area is broader and more applied.
• Transactions of the IBG / The Professional Geographer — overlapping scope; the Annals is the AAG's broad flagship with the four-area structure.

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

A draft asks "what predicts urban tree-canopy loss in City X?" and maps the result by census tract.

Delete-test: remove the map and "tract" → "what predicts canopy loss?" survives → geography decorative
Repair: reframe around SCALE — does the predictor of loss change with the unit/scale of analysis, and
  what does that imply for where canopy is added? Now space is the argument, not the backdrop.
Area: Nature and Society (canopy = environment-society) or Methods (if the scale claim leads)
Reach: a methods reader gets a MAUP/scale lesson; a nature-society reader gets an equity mechanism

The repaired version makes the geography load-bearing and gives a neighboring subfield a reason to read.

Checklist

• The geography is load-bearing (delete-test passes)
• One area declared, with a one-line reason it belongs there
• A neighboring-subfield geographer can state the stake in a sentence
• Right venue confirmed (Annals vs. a specialty journal)
• Article type chosen (Article / Forum / Commentary) — see aaag-workflow

Anti-patterns

• "Spatial decoration" — coordinates or a study-area map standing in for a geographic argument
• Pitching a specialty-venue increment to the broad flagship
• Refusing to pick an area (the paper lands with the wrong editor and reviewers)
• A Nature-Society topic that theorizes only the social or only the biophysical side

Output format

【Area】Methods / Human / Nature-Society / Physical / General
【Geographic core】the space/place/scale/process the argument turns on
【Reach】why a neighboring-subfield geographer cares
【Venue check】Annals vs. specialty (one line)
【Type】Article / Forum / Commentary
【Next】aaag-literature-positioning

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/exemplars/library.md — real Annals papers by area × method to calibrate fit
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — areas, scope, and article types