Literature Positioning (agsy-literature-positioning)
AgSy is read by a systems-science audience that spans crop and livestock modelling, whole-farm and bio-economic analysis, sustainability assessment, and food-system science. Positioning is therefore not throat-clearing — the paper must show it advances the systems and modelling conversation, not just add another data point to one subfield.
When to trigger
- Drafting or revising the introduction and the "contribution" paragraph
- A reviewer said you "ignored the relevant modelling work" or "don't engage the systems debate"
- Your agronomic or model results are solid but the framing reads as single-discipline
- You need to distinguish your contribution from the closest prior systems studies / models
How AgSy wants the literature engaged
- Engage the systems debate, not a citation pile. Identify the open systems question — an unresolved trade-off, a contested mechanism, a model limitation, a scaling gap — that your paper addresses. Cite the works that define it.
- Two literatures at once. The domain literature (the crop/livestock/farm/food system you study) and the methods literature (the model family, calibration/evaluation, sensitivity, trade-off analysis). AgSy reviewers expect both.
- Locate your model among existing models. Why this model and not the standard alternatives (APSIM/DSSAT/STICS, whole-farm/bio-economic, ABM, integrated assessment)? What does yours add?
- Name the gap precisely. Not "little is known" — say what is mismodelled, untested across scales, or missing a trade-off, and why resolving it advances systems understanding.
- Pre-empt the obvious objection. Acknowledge the strongest rival explanation or competing model
and say how your design/evaluation adjudicates it (hand off to
agsy-data-and-model-evaluation).
Cross-system engagement (a distinctive AgSy demand)
| If your paper is… | also engage… |
|---|---|
| a crop-model application | the whole-farm / trade-off literature it feeds into |
| a whole-farm or bio-economic study | the process-model and the economic/decision literatures |
| a landscape/regional analysis | the aggregation/emergence and land-use-competition literature |
| a food-system study | the production, environment, and policy literatures it connects |
Anti-patterns
- A "literature dump" with no organizing systems question
- Engaging only the agronomy literature and ignoring the modelling/evaluation literature (or vice versa)
- Not situating your model among the standard model families
- Strawmanning prior models, or hiding the closest competing study
- Claiming "first to model" when the contribution is incremental
Output format
【Systems debate】the open trade-off / mechanism / scaling / model gap 【Key works】the 3-6 that define it (domain + methods) 【Model landscape】where your model sits among alternatives 【Gap】what is mismodelled / untested across scales / missing a trade-off 【Move】how this paper changes the systems conversation 【Strongest rival】and how evaluation will adjudicate it 【Next】agsy-systems-framing-and-modeling
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— model families and systems data sources../../resources/official-source-map.md— AgSy scope and interaction-centered remit
