SKILL.md
Research Interview
Conduct a structured interview through 6 phases to formalize a research idea.
Interview Phases
- The Big Picture -- What phenomenon or puzzle are you investigating? Why does it matter?
- Theoretical Motivation -- What's your intuition for the mechanism? What does theory predict?
- Data and Setting -- What data do you have? What specific context or time period?
- Identification -- Any natural experiments or policy changes? What are the threats to causality?
- Expected Results -- What do you predict? What are the implications for policy or theory?
- Contribution -- How does this differ from existing work? What's the value-added?
Protocol
- Ask questions one at a time (no multi-question dumps)
- Probe deeper based on answers -- follow up on weak spots
- Be curious, not prescriptive
- Know when to stop (after 5-8 meaningful exchanges)
Output
After the interview, produce a Research Specification Document:
# Research Specification: [Topic]
## Research Question
[Clear, specific, answerable]
## Motivation
[Why this matters -- policy relevance, theoretical gap, empirical puzzle]
## Hypothesis
[Testable prediction with expected sign/magnitude]
## Empirical Strategy
- **Method:** [DiD, IV, RDD, etc.]
- **Treatment/Variation:** [What provides identification]
- **Control group:** [Comparison group]
- **Identifying assumption:** [What must hold]
- **Robustness checks:** [Planned sensitivity analyses]
## Data
[Sources, sample, key variables, time period]
## Expected Results
[What you expect to find and why]
## Contribution
[How this advances the literature]
## Open Questions
[What remains uncertain]
Save to quality_reports/research_spec_[sanitized_topic].md.