Advanced Materials Workflow (advmat-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It does not do the work of any specialized skill; it names which advmat- skill fits your current stage* and hands off.

Default assumption: unless told otherwise, the target is Advanced Materials (Adv. Mater.) — Wiley-VCH's flagship materials-science journal. The defining bar is a genuine materials-science advance (a new material, mechanism, or property — not an incremental improvement) that is rigorously characterized by multiple complementary techniques, ideally carried through to a device-level demonstration benchmarked against the state of the art, and communicated with cover-quality figures. If the work is solid but incremental or narrowly functional, its home is more likely Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Science, Small, or Advanced Materials Interfaces, and advmat-scope-fit will say so.

When to trigger

• User asks "what should I do next?" on a materials manuscript
• User drops a draft and needs the current bottleneck diagnosed
• User is unsure whether the result is "Adv. Mater.-worthy" or belongs in a sibling Advanced-portfolio journal
• The manuscript is over the Communication/Article length format and content must be re-partitioned
• User received a Wiley reviewer report and needs to switch into response mode

Routing table

Current symptom	Next skill
Unsure if the advance is novel / broad enough for Adv. Mater.	advmat-scope-fit
Result is real but the "why this is an advance" is unclear	advmat-results-framing
Characterization is thin, or the experimental section sprawls	advmat-methods
Figures are dense; no cover-quality lead figure or TOC graphic	advmat-figures
Manuscript leans on the SI; reader can't follow without it	advmat-supplementary
Prose is wordy, hedged, or not Wiley house style	advmat-writing-style
Over the Communication (~4 pp) or Article (~10 pp) format budget	advmat-length-management
Need a cover letter that argues advance + broad impact	advmat-cover-letter
Ready to submit; need format / file / metadata preflight	advmat-submission
Choosing suggested/opposed referees; anticipating objections	advmat-referee-strategy
Received a reviewer report or editor decision; need to respond	advmat-revision

Default order

1. advmat-scope-fit — settle the advance + broad-impact gate first; redirect to a sibling journal if it fails
2. advmat-results-framing — lock the single central advance and its significance
3. advmat-methods — make the multi-technique characterization airtight; full experimental detail to the SI
4. advmat-figures — design the lead figure and the TOC graphic to convey the advance at a glance
5. advmat-supplementary — partition extended data / methods into Supporting Information; the paper must stand alone
6. advmat-writing-style — Wiley house style, concision, defined nomenclature and units
7. advmat-length-management — fit the Communication or Article format (display items and words counted together)
8. advmat-cover-letter — argue the advance + broad-impact case to the editors
9. advmat-submission — final preflight (format, files, article type, ORCID, TOC graphic)
10. advmat-referee-strategy — suggested / opposed referees; pre-empt the characterization / benchmarking objections
11. advmat-revision — after the reviewer reports arrive

advmat-writing-style and advmat-length-management are late polish stages. Do not trim to the page format before the central advance, characterization, and figures are stable, or you will cut load-bearing evidence.

Decision heuristics

• "Reviewer 2 will ask 'why not Adv. Funct. Mater.?'" → advmat-scope-fit
• "I can state the material but not why it is a genuine advance" → advmat-results-framing
• "A referee will say the phase assignment isn't proven" → advmat-methods
• "My lead figure has ten panels and no single takeaway" → advmat-figures
• "You can't judge the material without reading the SI" → advmat-supplementary
• "I'm over the page limit and every figure is huge" → advmat-length-management
• "The editor needs to be told why this matters beyond my subfield" → advmat-cover-letter
• "Submitting tonight" → advmat-submission
• "Who should I suggest as a referee?" → advmat-referee-strategy
• "Three reviewer reports just landed" → advmat-revision

Manuscript status board

Readiness is a two-column question: is the science settled, and does it fit the format? Fill this board before invoking advmat-submission; any cell still marked OPEN routes you back to the named skill.

ADV. MATER. STATUS BOARD                  verdict   owner skill
========================================  ========  =====================
GATE  materials advance + broad impact    OPEN      advmat-scope-fit
      (fails → retarget AFM / Adv.Sci.)
ADVANCE one central new material /        OPEN      advmat-results-framing
      mechanism / property, stated plainly
CHAR  multi-technique characterization     OPEN      advmat-methods
      proves structure→property claim
FIG   lead figure + TOC graphic =          OPEN      advmat-figures
      the advance at a glance
SI    paper stands alone; SI holds         OPEN      advmat-supplementary
      extended data / full experimental
STYLE Wiley house style, units defined     OPEN      advmat-writing-style
FIT   inside Communication / Article        OPEN      advmat-length-management
      format (display items counted)
CASE  cover letter argues advance+impact    OPEN      advmat-cover-letter
REFS  suggested / opposed referees named    OPEN      advmat-referee-strategy
----------------------------------------  --------  ---------------------
all rows CLOSED → advmat-submission preflight → submit
reviewer report arrives → advmat-revision

Differences vs. sibling Advanced-portfolio journals

Advanced Materials shares Wiley-VCH production and rigor standards with Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Science, Small, and Advanced Materials Interfaces, but differs on the gate:

• Adv. Mater.: a broadly significant materials advance — a new material, mechanism, or property that reshapes how a field thinks. Incremental optimization is declined on impact grounds even when flawless.
• AFM / Small / Adv. Sci. / AMI: excellent, rigorous, but appropriately specialist or incremental work with a well-defined audience.

If advmat-scope-fit returns a "specialist / incremental" verdict, retarget rather than fighting the impact gate.

Anti-patterns

• Do not skip advmat-scope-fit — editors triage on advance/impact first; a wrong-venue paper burns a submission cycle
• Do not run advmat-length-management before the science is stable — you will cut characterization the referees need
• Do not let the Supporting Information become the place where the real evidence hides
• Do not draft advmat-revision responses before you have actually changed the manuscript and added the requested data

Durable norms only. Verify current word/page limits, article types, formats, and policies on the official Wiley Advanced Materials author page.