What are the Top 5?
Economists, for better or worse, are obsessed with five particular journals. These are, in alphabetical order:
- AERThe American Economic Review
- ECMAEconometrica
- JPEThe Journal of Political Economy
- QJEThe Quarterly Journal of Economics
- REStudThe Review of Economic Studies
There has been a lot of discussion over the years about what it takes to get into a Top 5. The goal of this game is to help you get better at identifying what a “top-5” abstract looks like. Since the abstract is the front page of your paper, writing a good abstract is an essential skill for any researcher.
Each round shows two blinded abstracts from nearby subfields. One was published in a Top 5 journal, the other was not. Pick the Top 5, then see both journals, both author lists, and a link to each paper. Start playing.
This game is made for learning what editors seem to like. No comparison should be read as a judgement of relative paper quality.
Questions
Is this measuring paper quality?
No. It trains recognition of features that correlate with landing in a Top 5 journal: scope, identification, framing, generality, and editorial fit. Plenty of excellent papers are published elsewhere, and no duel should be read as a verdict on either paper.
Where does the other abstract come from?
Every duel is one Top 5 paper against one paper drawn at random from every other journal in the corpus, from other general-interest journals through field journals to broader indexed outlets. The game deliberately makes no claim about how those journals rank against each other, so an abstract from Theoretical Economics and one from the European Economic Review are simply both not-Top-5.
Why hide authors?
Author reputation is a powerful confound. The game asks what can be learned from the abstract itself before metadata enters the room.
Why hide the year?
Abstract conventions and topics change over time. Hiding the year prevents the easy version of the task from becoming a period-style guessing game.
Do the two papers come from the same field?
Only if you ask for it. By default the opponent is drawn from the whole corpus, so you might be comparing a labour paper to a macro one. Pick a subfield and both papers come from it, which is the better way to practise if you want to compare like with like — or if you simply want to read papers in your own area.
What happens to my score when I sign in?
You can play without an account and your rating is kept in your browser. Sign in and whatever you have already played is carried into your account, so warming up first costs you nothing. From then on the account holds your score and follows you between devices. Signing out clears this browser's copy — your account keeps the real score and restores it next time you sign in, which also means the next person to use the computer starts fresh rather than inheriting your rating.
How does the rating work?
An Elo-style rating that starts at 1500. Duels are graded by how hard the pairing is, so beating a close pair moves you more than beating an easy one. Sign in and pick a display name to carry the rating across devices and appear on the leaderboard.
Where do the abstracts come from?
Abstract and bibliographic data come from OpenAlex. The game shows one abstract at a time for non-commercial educational use and links to the source paper on reveal. If you are an author or publisher and want a paper removed, get in touch.
Privacy
Short version: you can play without an account, and then the only thing that leaves your browser is a page visit counted by Google Analytics. If you sign in, the game also stores your email address and a score. There is no advertising, and nothing about how you play is recorded anywhere.
If I never sign in?
Then no account exists and nothing you do in the game is stored anywhere but here. Your rating, your run of duels and the list of papers you have already seen are kept in this browser's local storage and never leave it. Clearing your browser data erases them, and there is no copy elsewhere to restore from.
Visiting still registers as a page visit in Google Analytics, as it would on any page of this site. Beyond that and fetching the paper corpus, the game makes no requests.
If I do sign in?
Signing in creates an account with Supabase, which hosts the database. Supabase stores your email address so it can recognise you next time, plus whatever Google hands over if you use Google sign-in — typically your name and profile picture. Alongside that the game keeps one row of its own: a display name if you choose one, your rating, how many duels you have played, how many you got right, and your best streak.
That is the whole list. No abstracts you read, no individual answers, no timestamps beyond when the row was last written.
What can other people see?
Only what the leaderboard shows, and only once you choose a display name: that name, your rating, your duel count, your accuracy and your best streak. Choosing a name is what makes you visible — signing in alone does not.
Your email address is never public. It lives in a part of the database that the game's own key cannot read, and clearing your display name removes you from the leaderboard again without touching your score.
Is there any tracking?
Google Analytics runs here, the same as on the rest of djthornton.org, and records which pages get visited and roughly where visitors come from. It is used to see whether anyone is playing, nothing more. It is not connected to your account, and nothing you do inside a duel — which abstracts you saw, what you answered — is sent to it.
There is no advertising, and no other third-party scripts. Typefaces are served from this site rather than fetched from Google. A browser that blocks analytics loses nothing: the game works identically.
Who else is involved?
Google Analytics counts page visits. Supabase stores the account and the score. Google also sees a sign-in request if you use the Google button, and if you ask for an email link instead, Resend delivers that one message. The site is hosted on GitHub Pages as part of djthornton.org.
Abstracts and bibliographic data come from OpenAlex and were collected when the corpus was built, not while you play.
How do I delete my account?
Open the account menu and use Delete account. It removes your sign-in record and your score immediately and permanently, and it cannot be undone. If you would rather just disappear from the leaderboard and keep playing, clear your display name instead.
Questions, or a paper you would like removed? Email d.thornton@unsw.edu.au.