--- name: acl-submission description: Use when auditing an ACL submission before an ACL Rolling Review cycle deadline, covering long/short paper page budgets, the mandatory Limitations section, Responsible NLP checklist, anonymized PDFs and supplements, preprint declarations, dual-submission rules, resubmission linking, and ARR desk-reject triggers on OpenReview. --- # ACL Submission Run this audit before uploading to an ACL Rolling Review (ARR) cycle on OpenReview. ACL papers are not submitted to the conference directly: they enter an ARR cycle, collect reviews and a meta-review, and are later *committed* to ACL. Reopen the current ARR CFP at aclrollingreview.org/cfp and the target conference's call before trusting any number below. ## Two-step reality check - Confirm which ARR cycles feed your target ACL edition. ACL 2026 accepted work from the October 2025 and January 2026 cycles; committing requires a complete review package, so the last eligible cycle is earlier than the conference date suggests. - The ARR deadline is the hard one. Commitment is a separate, later form with its own deadline (March 14, 2026 for ACL 2026) — see `acl-workflow` for the calendar. - All ARR deadlines run 11:59 pm UTC-12 (anywhere on Earth). ## Format gate - Long papers: up to 8 content pages. Short papers: up to 4. Both get unlimited pages for references, plus unlimited space after the conclusion for the **required Limitations section** and an optional ethics statement. - A missing Limitations section or overlength content is an explicit desk-reject condition under the ARR CFP — this is the most common self-inflicted rejection. - Use the official ACL LaTeX/Word style files unmodified; margin, font, or spacing tampering is treated as a length violation. - Appendices go after references in the same PDF; reviewers are not obliged to read them, so the 8 or 4 content pages must carry the whole argument. ## Anonymity gate - The submission itself must be fully anonymized: no names, affiliations, acknowledgements, or self-revealing "we previously showed" citations. - Since January 2024 there is **no anonymity period**: you may post a non-anonymous preprint at any time. But you must declare preprint status at submission, and choosing "no non-anonymous preprint" earns award eligibility and priority for borderline decisions — then posting one anyway before meta-review release is a desk-reject offense. - Supplementary archives, repo links, and dataset pages must be anonymized too; links to tracked hosting (personal Dropbox/Drive) are disallowed. ## Declarations that gate the submission form | Form item | What ARR checks | Failure mode | |---|---|---| | Responsible NLP checklist | Completed, consistent with the PDF | Misleading answers → desk reject | | Resubmission link | Prior ARR submission ID + change summary | Unacknowledged resubmission → desk reject | | Preprint declaration | Matches what is actually on arXiv | Broken "no preprint" pledge → desk reject | | Dual submission | Not under review anywhere archival | Violation → reject at ARR or venue | | AI assistance disclosure | Checklist item E answered honestly | Undisclosed generative-AI use → policy breach | ## Resubmission discipline ARR is built for revise-and-resubmit across cycles. If this paper was reviewed in an earlier cycle: 1. Link the previous submission ID in the form — omitting it is desk-rejectable. 2. Attach a summary of changes plus a point-by-point response to every weakness named in the old reviews. 3. If the previous meta-review scored 1, a resubmission within six months without wholesale revision can be desk rejected; cosmetic edits waste a cycle. 4. Decide whether to request the same reviewers — continuity helps when the revision genuinely answers them. ## Final-72-hours sequence for an NLP paper 1. Rebuild the PDF from the untouched style files and re-run the page count on content pages only. 2. Re-read Limitations: it must be substantive (scope, languages, data, compute), not a ritual paragraph. 3. Fill the Responsible NLP checklist against the actual PDF — every "yes" needs a section number. 4. Sweep the supplement archive for author names in paths, notebook metadata, git history, and license headers. 5. Verify title/abstract on OpenReview match the PDF, and the preprint declaration matches arXiv reality. 6. Submit hours early; ARR deadlines are AoE but OpenReview outages are not an accepted excuse. ## Cycle-choice quick checks - Is the target conference actually accepting commitments from this cycle? Each edition names its eligible cycles; a mismatch strands the reviews. - Does the team have bandwidth during this cycle's author-response window, roughly five weeks after the deadline? - Would waiting one cycle allow the missing experiment that reviews will otherwise demand? A weak first cycle costs more than it saves, because the package follows the paper. - Is any co-author's other submission in the same cycle a conflict for reviewer assignment? Register conflicts and profiles before deadline week. ## Frequently mishandled cases - **Short paper padded to eight pages**: reviewers rate contribution against format; a four-page idea submitted long scores as thin, not as generous. - **Appendix used as overflow body**: content pages must carry the argument; a method section that says "see Appendix B" for its core mechanism fails the self-containedness expectation. - **arXiv v2 posted mid-cycle** after declaring no preprint: this converts a declaration into a desk-reject liability — update plans, not the preprint. - **Dataset "available on request"**: allowed, but checklist answers must then explain reproduction honestly rather than implying release. - **Same work at a non-archival workshop**: usually permitted, but most \*ACL workshop proceedings ARE archival — verify the workshop's archival status in writing before assuming. ## Output format ```text [ARR readiness] Ready / Needs fixes / Not ready [Cycle + venue plan] intended commitment venue> [Format gate] [Anonymity + declarations] [Desk-reject risks] [Fix order] ```