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*ACL Submission Checklist

Print this. Tape it above your desk. Walk through it the day before submission.

Content​

  • One-sentence research question is in the introduction.
  • Contributions list is concrete (not "we propose a method").
  • Headline result is in the abstract by sentence four.
  • Every section serves the central argument.
  • Figures and tables are readable in grayscale.
  • All claims are supported by experiments or citations.
  • Results are reported with variance (≥3 seeds where feasible).
  • Strongest available baselines are included or absence is justified.

Writing​

  • Paper read aloud end-to-end at least once.
  • No undefined acronyms.
  • Notation is consistent throughout.
  • No unverified "novel" / "first" claims.
  • Figure and table captions are self-contained paragraphs.
  • No "utilize," "leverage," "delve," "in conclusion."

Structure​

  • Limitations section is present, substantive, and honest.
  • Ethical Considerations section is present if relevant.
  • References use ACL Anthology versions where available.
  • Every citation has been verified to exist.
  • Appendices contain only supplementary material.

Reproducibility​

  • Number of model parameters reported.
  • Hyperparameter ranges and selection criterion reported.
  • Random seeds and number of runs reported.
  • Total compute (GPU type × hours) reported.
  • Licenses for all data, models, and code listed.
  • Code release plan stated (anonymized link for review).

Submission Logistics​

  • Anonymized: no author names or affiliations; self-citations in the third person.
  • Acknowledgments and identifying funding/grant numbers removed from the review version.
  • PDF metadata clean — no author name in the file's document properties.
  • No links to non-anonymous repositories (use an anonymized mirror).
  • Page limits respected (Limitations, Ethics, References, Appendix do not count).
  • Responsible NLP Checklist filled out.
  • PDF compiled with the correct year's ACL style file.
  • Ran aclpubcheck on the PDF; margin, font, page-limit, and citation errors fixed.

The reviewer test​

Pretend you are a tired reviewer with eight more papers to read. Where would you stop reading?

That is where you have more work to do.

Part of The Missing NLP Paper Guide.