brycewang-stanford Submission Preflight (gec-submission)
The last check before pressing submit through Elsevier's online submission system. GEC is double-anonymized, so a common avoidable failure is an under-anonymized manuscript; the others are missing Highlights and a missing Data Availability Statement. Facts below were refreshed from the official Guide for Authors on 2026-06-20; re-check live pages before filing.
When to trigger
- "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
- Unsure which files/metadata Elsevier's submission system expects
- Confirming caps are met and the manuscript is properly anonymized
Process facts (verified 2026-06-20; re-confirm volatile items on the official page)
- Publisher: Elsevier (ISSN 0959-3780 print / 1872-9495 online).
- Portal: Elsevier's online submission system.
- Review model: double-anonymized — submit a title page and anonymized manuscript as separate files.
- Article length: Research Articles up to 8,000 words (including main text and table/figure captions, excluding references); Perspectives up to 3,000 words (excluding references).
- Abstract: <=250 words.
- Keywords: 1-7 English keywords for indexing.
- Highlights: required, 3-5 bullets, <=85 characters each including spaces, as a separate editable file.
- References: any internally consistent style at submission; the journal style is applied after acceptance at proof.
- Data: Elsevier Option C applies: deposit/cite/link research data, or explain why it cannot be shared; prepare a Data Availability Statement.
- Publishing fee: subscription route has no author publication fee; gold OA APC is USD 6,120 excluding taxes (verified 2026-06-22; re-check the live ScienceDirect figure before submission).
Preflight checklist
Format & length
- Article type chosen and its word cap met (Research Article 8,000 words; Perspective 3,000 words)
- Abstract <=250 words; states problem + approach + finding + significance
- 1-7 English keywords chosen
- Highlights: 3-5 bullets, <=85 chars each, separate editable file
Anonymity (double-anonymized)
- No author names, affiliations, or acknowledgments in the manuscript
- Self-citations neutralized; no obvious self-references
- Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties, comments)
- Separate (non-anonymous) title page prepared as a distinct file
Format & metadata
- Elsevier formatting and reference style applied consistently
- Corresponding-author ORCID ready (Elsevier requirement)
- Figures/tables self-contained and accessible (see
gec-figures-and-tables)
Compliance & files
- Declaration of competing interests and any funding statement included
- Ethics / IRB / human-subjects compliance and consent where applicable
- Option C data plan: deposit/cite/link research data, or explain why sharing is restricted
- Data Availability Statement + clean replication materials staged where sharing is possible
- Suggested reviewers (if requested) span the relevant disciplines
Anti-patterns
- Leaving author identifiers in the text, acknowledgments, or file metadata (breaks double-anonymized review)
- Abstract over the cap; missing or off-spec Highlights
- No Data Availability Statement; a results section the archive cannot reproduce
- Budgeting an APC when the subscription route is free to the author
- Sending a natural-science-only paper (see
gec-review-processscope screen)
Output format
【Article type】Research Article / Perspective / other (caps met? Y/N)
【Anonymized】text + self-refs + file metadata clean? [Y/N]
【Abstract / keywords】<=250 words + 1-7 English keywords? [Y/N]
【Highlights】3-5 bullets, <=85 chars each? [Y/N]
【Option C data plan + Data Availability Statement】[Y/N]
【Declarations + ORCID】[Y/N]
【Next】await decision → gec-revision-and-rebuttal on revision
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— reference managers, anonymization, and repository tooling../../resources/official-source-map.md— official GEC URLs behind every fact in this pack