brycewang-stanford Submission Preflight (sf-submission)
The last check before pressing submit on ScholarOne Manuscript Central (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sf).
SF is double-anonymized, so the most common avoidable failures are an under-anonymized manuscript
and a manuscript that misses the reference-inclusive 10,000-word cap or the 10-panel exhibit
limit. Verify volatile specifics on the official page before relying on them.
When to trigger
- "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
- Unsure which files/metadata ScholarOne expects
- Confirming length, panel count, anonymization, and the data availability statement are all in order
Process facts (verify volatile items on the official page)
- Owner / publisher: UNC Chapel Hill (Dept. of Sociology) / Oxford University Press.
- Portal: ScholarOne Manuscript Central (
mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sf); Word or .odt. - Review model: double-anonymized — anonymize the manuscript; all identifying info on a separate title page.
- Length: ≤ 10,000 words including text, endnotes, and references (references count).
- Exhibits: ≤ 10 tables and figure panels; supplementary materials ≤ 10 pages.
- Style: Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (author-date) required at final submission.
- Data availability statement: required for publication (see
sf-data-and-transparency). - ORCID: encouraged for authors at submission.
- Fee: $50 non-refundable processing fee ($20 for manuscripts written solely by students); no page charges (post-acceptance OA APCs apply only if you choose Creative Commons — 待核实 amounts). (Fee/no-page-charges verified 2026-06-22; re-confirm current OUP amounts before payment.)
Preflight checklist
Length & exhibits
- ≤ 10,000 words including text, endnotes, AND references (recount with references)
- ≤ 10 tables and figure panels total (count multi-panel figures by panel)
- Supplementary materials ≤ 10 pages
- Abstract present, in English, no references (length 待核实 — ~150-200 words is safe)
Anonymity (double-anonymized)
- No author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, or funding details in the manuscript
- All identifying info on a separate title page file
- No obvious self-references; self-citations neutralized
- Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties)
- Funding sources entered in the ScholarOne fields (not the manuscript)
Format & metadata
- Chicago 17th author-date formatting; one consistent citation style
- ORCID ready for authors
- Figures/tables self-contained and accessible (see
sf-tables-figures)
Compliance & files
- Data availability statement drafted and included
- Ethics / IRB / consent (incl. consent to publish data) addressed; data anonymized
- $50 processing fee ready ($20 if student-only) — payable by card
Anti-patterns
- Counting words without references and missing the real 10,000-word cap
- Discovering an 11th panel at upload (count panels, not figures)
- Leaving acknowledgements/funding/self-references in the manuscript (breaks anonymity)
- Formatting to ASA or an in-house style instead of Chicago 17th author-date
- Submitting without the required data availability statement
- Budgeting the wrong fee (it is $50 / $20-student, not ASR's $25 or AJS's $30)
Desk-reject triage before upload
Most avoidable SF declines at the screening stage are format and anonymity failures, not science failures. Triage in priority order — the first failure a screener sees ends the submission before review:
| Screening check | Pass condition | Fails the desk if… |
|---|---|---|
| Word count | ≤ 10,000 incl. text, endnotes, refs | Counted without references, over the real cap |
| Panels | ≤ 10 tables + figure panels combined | An 11th panel hides in a multi-panel figure |
| Anonymity | No names/affil/acks/funding in text | Self-references or metadata leak identity |
| Title page | Separate file holds identifying info | Identity baked into the manuscript file |
| Data statement | Present and concrete | Missing or "available on request" only |
Calibration (hedged): the fee is reported as roughly $50 ($20 student-only), the portal is ScholarOne, and the style is Chicago 17th author-date — fees, abstract limits, and OA terms are the volatile items to confirm against current guidelines.
Worked vignette (illustrative)
A work-and-occupations manuscript looks "ready" at 9,700 words of text. The preflight catches what a screener catches first: the reference list adds 1,100 words, pushing the true count to 10,800 (illustrative, over cap); a 3-panel figure plus eight tables makes 11 panels; and an acknowledgements footnote names a grant. Fix: trim citations under 10,000, fold two tables into one for 10 panels, and move the acknowledgement to the title page. Now it survives.
Referee fixes: "desk-rejected for length" → recount with references and endnotes; "anonymity compromised" → strip file metadata and neutralize self-citations to "Author (year)".
Output format
【Length】≤ 10,000 words INCLUDING references? [Y/N] (count)
【Exhibits】≤ 10 tables + figure panels? supplement ≤ 10pp? [Y/N]
【Anonymized】text + self-refs + metadata clean; title page separate? [Y/N]
【Chicago 17th + ORCID】[Y/N]
【Data availability statement】included? [Y/N]
【Fee】$50 / $20-student ready? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → sf-rebuttal on R&R
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— reference managers, anonymization, repro tooling../../resources/official-source-map.md— official Social Forces URLs behind every fact in this pack