brycewang-stanford Submission Preflight (spq-submission)
The last check before pressing submit on SageTrack / ScholarOne Manuscript Central. SPQ is masked, so the single most common avoidable failure is an under-blinded manuscript — which the editorial office will temporarily reject and return for reformatting. Live-check SageTrack for the current upload fields and payment prompt before relying on a saved checklist.
When to trigger
- "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
- Unsure which files/metadata SageTrack expects
- Confirming the chosen article type's caps are met and the manuscript is properly blinded
Process facts
- Owner / publisher: American Sociological Association (ASA) / SAGE.
- Portal: SageTrack / ScholarOne Manuscript Central (create an account if you have not used it for another ASA journal).
- Review model: masked / blinded — a blinded manuscript file plus a separate title page file.
- Article types: Article (≤ 10,000 words, all parts, excl. supplementary materials) and Note (≤ 5,000 words). Do not assume a Registered Reports track for SPQ unless it appears in the live SageTrack options.
- Abstract: ~150 words, non-identifying, on a separate page headed by the title; author names omitted; a few keywords after the abstract.
- Title page (separate file): full title, author(s) and affiliation(s), running head, and the approximate word count (including notes and references).
- Style: ASA Style Guide (author-date).
- Fee: $25 ASA manuscript processing fee on first submission; not charged for revised/resubmitted manuscripts or for ASA student members (via the "ASA Student Member Submission" article type). (Verified 2026-06-22; SAGE author page may 403 to automated checks — re-confirm the live fee workflow before upload.)
Preflight checklist
Type & length
- Article (≤ 10,000) or Note (≤ 5,000) chosen and its word cap met (supplementary materials excluded)
- Approximate word count (incl. notes and references) on the title page
- Abstract ~150 words, non-identifying, with keywords; author names omitted from the abstract page
Masking (blinded review)
- Blinded manuscript: no author names, affiliations, or acknowledgments in the manuscript file
- Self-citations phrased non-identifyingly (you may cite your own work, just not "as we showed…")
- Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties, comments)
- Separate title page file prepared (title, authors, affiliations, running head, word count)
Format & compliance
- ASA Style Guide formatting; consistent author-date citations
- Figures/tables self-contained and accessible (see
spq-tables-figures) - Ethics / IRB / consent / confidentiality per ASA Code of Ethics
- Data/materials posture decided and stated honestly (encouraged, not required — see
spq-data-and-transparency) - $25 processing fee ready (or student/resubmission waiver applies)
Last-mile sweep (the checks people forget)
- Acknowledgments and funding lines belong only on the separate title page — a thank-you footnote left in the manuscript file breaks masking as surely as a byline does.
- The abstract page repeats the title but never the authors; keywords sit under the abstract on that page, not only in a portal field.
- PDF conversion can resurrect stripped metadata — re-open the converted file and re-check the document properties after the final export.
- Selecting the "ASA Student Member Submission" article type is what triggers the fee waiver in SageTrack; a note to the editorial office does not.
- If the office returns an under-blinded file for reformatting, the submission clock restarts — budget days, not hours, before any deadline that matters to you.
Anti-patterns
- Leaving author identifiers in the text, acknowledgments, or file metadata (temporary rejection)
- Abstract over ~150 words, identifying, or missing keywords
- No word count on the title page
- Sending a long paper to the Note type
- Treating the data policy as a mandate, or budgeting/skipping the $25 fee incorrectly (verify waiver)
Output format
【Type】Article (≤10,000) / Note (≤5,000) — cap met? [Y/N]
【Blinded】manuscript clean + separate title page? [Y/N]
【Abstract】~150 words, non-identifying, keywords? [Y/N]
【Word count on title page】incl. notes + references? [Y/N]
【ASA style】[Y/N]
【$25 fee】paid or waiver (resubmission / ASA student) applies? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → spq-rebuttal on R&R
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— reference managers, blinding, and repro tooling../../resources/official-source-map.md— official SPQ URLs behind every fact in this pack