naacl-submission

NAACL Submission

NAACL has no submission portal of its own. What you upload goes to an ACL

Rolling Review (ARR) cycle on OpenReview; NAACL enters the picture weeks later,

when you commit the finished review package to the conference. This skill

audits the upload with that split in mind. The single most NAACL-specific

check comes first, because it is the one authors from other venues never

think to make.

Check zero: does this cycle reach a NAACL at all?

NAACL is not annual. The chapter historically stands down in years when the

main ACL meeting is hosted in the Americas — there was no NAACL 2023 and no

NAACL 2026 (ACL 2026 ran in San Diego, July 2-7, 2026). As of 2026-07-08 the

next edition is NAACL 2027, whose dates, venue, and feeding ARR cycles were

still unannounced (待核实 via https://2027.naacl.org/ and

https://aclrollingreview.org/dates). Before polishing anything:

1. Open aclrollingreview.org/dates → does any listed cycle name NAACL?
2. If yes  → that cycle's submission date is your real deadline.
3. If no   → your reviewed paper can still wait in ARR and commit later,
             or commit to a sibling venue (EMNLP/EACL/AACL) instead.
4. Record the answer with a date — this table changes without notice.

Historical anchor: NAACL 2025 (Albuquerque, April 29 - May 4, 2025) drew on

the ARR October 2024 cycle — ARR upload October 15, 2024; reviews and

meta-reviews back December 12, 2024; final versions for Main and Findings due

February 8, 2025; all deadlines 11:59 PM UTC-12. Treat those numbers as shape,

not schedule.

The gates ARR applies before any human reads the science

| Gate | Passing condition | Cost of failure |

|---|---|---|

| Length | Long ≤ 8 content pages, short ≤ 4; references and the Limitations section sit outside the count | Rejected without review |

| Template | Current *ACL style files, unaltered geometry | Treated as a length violation |

| Limitations | A real Limitations section after the conclusion | Explicit desk-reject ground |

| Anonymity | No names, affiliations, thank-yous, or de-anonymizing links anywhere in PDF or supplements | Rejected without review |

| Checklist | Responsible NLP checklist filed and consistent with the PDF | Desk reject for misleading answers |

| Resubmission link | Prior ARR ID plus a change summary if this work was reviewed before | Desk reject if omitted |

Two subtleties worth spelling out for NAACL-bound work specifically. First,

papers on Indigenous or low-resource languages of the Americas often carry

community acknowledgements and data-partnership credits — those must come out

of the reviewed version and return only at camera-ready. Second, a preprint

is allowed at any time under current ARR policy, but the form asks you to

declare it; an inaccurate declaration is itself a desk-reject ground, and

truthfully declaring "no preprint" buys borderline-case priority you forfeit

by posting one mid-cycle.

Form fields that quietly decide your fate

• Preferred venue. When a cycle feeds more than one conference, the form

asks where you intend to commit. Naming NAACL here routes your paper toward

the chapter's area-chair pool; it is a signal, not a contract.

• Reviewing obligations. ARR expects author-side reviewing or nomination;

ignoring the field can block the submission outright.

• Languages studied. Fill it precisely — a NAACL commitment later puts

your paper before a community that reads "Spanish, Quechua, English" as

substantive information, not metadata.

Supplements at upload time

• Software and data go in as archives (.zip/.tgz) through the OpenReview

fields, not as links to personal cloud storage that can log visitors.

• Reviewers promise to judge the paper from its content pages alone, so a

supplement may deepen evidence but must never complete an argument.

• Name files blandly (code.zip, data_card.pdf); a lab-convention filename

is an anonymity leak the sweep below should catch.

Worked micro-case

A team studying code-switched Spanish-English dialogue plans to submit in

July 2026 "for NAACL." The calendar check shows no cycle currently names

NAACL 2027. Their real options: enter the next open cycle now and let the

reviewed package wait for a NAACL commitment window (reviews stay valid

across cycles), target EMNLP/AACL via the May cycle instead, or hold for the

cycle NAACL 2027 eventually announces. The audit's job is to force that

decision explicitly rather than let a vague "submit to NAACL" drift into a

missed conference entirely.

Ordered pre-upload pass

1. Reconfirm the live cycle calendar and the NAACL question above.
2. Rebuild the PDF from the untouched current style files.
3. Run an anonymization sweep over text, footnotes, metadata, and every

linked artifact; check supplement archives file by file.

1. Reconcile each checklist answer against the section it points to.
2. If resubmitting, write the change summary a skeptical AC would accept.
3. Upload early enough to fix a rejected PDF before the AoE cutoff.

Mechanical sweeps before the AoE cutoff

• pdfinfo main.pdf — creator/author metadata fields must be empty or

generic; LaTeX toolchains leak usernames here.

• Search the PDF text for your institution's name, grant numbers, and the

string fragments of every author's homepage.

• Open each supplement archive on a machine that has never touched the

project; hidden OS files and absolute paths surface immediately.

• Recompute the content-page count after the last figure move; page 8.05

is page 9 to a compliance script.

• Remember the clock: 11:59 PM UTC-12 is later than every timezone in the

Americas, which breeds complacency — OpenReview load spikes at the hour

are the real risk, not the math.

Output format

[Cycle sanity] <cycle name -> feeds NAACL? yes/no/unverified>
[Gate results] length / template / limitations / anonymity / checklist / resubmission
[Declaration risks] <preprint, venue preference, reviewing obligation>
[Blocking fixes] <ordered, with owner>
[Upload verdict] go / hold / re-plan cycle