Submission guidelines
EMNLP is a leading NLP venue, spanning empirical methods, resources and evaluation, multilingual work, and societal impact. Reviewers focus on solid experiments, deep analysis, and fair comparison with concurrent ACL-series work. EMNLP shares the ACL stylesheet (often described as “uses the same ACL style files”), but deadlines, policies, and ethics rules follow the EMNLP website—do not overwrite EMNLP’s current year with stale ACL parameters.
Common rejection reasons: weak baselines, data leakage, unclear evaluation protocols. Format issues: A4 with 2.5 cm margins, 11pt body, Chicago Author-Date, and a substantive Limitations section are all expected.
Formatting in detail
- Page and layout: A4; two columns; 9 pages maximum for main text; references usually do not count (per that year’s notice).
- Margins: 2.5 cm on all sides.
- Fonts: body Times New Roman 11pt; headings 15pt.
- Required structure: Abstract, Introduction, Limitations, References.
- Official hub: EMNLP 2025 for the CFP, style files, and author instructions.
Abstract guidelines
- Length: 200 words maximum.
- Elements: task, data/language coverage, method, main results; multilingual or cross-domain work should state scope clearly.
- Restraint: avoid “comprehensive” claims unless experiments support them.
- Consistency: metrics in the abstract must match tables in the paper.
Citations and references
- Style: Chicago Author-Date.
- BibTeX: complete fields; conference papers with venue, pages, and location; clear preprint vs. published entries.
- Common mistakes: mixing APA/IEEE; hand-editing
.bbl; bad line breaks in two-column reference lists.
Frequent formatting mistakes
- Missing or empty Limitations.
- A4/Letter confusion shifting the text block.
- Main text over 9 pages.
- Font size drift (e.g., local 10pt).
- Inconsistent Chicago formatting in text vs. bibliography.
How to convert to EMNLP format with AutoSCI
- Upload your paper — PDF or Word.
- Choose a template — EMNLP 2025.
- Export — LaTeX, PDF, or Word.
AutoSCI applies page limits, margins, fonts, and citation style for EMNLP submissions.
Relationship to ACL styles and venue-specific differences
Style files are often from the same source, but conference name, headers, anonymity, and copyright pages differ. Build from the EMNLP 2025 package and replace conference strings and year. If resubmitting from ACL to EMNLP, update venue names in citations and in author/acknowledgment text.
Writing Limitations
Be explicit about data bias, language coverage, metric blind spots, inference cost, and misuse scenarios. Split responsibilities with ethics: limitations focus on method boundaries; ethics focuses on norms and governance.
Ethics and data
For user-generated data, crowdsourcing, and privacy-sensitive content, document compliance; for generative models, discuss misinformation and bias.
Two-column layout and long examples
NLP papers often include long sentences and trees; in two columns, use small sparingly or move material to the appendix. Wide tables may need landscape or appendix placement.
LaTeX and style versions
Pin acl.sty / EMNLP package versions; read README and build instructions.
Pre-deadline checklist
- A4, two columns, 2.5 cm margins.
- Main text ≤9 pages.
- Abstract ≤200 words.
- Limitations is substantive.
- Chicago Author-Date throughout.
- 11pt / 15pt fonts.
Tips for international authors
- Multilingual resources: describe annotation protocols and licenses clearly in English.
- Deadlines: often AoE.
- Terminology: align with community-standard task names.
Migrating from other conferences
From CVPR/IEEE, switch to Chicago and A4. From NeurIPS, update paper size, margins, and citation style.
Additional FAQ
Q: Is Findings formatting the same as the main conference?
A: Follow that year’s Findings guide; the style family is usually consistent.
Q: Can I use the ACL 2024 template for EMNLP 2025?
A: Use the 2025 official package—class files may have minor updates.
Experiments and significance
Report mean and variance; multiple seeds; if you use paired tests, describe them.
Workflow with AutoSCI
Finalize content, then convert; verify Limitations, Chicago, and 9 pages.
Reviews and rebuttal
Respond point by point; for limitations comments, acknowledge and propose constructive follow-ups.
Version notice
The EMNLP 2025 site is authoritative.
Related work
Cover recent EMNLP/ACL/NAACL work; missing strong baselines invites criticism.
Resources and reproducibility
Link data and code; if restricted, give minimal reproduction steps.
PDF and fonts
Embed fonts; check the last page of two-column text for bad breaks.
Anonymity and metadata
Remove identifying information from PDFs and supplementary archives.
Common pitfalls
- Limitations repeating the conclusion verbatim.
- Wrong conference string in the template.
- References not updated from preprint to published versions.
Team workflow
Single source of truth for .bib; compile successfully before merging branches.
Long tables and appendices
Appendix table numbering must match in-text references.
Case studies
Choose unbiased examples; avoid success-only cherry-picking.
Broader impact
Discuss misuse and mitigations; multilingual fairness when relevant.
Writing cadence
Finish experiments and Limitations before polishing the introduction.
Print preview
A4 actual size—avoid Letter-driven scaling.
Relationship to ARR
Under rolling review, follow versioning and anonymity rules for that cycle.
Dataset versioning
State dataset version and split protocol explicitly.
Equations and symbols
Use a notation table where helpful; break wide equations.
Final checks
Search for TODO, unresolved citations, and author metadata.
Supplementary material
Keep supplementary figures aligned with main-text claims; submit video/demos per instructions if required.
Last hour
Read-only checks and upload.
Cross-lingual fairness
Report low-resource languages separately; avoid English-only conclusions framed as universal.
Baselines
Include strong pretrained baselines and official implementations; align hyperparameters.
Error analysis
Qualitative analysis should support quantitative claims.
Terminology and notation
Keep translations of terms and acronym definitions consistent across the paper.
Strong submission habits
Freeze content 48 hours before deadline; reserve the last 24 hours for format and checks.
Compared to ACL long papers
When the stylesheet matches, page count, Limitations, Chicago, A4/2.5 cm align; differences are mainly venue branding and submission portals.