Information for Authors

Table of Contents

• Scope
  • Types of Papers
  • Paper Length
• Prior Publication Policy
• Manuscript Preparation
• Submission for Editorial Review
  • How to Submit
  • Review Process
• Procedures for Accepted Papers
  • Transmitting Accepted Papers
  • Copyright and Use Agreement
  • Page Charges

The ACM Computing Surveys publishes surveys of and tutorials on areas of computing research or practice. See the Editorial Charter available at http://www.acm.org/surveys/Charter.html for further details. Contributions should conform to generally accepted practices for scientific papers with respect to organization and style.

Survey paper

A paper that summarizes and organizes recent research results in a novel way that integrates and add understanding to work in the field. A survey article assumes a general knowledge of the area; it emphasizes the classification of the existing literature, developing a perspective on the area, and evaluating trends.

Tutorial paper

A paper that organizes and introduces work in the field. A tutorial paper assumes its audience is inexpert; it emphasizes the basic concepts of the field and provides concrete examples that embody these concepts.

Symposium Proposals

Proposals for editing Symposium issues covering areas or topics of research, such as the Symposium on Artificial Intelligence appearing in Volume 27, Number 3 (September 1995).

Papers should not normally exceed 35 pages when formatted using the Surveys style. When justified, additional material may be published in an electronic supplement. Manuscripts of excessive length may be rejected without review.

Prior Publication Policy

The papers appearing in ACM journals are normally original contributions that have not been published elsewhere. Widely disseminated conference proceedings and newsletters are a form of publication, although they are usually only semiarchival and often unrefereed. Publication, or republication, of a (perhaps revised) paper that has been widely disseminated is permitted only if the editor judges that (a) the revision contains significant amplification or clarification of the original material or (b) there is a significant additional benefit to be gained from journal publication. In either case, prior appearance should be noted on the title page of the paper.

Authors are required to prepare and submit their manuscripts electronically. This facilitates both a quicker editorial review process as well as faster and more accurate processing of accepted papers.

Computing Surveys permits electronic submissions for editorial review in LaTeX, PostScript, Word, or PDF formats. Use of the ACM Transactions LaTeX style is encouraged to insure proper formatting. Note that ACM admits a wider variety of formats for electronic submission of accepted papers, such as LaTeX, Microsoft Word, ASCII, PostScript, and PDF.

• Descriptive title
• Author names and affiliations
• Abstract
• Content indicators
• Citations to relevant literature

Descriptive Title

Select a title that accurately and clearly tells what the paper is about. Choose title terms as specific as content and emphasis of the paper permit. Avoid special symbols and formulas in titles unless essential to indicate content.

Author Names and Affiliations

Authors' names should be given without titles or degrees along with the name and address of the organization for which the work was carried out. A footnote on the first page should acknowledge funding sources and presentations, if any, of the material at technical meetings (give dates and sponsoring societies). The author's current address should be given in a footnote on the first page.

Abstract

The abstract should be at most 100 words long and consist of short, direct sentences. It should state the objectives of the work, summarize the results, and give the principal conclusions. The title need not be repeated. Because abstracts are extracted and used separately, do not use the first person, do not display mathematics, and do not use citation reference numbers. Try to avoid starting with the words ``This paper ...''

Content Indicators

Three types of content indicators must be assigned: (1) categories and subject descriptors, (2) general terms, (3) keywords and phrases. The first two items are selected from the Computing Reviews Classification Scheme published in the January 1991 issue of Computing Reviews. Select as many of these as may be applicable.

The keywords and phrases are additional English language words that indicate the content of the submission. They should not be synonymous with those already in the classification system: they can be more specific than the subject descriptors, or they may not be covered by the existing system at all. The following guidelines may be helpful.

• Use important terms from the title; include their synonyms, related words and words of higher or lower generic rank.
• Use English nouns, or noun-noun and noun-adjective combinations; do not use hyphens unless the hyphenated parts are always treated as a single unit.
• Use specific terms whose meanings are generally accepted; do not use broad catchall terms (such as ``computer'', ``automatic'', ``machine'', ``system'', ``discussion'', ``description''); do not use private terms or acronyms that may not be generally known.
• Do not use negative terms stressing what your paper does not do.

Citations

1. Citations in the text: Reference callouts in the text have the form [Turing 1936], [Turing and Church 1936], [Turing et al. 1936].
2. References to items in periodicals: These should take the form: author, title, journal, volume, number, date, pages. Last names of authors are given first, even for multiple authors; likewise for editors, with the name followed by (Ed.). The author's name appears in capital letters and always ends with a period, either the period which follows his initial or a period for the purpose. The title has only the first word and proper names (or their derivatives) starting with capital letters, and it ends with a period. The date is given in parentheses. Example:

   JENKINS, M. A., and TRAUB, J. F. Principles for testing zerofinding programs. ACM Trans. Math. Soft. 1, 1 (March 1975), 26-34.

3. References to reports or proceedings: Author(s) name(s) and title (same style as above), report number, source including date and pages.
4. References to books: Author(s) -- same style as in periodicals. Title -- set in italics, with all principal words capitalized. Include publisher, city, and year. Page or chapter references follow the year.
5. Sequence: In the reference list, entries must be arranged alphabetically according to authors' or editors' names, or publishing organizations for items to which no names can be attached.
6. Accuracy: Authors are responsible for checking that all information in the references is correct.
7. Completeness: Include any and all information necessary for finding the work referenced. It is better to include more than enough information than too little.

Regular papers should be submitted electronically to ACM Manuscript Central at: http://acm.manuscriptcentral.com/. This site should also be used to look at the status of submitted papers.

Please note, if you don't have an account at ACM Manuscript Central you will need to create an account before you can log in and submit to Computing Surveys.

If you have any questions, please send email to eng DOT temp AT imperial DOT ac DOT uk

Submitted papers are evaluated by anonymous referees for general interest, relevance, and presentation. The author will be notified of the name of an associate editor who will be responsible for processing his or her manuscript, and is expected to keep this editor informed of any change of address. Revisions requested by the associate editor should be returned directly to that editor. After the refereeing process is complete, the associate editor either rejects the paper or makes a recommendation for acceptance to the Editor-in-Chief, who makes the final decision on acceptance.

Once a manuscript is accepted, a final version must be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief for transmission to ACM for publication. This submission must be electronic using the ACM Manuscript Central web site. ACM provides for a wide variety of formats for such electronic submissions, including ASCII, LaTeX, Microsoft Word, PS and PDF. Please refer to ACM's Guidelines for Submitting Accepted Articles, which can be viewed on the World Wide Web at http://www.acm.org/pubs/submissions/submission.htm for details on final manuscript formatting and submission procedure. Note that all manuscripts are converted to PDF by ACM for input to its electronic publishing system and database.

Authors whose papers are accepted sign a form which either transfers copyright to the ACM or declares that the paper is part of government work. Authors retain liberal rights to material published by the ACM. The following is the standard copyright notice used by ACM journals:

Further details can be found in

• ACM Interim Copyright Policies
• ACM Copyright Agreement Form

Submittal of an algorithm for consideration for publication in ACM Computing Surveys implies that unrestricted use of the algorithm within a computer is permissible.

Author's institutions or corporations are requested to honor a page charge of US$60.00 per printed page or part thereof, to help defray the cost of publication. Page charges apply to all contributions. Payment of page charges is not a condition of publication; editorial acceptance of a paper is unaffected by payment or nonpayment.

ACM Computing Surveys. This page is http://www.acm.org/surveys/Authors.html.
Last modified: Sun Jun 28 20:30:24 EDT 2009