Pods supplementary

PODS Supplementary

Use this when assembling PODS supplementary material. The governing rule is specific to PODS: the appendix is incorporated with the submission and there are no online or external appendices, so "supplementary" means the appendix inside the same PDF — nothing lives off-paper. The body must be readable as a self-contained mathematical narrative, and the appendix must contain every proof the body defers.

What goes where

Content	Body (within 15-page budget)	Appendix (same PDF, unlimited)
Model, definitions, problem statement	Yes	—
Main theorem statements	Yes	—
Key proof ideas / the crux of each argument	Yes	Full details
Full proofs of main theorems	If they fit	Otherwise here, complete
Long reductions, gadget constructions	A description + the idea	The full construction and correctness proof
Corollaries and secondary results	Statement	Full proofs
Extended examples, tables of cases	The illustrative one	The exhaustive set
References	Yes (unlimited, not in page count)	—

If a reviewer would have to trust an unproved step to accept the paper, it is mis-partitioned — the full proof must be in the appendix, because at PODS the appendix ships with the submission and is expected to be checked.

The acmsmall page-budget discipline

PODS 2026's budget is 15 pages excluding references in \documentclass[acmsmall,review,anonymous]{acmart}, plus unlimited references and the at-submission appendix of unlimited length. Consequences:

• The body must stand alone: a reader should understand the model, the results, and why they hold from the 15 pages, with the appendix supplying verification detail.
• Proofs that do not fit go to the appendix behind explicit forward references ("full proof in Appendix B") — never dropped or deferred to an external document.
• Do not smuggle a result into the appendix that the body needs to make its case: the body carries the argument; the appendix carries the verification. Reviewers read the body in full and consult the appendix to check.
• References are unlimited and outside the page count, so there is no reason to trim the bibliography to save space.

No external appendix — the PODS-specific rule

[One PDF]        body + references + appendix in a single submitted file; no separate archive, no URL
[No online host]  a link to proofs "on a website" is not allowed and breaks anonymity — do not use one
[Complete]        every deferred proof is present in the appendix, self-contained and cite-correct
[Reviewer path]   the body forward-references each appendix proof so a reviewer can find it fast

Double-anonymous supplementary hygiene

[No identity]   no authors, affiliations, acknowledgements, funding, or a named system anywhere in the
                body or the appendix
[Third person]  self-citations phrased in the third person, in the body and the appendix alike
[No revealing link] no arXiv/homepage/repository link that discloses authorship; withhold or anonymize
[Clean PDF]     scrub PDF metadata (author/producer) before upload

Appendix architecture

• Order appendix sections to mirror the body's theorem order; reviewers navigate by theorem number, not page.
• Keep each appendix proof referenced from the body at least once — an orphaned proof is invisible.
• Make each appendix proof self-contained: restate the theorem, state assumptions, and cite the exact prior lemmas used, so a reviewer can check it without reconstructing context.

Vignette: splitting a two-bound paper

A paper with an upper-bound algorithm and a lower-bound reduction: the body keeps the model, both theorem statements, the algorithm with its invariant and complexity accounting, and the crux of the reduction; the appendix holds the full correctness proof, the complete gadget construction, and the secondary corollaries — each forward-referenced from the body, all inside the one submitted PDF, with no external link and no identity leak.

Output format

[Supplement status] ready / needs fixes / not ready
[Partition check] any unproved decision-critical step? <none / move full proof to appendix: what>
[Single-PDF check] all proofs in the submitted file? no external/online appendix? yes/no
[Page budget] body within 15 pp (excl. refs)? appendix forward-referenced? yes/no
[Anonymity] body + appendix clean of identity + metadata? passed/issues