Sf submission

Submission Preflight (sf-submission)

The last check before pressing submit on ScholarOne Manuscript Central (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sf). SF is double-anonymized, so the most common avoidable failures are an under-anonymized manuscript and a manuscript that misses the reference-inclusive 10,000-word cap or the 10-panel exhibit limit. Verify volatile specifics on the official page before relying on them.

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
• Unsure which files/metadata ScholarOne expects
• Confirming length, panel count, anonymization, and the data availability statement are all in order

Process facts (verify volatile items on the official page)

• Owner / publisher: UNC Chapel Hill (Dept. of Sociology) / Oxford University Press.
• Portal: ScholarOne Manuscript Central (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sf); Word or .odt.
• Review model: double-anonymized — anonymize the manuscript; all identifying info on a separate title page.
• Length: ≤ 10,000 words including text, endnotes, and references (references count).
• Exhibits: ≤ 10 tables and figure panels; supplementary materials ≤ 10 pages.
• Style: Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (author-date) required at final submission.
• Data availability statement: required for publication (see sf-data-and-transparency).
• ORCID: encouraged for authors at submission.
• Fee: $50 non-refundable processing fee ($20 for manuscripts written solely by students); no page charges (post-acceptance OA APCs apply only if you choose Creative Commons — 待核实 amounts). (Fee/no-page-charges verified 2026-06-22; re-confirm current OUP amounts before payment.)

Preflight checklist

Length & exhibits

• ≤ 10,000 words including text, endnotes, AND references (recount with references)
• ≤ 10 tables and figure panels total (count multi-panel figures by panel)
• Supplementary materials ≤ 10 pages
• Abstract present, in English, no references (length 待核实 — ~150-200 words is safe)

Anonymity (double-anonymized)

• No author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, or funding details in the manuscript
• All identifying info on a separate title page file
• No obvious self-references; self-citations neutralized
• Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties)
• Funding sources entered in the ScholarOne fields (not the manuscript)

Format & metadata

• Chicago 17th author-date formatting; one consistent citation style
• ORCID ready for authors
• Figures/tables self-contained and accessible (see sf-tables-figures)

Compliance & files

• Data availability statement drafted and included
• Ethics / IRB / consent (incl. consent to publish data) addressed; data anonymized
• $50 processing fee ready ($20 if student-only) — payable by card

Anti-patterns

• Counting words without references and missing the real 10,000-word cap
• Discovering an 11th panel at upload (count panels, not figures)
• Leaving acknowledgements/funding/self-references in the manuscript (breaks anonymity)
• Formatting to ASA or an in-house style instead of Chicago 17th author-date
• Submitting without the required data availability statement
• Budgeting the wrong fee (it is $50 / $20-student, not ASR's $25 or AJS's $30)

Desk-reject triage before upload

Most avoidable SF declines at the screening stage are format and anonymity failures, not science failures. Triage in priority order — the first failure a screener sees ends the submission before review:

Screening check	Pass condition	Fails the desk if…
Word count	≤ 10,000 incl. text, endnotes, refs	Counted without references, over the real cap
Panels	≤ 10 tables + figure panels combined	An 11th panel hides in a multi-panel figure
Anonymity	No names/affil/acks/funding in text	Self-references or metadata leak identity
Title page	Separate file holds identifying info	Identity baked into the manuscript file
Data statement	Present and concrete	Missing or "available on request" only

Calibration (hedged): the fee is reported as roughly $50 ($20 student-only), the portal is ScholarOne, and the style is Chicago 17th author-date — fees, abstract limits, and OA terms are the volatile items to confirm against current guidelines.

Worked vignette (illustrative)

A work-and-occupations manuscript looks "ready" at 9,700 words of text. The preflight catches what a screener catches first: the reference list adds 1,100 words, pushing the true count to 10,800 (illustrative, over cap); a 3-panel figure plus eight tables makes 11 panels; and an acknowledgements footnote names a grant. Fix: trim citations under 10,000, fold two tables into one for 10 panels, and move the acknowledgement to the title page. Now it survives.

Referee fixes: "desk-rejected for length" → recount with references and endnotes; "anonymity compromised" → strip file metadata and neutralize self-citations to "Author (year)".

Output format

【Length】≤ 10,000 words INCLUDING references? [Y/N] (count)
【Exhibits】≤ 10 tables + figure panels? supplement ≤ 10pp? [Y/N]
【Anonymized】text + self-refs + metadata clean; title page separate? [Y/N]
【Chicago 17th + ORCID】[Y/N]
【Data availability statement】included? [Y/N]
【Fee】$50 / $20-student ready? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → sf-rebuttal on R&R

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference managers, anonymization, repro tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official Social Forces URLs behind every fact in this pack