Submission Formatting

Please note that this page is here for archival purposes only. All submission tracks are now closed. If you are an author with an accepted contribution to the conference, please look at the Camera Ready instructions page for information on how to format and submit your final paper.

All submissions for all categories should use the following templates:
** For users of Microsoft Word, use the simplified ACM submission template.
** For users of LaTeX follow the ACM guidelines for LaTeX here.

Please note that this template has only one column. This is different from previous editions of PDC, which has used a two-column template for submissions. However, should your submission be accepted and published in the proceedings, the final PDF generated by the ACM will have two columns again. This is a consequence of a new publication process established by ACM over the last several years, where what you see as paper format when submitted is different to the produced PDF on the ACM Digital Library.

Length of submissions – new for 2022

These changes to the submission template and publication process mean papers that are submitted will be a different page length to eventual publications. As a result, PDC 2022 is moving away from strict page lengths for submissions, to instead ask authors to submit their work adhering to a word count. These word counts are as follows (not including references):

** Full Papers – 8500 words
** Exploratory Papers – 4000 words
** Workshops – 2500 words
** Situated Actions – 2000 words
** Doctoral Colloquium – 2500 words

Please check the individual calls for participation for each submission category for more detail on what each are looking for in submissions (links in the above list).

Anonymisation for peer review

Submissions made to Full Papers and Exploratory Papers should be anonymised. This means:

** Authors are expected to remove author and institutional identity from the title and header of the paper, as well as any information embedded within the meta-data of the submission file. For the latter, please check the properties of the Word file or submitted PDF, as often author information can be embedded in that.
** Leave the acknowledgements section blank.
** Leave citations to your own previous work un-anonymised, if they are important to ensure reviewers understand that all previous research has been taken into account. However, refer to them in the third person (e.g., avoid “… as described in our previous work [10], … ” and use instead “as described by [10], …”)
** Further suppression of identity in the body of the paper (references to specific projects, regions, names) is left to the authors’ discretion.

PDC formatting and publishing Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use LaTeX instead of Word?

Yes, as long as you follow ACM instructions and templates. Note: the organizing team is less knowledgeable in LaTeX; for specific technical inquiries and support on the Latex template we suggest to read https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions and to write to acmtexsupport@aptaracorp.com.

How long should the Abstract be?

PDC abstracts should be 150 words max.

How long can PDC papers be?

Full papers should be about 8.500 with 2-3 images excluding references and abstract. If you want to have more images you might need to reduce the word count. Exploratory papers should be about 4.000 words maximum with 2-3 images excluding references and abstract. If you want to have more images you might need to reduce the word count

I can’t fit everything into 8500 words, so can I include an appendix?

Yes, but keep this to a maximum of one page. Reviewers have limited time to spend on each paper and have many papers to get through, so it’s unlikely they will read extra information during the reviewing stage. You should include everything that is important for your argument in the paper.

What is the best format for images?

Images should be as high resolution as possible and saved as JPEG or TIFF files. If images include vector graphics and text then save as PNG files to retain line quality. Do check images for legibility and ensure they are anonymised where appropriate. This is especially important for images taken from whiteboard visualisations (e.g. Miro / Mural) which can produce low-quality attributed content.

Can I include URLs?

Yes but please be aware that reviewers will not necessarily look at these as they have a lot of other papers to review. Also ensure any URL is anonymised where appropriate. If you think it is important reviewers understand something of the content of a specific URL, or video link, think carefully about using images and descriptions from the URL in the paper as best you can to explain the relevance of the content to your argument.

I have lots of different types of references how do I format them?

Please check referencing formats at ACM for information on how to cite different formats. https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/reference-formatting All citations should be alphabetically ordered and numbered in your references.

What should I do to make my paper anonymous?

As noted above, do not write the name and institutional affiliation of the authors anywhere in the paper file. Remove the paper meta-data from the submission file: check the properties of the Word file or submitted PDF, in order to do that. Leave citations to your own previous work un-anonymised, if they are important to ensure reviewers understand that all previous research has been taken into account. However, refer to them in the third person. Further suppression of identity in the body of the paper (references to specific projects, regions, names) is left to the authors’ discretion. If your question is not listed here please check you have first read submission guidelines to check if your question can be answered here https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions


Any other questions?

If you still have questions contact publicationschairs@pdc2022.org