Submissions

Author Guidelines

General Information

Submissions to Computational Linguistics may be made in any of the following categories: Regular Research Papers (Long and Short), Survey Articles, Position Papers, Squibs and Discussions, and Last Words. We also publish Book Reviews and Award Articles. Please indicate type of article when you submit.

Since Volume 51 (March 2025), Computational Linguistics has adopted a new vision. Under its new vision, the journal strongly encourages research that engages with emerging paradigms, with particular emphasis on contemporary language model technologies (e.g., Large Language Models, or LLMs) and other transformative developments reshaping computational language research. At the same time, the journal remains committed to insightful contributions grounded in theoretical, mathematical, algorithmic, linguistic, and interdisciplinary perspectives. We particularly welcome studies that bridge these foundational principles with the latest scientific advancements. Our mission is for Computational Linguistics to serve as a central forum where diverse perspectives converge and collaborate to drive the field forward. Please refer to this Editorial for more information.

Manuscripts for Computational Linguistics should be submitted in a PDF file, formatted single-spaced in accordance with our Style Guidelines, including an abstract. The title, authors' names, and abstract should also be provided separately in a text file, with the contact author's email address clearly indicated. Manuscripts must be written in English.

Long Papers

Long Papers present comprehensive and substantial research contributions in computational linguistics and natural language processing. These may include novel theoretical models, extensive empirical analyses, or large-scale system designs. Papers in this category typically involve deep and broad exploration, with significant methodological or conceptual innovation. Each submission is reviewed by at least three experts. All submissions are held to the highest standards of technical depth, clarity, and impact.

Page Length: typically up to 40 pages of main text.

Short Papers

Short Papers report focused, high-quality research findings that may offer innovative ideas, efficient methods, or surprising results that advance the field. This track is ideal for compact contributions with strong insights, including well-analyzed negative results or innovative applications. Like long papers, short papers are reviewed rigorously by at least three experts and held to the same high standards of scientific and presentation quality.

Page Length: up to 20 pages of main text. Final versions may be slightly longer if needed to incorporate revisions or improve clarity.

Survey Articles (and Proposals)

We welcome survey articles that offer comprehensive, insightful overviews of specific subfields or emerging interdisciplinary areas within computational linguistics and natural language processing. These articles serve as both valuable entry points for newcomers and authoritative references for experienced researchers.

We particularly encourage two types of surveys:

• Core Area Surveys:
  These articles provide an in-depth synthesis of the state of the art in well-established subfields of CL/NLP, consolidating diverse research threads into a coherent narrative. Such surveys are ideal for helping researchers stay current outside their immediate specializations and can serve as foundational resources for graduate instruction.
• Peripheral and Interdisciplinary Surveys:
  These explore research areas at the interface of CL/NLP and adjacent disciplines (e.g., cognitive science, social science, multimodal processing) that are currently underrepresented in the journal. The goal is to broaden the journal’s scope and introduce new perspectives to the community.

A high-quality survey article should not merely catalog existing work, but should provide critical interpretation, identify trends, open problems, and opportunities for future research. Where relevant, surveys may complement existing textbook material by offering significantly deeper or more up-to-date coverage. There is no fixed limit on the number of survey articles published each year.

Survey Proposal: Prospective authors of survey articles should first submit a survey proposal. The proposal should be a single PDF file formatted using the latest CL style file, and it must include:

• a title and the names/affiliations of the authors
• an outline (excluding references) of up to 5 pages detailing the content of the proposed article
• short (one-paragraph) biographies of the authors
• the names of three recognized experts qualified to review the submission

The outline must succinctly describe the content of the survey and clearly identify the body of work the article will cover by including numerous relevant citations and a bibliography.

Proposals will be reviewed by the editorial board through an accelerated review process.

Position Papers

Position papers play a crucial role in advancing scholarly discourse by allowing researchers to present well-argued perspectives on key challenges, unresolved issues, and emerging opportunities in computational linguistics and natural language processing.

While not necessarily requiring experimental results, position papers published in Computational Linguistics must demonstrate rigorous reasoning and be supported by persuasive evidence to substantiate their stance on major topics or future directions in the field.

Squibs and Discussions

This category is reserved for very short articles that constitute more than programmatic versions of regular papers. Squibs should possess at least one of the following attributes:

• unexpectedness, e.g., a demonstration that a commonly accepted idea or method is flawed;
• genuine novelty, e.g., thus-far unnoticed language data that challenges current methods; and
• being targeted to a large segment of our readership.

Articles submitted as squibs that are deemed to be merely insufficiently developed short papers will be desk rejected. Papers about language resources may be acceptable provided the relevant resources are truly novel and of general interest. 

Page length: Submissions must not exceed 8 pages of content (with unlimited pages for references).

Last Words

In each issue of the journal we reserve a small number of pages for a personal opinion or provocative perspective on some aspect of the field of computational linguistics. You can see all previous Last Words pieces here. Contact the Editor-in-Chief directly if you are interested in submitting such a piece. 

Page length: up to 10 pages.

Book Reviews

Anyone interested in reviewing a book, or in suggesting a book for review, should contact the Book Review Editor:

Aline Villavicencio
University of Exeter and University of Sheffield
a.villavicencio@sheffield.ac.uk

Award Articles

Award articles, including ACL Lifetime Achievement Award articles and ACL Computational Linguistics Doctoral Dissertation Award articles, will be published directly through the editorial office by separate arrangement with the award recipients.