STOC 2004
Submission Instructions

Conference Awards

Best Student Paper Award Eligibility Notice

If applicable, please send email to the Program Committee Chair at stoc04@cs.uchicago.edu within 24 hours of submission with the following information:

Subject: Best Student Paper Award Eligibility

Text: Title of paper
Authors/affiliations

We (I) certify that all authors (the author) of this paper
are(is a) full-time students (student) at (name of institution)
at the time of submission and therefore the paper is eligible
for the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award.

(signed by one of the authors who certifies the statement for all authors)

Best Paper Award

This award should not be confused with the best student paper award. Every submission is eligible for the Best Paper Award. Please do not send eligibility statements regarding the Best Paper Award.

Submission format

Authors should submit an Extended Abstract (not a full paper). The Extended Abstract should start with the title of the paper, each author's name, affiliation, and email address, followed by a brief (one or two paragraphs) summary of the results to be presented. This should then be followed by a technical exposition of the main ideas and techniques used to achieve these results, including motivation and a clear comparison with related work.

Format and length of the submission

The abstract should not exceed 10 single-spaced pages (excluding bibliography) on letter-size (8 1/2 x 11 inch) paper, using at least 1 inch margins and at least 11-point font. If the authors believe that more details are essential to substantiate the main claims of the paper, they may include a clearly marked Appendix that will be read at the discretion of the Program Committee. Submissions deviating significantly from these guidelines risk rejection without consideration of their merits.

Paper dimensions: US Letter (8½ x 11 inch) versus ISO A4

To authors working overseas: the submissions must be printable on US Letter paper. This is the default paper format in LaTeX 2e and dvips. However, if you work overseas, your system may have been modified so that the default is A4. If this is the case, you need to add the option "letterpaper" to "\documentclass" (without quotes):
\documentclass[letterpaper,...,11pt]{article}
so that LaTeX generates the proper margins. To create the right kind of postscript file from your .dvi file, you need to use the "-t letter" command line parameter in "dvips":
dvips -t letter mypaper.dvi -o mypaper.ps

Using the Conference Managment Toolkit (CMT)

We are using the electronic submission system CMT (Conference Management Toolkit) of Microsoft Research. Click here for the submission site after September 14. CMT appears to be quite user-friendly but there are some caveats.

Browsers

Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are the recommended browsers for paper submission. Some browsers, such as Opera and Konqueror, are known to run into difficulties. For more information, see CMT FAQ.

Testing your submission

Having completed the submission process, authors can download their paper from the CMT site and compare it with their original to see if the submission was successful. Note, however, that the system will not complain if you used the wrong paper size.

STOC 2004 CMT Account

Before submitting a paper, one of the authors needs to create a STOC 2004 CMT account by clicking on the "New User Registration" link. You will need to fill in the following information: name, organization, address, phone number, email and a password you create. Your email address will serve as your login name. If later you forget your password, there is an "E-mail My Password" button on the User Login page. If you want to submit several papers, you will need only one STOC 2004 CMT account (even if the papers are with different sets of coauthors). You will need to follow the "Add New Paper" link.

Submitting papers

After registering an account, you will be asked to submit a paper. The submission process consists of the following steps:
  1. Enter the title of the paper and an "abstract" (brief summary in plain text, see section CMT Abstract versus STOC Summary).
  2. Upload the paper. (At this step some browsers might experience difficulties, see the browsers section.
  3. Select one primary and any number of secondary subject areas of your paper from a list.
  4. Add information about co-authors.
  5. Check whether the upload was successful (you can view and/or download the version stored at the CMT site and compare it with your original).

Updating and Withdrawing papers

By clicking the "view/edit paper(s)" link you can see the papers you have submitted, delete (withdraw) your papers, upload a new version of your paper, or modify any related information (title, abstract, subject areas, information about existing coauthors, adding/deleting a coauthor, etc.).

If you want to update your paper, please do NOT click the "delete" button. Instead, click the "View/Edit paper" button, then click the name of the paper you wish to update. Then click the "Next" button which will take you to a page on which you can upload the updated version of the paper. This will erase the old version.

CMT Abstract versus STOC Summary

A word of warning about terminology: CMT asks authors to submit the title and an "abstract," and then the "paper." In STOC terminology, "paper" is the Extended Abstract and "abstract" is a brief summary (a couple of paragraphs). So when CMT prompts you to enter an "abstract," make sure you enter a brief summary rather than the full submission. CMT's idea of an "abstract" is plain text typed or pasted into a window, so this "abstract" need not be a verbatim copy of the summary with which the Extended Abstract begins. Because the CMT "abstract" is plain text, the use of complicated formulas is discouraged; pseudo-TeX codes can be used to enter formulas. This "abstract" does not replace the Summary at the beginning of the Extended Abstract; keep your summary in the main document. Be aware, however, that while all members of the Program Committee will read your "abstract," probably only a fraction of the Program Committee will read any other part of your submission. Keep your "abstract" brief (a couple of paragraphs). Any excess will be ignored at the discretion of each member of the Program Committee.

Subject Areas

Click here for the list of subject areas.

Hard copy submission

Authors who cannot submit electronically are invited to submit hard copies by the following procedure: (a) The authors must first send an email to the STOC 2004 program chair at stoc04@cs.uchicago.edu to state their intention of submitting hard copies, by 4:59 pm EST October 29, 2003; put "Hard Copy Submission" in the Subject line; (b) The authors must send 16 copies (printed double-sided if possible) of an extended abstract and a cover letter to the STOC 2004 program chair to be received before 4:59 pm EST November 6, 2003. (c) Authors from locations where access to reproduction facilities is severely limited may ask for permission of submitting a single copy by first sending an email to the STOC 2004 program chair at or before October 29, 2003.

ICALP submissions

The ICALP 2004 submission deadline is February 8, 2004. STOC authors are notified of acceptance or rejection by February 4. Therefore, if your submission is not accepted to STOC, you may submit your paper to ICALP. To facilitate this, you may send email to stoc04@cs.uchicago.edu to let the Program Chair know your intention to submit to ICALP in case of rejection by STOC. Please put "ICALP intended" in the Subject line and identify the paper in the body of the message (authors, title). If we receive such an email from you before December 31, 2003, we shall make an effort to send you a notification earlier than the promised date of February 4.

Return to Call for Papers.

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