Submission Preflight (curranthro-submission)

The last check before submitting on Editorial Manager (CA's submission system). CA is published by the University of Chicago Press for the Wenner-Gren Foundation; its Major Articles will, on acceptance, receive the CA✩ Treatment — simultaneous publication of multiple peer commentaries with your Reply (Major Articles only; not Reports/Forums/Discussion items). The most common avoidable failures are wrong article-type/word-count fit, figures embedded in the PDF instead of supplied as separate files, and an unresolved ethics or permissions issue. Verify volatile specifics on the official Instructions for Authors before relying on them.

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
• Unsure which files/metadata Editorial Manager expects
• Confirming the chosen article type's caps are met and files are in the right formats
• Finalizing the ethics statement, figure permissions, and the Wenner-Gren copyright assignment

Process facts (checked 2026-06; verify live portal prompts)

• Publisher / sponsor: University of Chicago Press for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Founded 1959 (Sol Tax). ISSN 0011-3204 (print) / 1537-5382 (web).
• Editors: co-editors Caroline Schuster and Catherine J. Frieman (Australian National University), effective 1 January 2025, succeeding Laurence Ralph (Princeton) — the first cross-disciplinary, first Australia-based editorial team (verified 2026-06-22; re-confirm on the live masthead, as editors rotate).
• Portal: Editorial Manager.
• Selectivity & review filter: operating figures from the 2023 editor search are ~230 manuscripts/year, about 50% receiving full peer review (the other half screened/desk-handled before full review), and about 10% accepted — (year-dependent operating figures, not a standing promise; 需复核).
• Issues: six core issues/year plus one open-access supplementary issue; each core issue runs five–six major articles plus reports/other content.
• Open access: CA is a subscription journal with green open access for all articles; gold open access is available for authors with qualifying funder requirements; the editor may select one article per core issue for open-access availability — (confirm current OA/APC terms on the rights page; 需复核).
• Article types & caps: Major Article 6,000–10,000 words (incl. references and endnotes; abstract ≤ 200 words; up to 12 figures/tables) — receives the CA✩ Treatment; Report 3,000–5,000 words (incl. refs/notes; abstract ≤ 200; up to 4 figures/tables); Forum; Discussion / Comment ≤ 800 words including references (reply to a CA piece from roughly the prior 8 months); Current Applications (open-access section).
• File formats: submit text + tables as a single .doc or .rtf file (not PDF); submit figures (graphs and images) as separate TIFF (.tif) or EPS (.eps) files.
• Style: free-format accepted at submission; final accepted files use Chicago Manual of Style author-date, references alphabetized and not embedded in endnotes; include DOIs.
• Copyright: assignment of copyright to the Wenner-Gren Foundation for major articles, reports, forums, discussion items, and commentaries.
• Review/anonymity: confirm the current model on the live Instructions for Authors before deciding how to anonymize.

Preflight checklist

Article type & length

• Article type chosen and its word cap met (Major 6,000–10,000 / Report 3,000–5,000 / Discussion ≤ 800)
• Abstract ≤ 200 words (Major Article & Report), states question + approach + intervention
• Figure/table count within the type's cap (12 Major / 4 Report)

Files & formats (Editorial Manager)

• Text + tables in a single .doc/.rtf file (not PDF)
• Figures supplied as separate TIFF/EPS files (not embedded)
• Title-page information ready (title, short title, authors/affiliations, corresponding-author contact)

Format & references

• Free-format acceptable now; one consistent style; plan Chicago author-date for final files
• References alphabetized, not embedded in endnotes; DOIs included where available
• Every in-text citation in the list and vice versa; all references real and accurate

Ethics, rights & copyright

• Ethics statement: informed consent, IRB/ethics approval where applicable, anonymization
• Heritage/repatriation and vulnerable-community obligations addressed (see curranthro-transparency-and-data)
• Image/media consent and permissions secured; sensitive material withheld appropriately
• Wenner-Gren copyright assignment understood; you hold the rights you will assign
• Original work, not under review elsewhere; preprint status checked against CA/UChicago policy

Anti-patterns

• Submitting a Major Article-length manuscript as a Report, or vice versa
• Uploading a single PDF with figures embedded instead of .doc/.rtf text + separate TIFF/EPS
• Abstract over 200 words; references embedded in endnotes or not alphabetized (final files)
• Missing figure permissions; publishing images without consent
• No ethics statement; assigning Wenner-Gren copyright over materials you don't control

Output format

【Article type】Major Article / Report / Forum / Discussion / Current Applications (cap met? Y/N)
【Word count + abstract】within cap / ≤ 200? [Y/N]
【Files】single .doc/.rtf text + separate TIFF/EPS figures? [Y/N]
【References】Chicago author-date plan + alphabetized + DOIs? [Y/N]
【Ethics statement】consent / IRB / heritage / anonymization present? [Y/N]
【Copyright】Wenner-Gren assignment rights confirmed? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → curranthro-rebuttal on R&R or to write the CA✩ Reply

Supplementary resources

• templates/checklist.md — full pre-submission checklist for CA
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official CA / Wenner-Gren / UChicago Press URLs behind every fact in this pack