Submission Preflight (misq-submission)

When to trigger

• You are ready to submit and need a final compliance pass
• You are unsure which category to declare or whether you are within its page limit
• You need to prepare the transparency commitment uploaded during submission
• You want to avoid an administrative return before review

Submission channel and file

• ScholarOne Manuscripts is the only accepted submission method. Submit the manuscript as a Word (.doc/.docx) file following the MISQ Style Guide.
• No fee to submit a manuscript for review.

Declare the right category and check the page limit

Self-select the manuscript category and confirm the page count — which includes all content (text, tables, figures, references, appendices):

• Research Article — 50 pp (primary category)
• Research Notes — roughly half a Research Article
• Theory Development — 55 pp
• Theory-Generative Research Synthesis — 65 pp
• Issues and Opinions / Design Science — verify exact limits at misq.umn.edu/categories-lengths (待核实)

Over-length submissions and revisions are returned to authors, and supplementary materials are generally discouraged — all primary evidence and main claims must fit inside the page limit.

Double-anonymous compliance

MISQ uses double-anonymous review: the manuscript must contain no identifying information. Remove author names, affiliations, self-identifying citations, acknowledgements, grant numbers, and identifying site/dataset names from the main file. (Identities are known to the EIC, Senior Editor, Associate Editor, and editorial staff — never to reviewers.)

Upload the transparency commitment

MISQ's pluralistic research-transparency policy requires a transparency commitment declared/uploaded during submission (Step 2: Upload Files, under Miscellaneous). Prepare genre-appropriate documentation of the study's design, data, and analysis, plus procedures and/or code sufficient to permit replication. Consider replication badges and the AIS Transactions on Replication Research collaboration.

Accept the reviewer-service obligation

By submitting, authors agree to review up to three papers per year for the journal if invited. Be ready to honor it.

First-page and formatting check

• First page: title, abstract, and 5–10 specific keywords.
• APA 7th references; in-text citations lead with the information, not the author.
• Major heads bold/all caps/centered; subheads title case.

Checklist

• Submitting via ScholarOne as a Word (.doc/.docx) file
• Correct category declared and within its page limit (limit counts everything)
• No supplementary materials relied on to carry main evidence
• Manuscript fully anonymized (no identifying information)
• Transparency commitment prepared for Step 2 (procedures/code for replication)
• First page has title, abstract, 5–10 keywords; APA 7 / MISQ style applied
• Aware of the up-to-three-reviews-per-year service obligation

Anti-patterns

• Planning an online appendix to dodge the page limit (supplements are discouraged).
• Leaving self-identifying citations or acknowledgements in a double-anonymous file.
• Treating the transparency commitment as optional or generic rather than genre-appropriate.
• Declaring a category whose page budget the manuscript exceeds.

Submission readiness pass for MIS Quarterly

Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the IS phenomenon, artifact/platform, theory mechanism, design or empirical warrant, and managerial implication; then test whether the manuscript addresses information-systems reviewers who expect strong IS theory, digital artifact or platform grounding, and evidence with organizational consequence.

• Primary move: Verify portal, article type, anonymity, declarations, files, data/code, and current source-map facts; return blockers before formatting advice.
• Decision ledger: return claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
• Neighbor test: compare against Information Systems Research for quantitative IS, Journal of Management Information Systems for applied systems, Management Science for broader OR/MS; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
• Verification floor: before submission-ready advice, re-open resources/official-source-map.md for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.

Output format

【Channel/file】ScholarOne + Word: ready
【Category/length】declared category within limit (counts all): yes/trim
【Anonymity】no identifying info: yes/fix
【Transparency commitment】procedures/code package for Step 2: ready/gaps
【First page/style】title+abstract+5-10 keywords; APA7/MISQ: pass
【Next step】misq-review-process