Submission Preflight (sf-submission)

The last check before pressing submit on ScholarOne Manuscript Central (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sf). SF is double-anonymized, so the most common avoidable failures are an under-anonymized manuscript and a manuscript that misses the reference-inclusive 10,000-word cap or the 10-panel exhibit limit. Verify volatile specifics on the official page before relying on them.

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
• Unsure which files/metadata ScholarOne expects
• Confirming length, panel count, anonymization, and the data availability statement are all in order

Process facts (verify volatile items on the official page)

• Owner / publisher: UNC Chapel Hill (Dept. of Sociology) / Oxford University Press.
• Portal: ScholarOne Manuscript Central (mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sf); Word or .odt.
• Review model: double-anonymized — anonymize the manuscript; all identifying info on a separate title page.
• Length: ≤ 10,000 words including text, endnotes, and references (references count).
• Exhibits: ≤ 10 tables and figure panels; supplementary materials ≤ 10 pages.
• Style: Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. (author-date) required at final submission.
• Data availability statement: required for publication (see sf-data-and-transparency).
• ORCID: encouraged for authors at submission.
• Fee: $50 non-refundable processing fee ($20 for manuscripts written solely by students); no page charges (post-acceptance OA APCs apply only if you choose Creative Commons — 待核实 amounts). (Fee/no-page-charges verified 2026-06-22; re-confirm current OUP amounts before payment.)

Preflight checklist

Length & exhibits

• ≤ 10,000 words including text, endnotes, AND references (recount with references)
• ≤ 10 tables and figure panels total (count multi-panel figures by panel)
• Supplementary materials ≤ 10 pages
• Abstract present, in English, no references (length 待核实 — ~150-200 words is safe)

Anonymity (double-anonymized)

• No author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, or funding details in the manuscript
• All identifying info on a separate title page file
• No obvious self-references; self-citations neutralized
• Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties)
• Funding sources entered in the ScholarOne fields (not the manuscript)

Format & metadata

• Chicago 17th author-date formatting; one consistent citation style
• ORCID ready for authors
• Figures/tables self-contained and accessible (see sf-tables-figures)

Compliance & files

• Data availability statement drafted and included
• Ethics / IRB / consent (incl. consent to publish data) addressed; data anonymized
• $50 processing fee ready ($20 if student-only) — payable by card

Anti-patterns

• Counting words without references and missing the real 10,000-word cap
• Discovering an 11th panel at upload (count panels, not figures)
• Leaving acknowledgements/funding/self-references in the manuscript (breaks anonymity)
• Formatting to ASA or an in-house style instead of Chicago 17th author-date
• Submitting without the required data availability statement
• Budgeting the wrong fee (it is $50 / $20-student, not ASR's $25 or AJS's $30)

Desk-reject triage before upload

Most avoidable SF declines at the screening stage are format and anonymity failures, not science failures. Triage in priority order — the first failure a screener sees ends the submission before review:

Calibration (hedged): the fee is reported as roughly $50 ($20 student-only), the portal is ScholarOne, and the style is Chicago 17th author-date — fees, abstract limits, and OA terms are the volatile items to confirm against current guidelines.

Worked vignette (illustrative)

A work-and-occupations manuscript looks "ready" at 9,700 words of text. The preflight catches what a screener catches first: the reference list adds 1,100 words, pushing the true count to 10,800 (illustrative, over cap); a 3-panel figure plus eight tables makes 11 panels; and an acknowledgements footnote names a grant. Fix: trim citations under 10,000, fold two tables into one for 10 panels, and move the acknowledgement to the title page. Now it survives.

Referee fixes: "desk-rejected for length" → recount with references and endnotes; "anonymity compromised" → strip file metadata and neutralize self-citations to "Author (year)".

Output format

【Length】≤ 10,000 words INCLUDING references? [Y/N] (count)
【Exhibits】≤ 10 tables + figure panels? supplement ≤ 10pp? [Y/N]
【Anonymized】text + self-refs + metadata clean; title page separate? [Y/N]
【Chicago 17th + ORCID】[Y/N]
【Data availability statement】included? [Y/N]
【Fee】$50 / $20-student ready? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → sf-rebuttal on R&R

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference managers, anonymization, repro tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official Social Forces URLs behind every fact in this pack