Submission Preflight (spq-submission)

The last check before pressing submit on SageTrack / ScholarOne Manuscript Central. SPQ is masked, so the single most common avoidable failure is an under-blinded manuscript — which the editorial office will temporarily reject and return for reformatting. Live-check SageTrack for the current upload fields and payment prompt before relying on a saved checklist.

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
• Unsure which files/metadata SageTrack expects
• Confirming the chosen article type's caps are met and the manuscript is properly blinded

Process facts

• Owner / publisher: American Sociological Association (ASA) / SAGE.
• Portal: SageTrack / ScholarOne Manuscript Central (create an account if you have not used it for another ASA journal).
• Review model: masked / blinded — a blinded manuscript file plus a separate title page file.
• Article types: Article (≤ 10,000 words, all parts, excl. supplementary materials) and Note (≤ 5,000 words). Do not assume a Registered Reports track for SPQ unless it appears in the live SageTrack options.
• Abstract: ~150 words, non-identifying, on a separate page headed by the title; author names omitted; a few keywords after the abstract.
• Title page (separate file): full title, author(s) and affiliation(s), running head, and the approximate word count (including notes and references).
• Style: ASA Style Guide (author-date).
• Fee: $25 ASA manuscript processing fee on first submission; not charged for revised/resubmitted manuscripts or for ASA student members (via the "ASA Student Member Submission" article type). (Verified 2026-06-22; SAGE author page may 403 to automated checks — re-confirm the live fee workflow before upload.)

Preflight checklist

Type & length

• Article (≤ 10,000) or Note (≤ 5,000) chosen and its word cap met (supplementary materials excluded)
• Approximate word count (incl. notes and references) on the title page
• Abstract ~150 words, non-identifying, with keywords; author names omitted from the abstract page

Masking (blinded review)

• Blinded manuscript: no author names, affiliations, or acknowledgments in the manuscript file
• Self-citations phrased non-identifyingly (you may cite your own work, just not "as we showed…")
• Identifying file metadata stripped (document properties, comments)
• Separate title page file prepared (title, authors, affiliations, running head, word count)

Format & compliance

• ASA Style Guide formatting; consistent author-date citations
• Figures/tables self-contained and accessible (see spq-tables-figures)
• Ethics / IRB / consent / confidentiality per ASA Code of Ethics
• Data/materials posture decided and stated honestly (encouraged, not required — see spq-data-and-transparency)
• $25 processing fee ready (or student/resubmission waiver applies)

Last-mile sweep (the checks people forget)

• Acknowledgments and funding lines belong only on the separate title page — a thank-you footnote left in the manuscript file breaks masking as surely as a byline does.
• The abstract page repeats the title but never the authors; keywords sit under the abstract on that page, not only in a portal field.
• PDF conversion can resurrect stripped metadata — re-open the converted file and re-check the document properties after the final export.
• Selecting the "ASA Student Member Submission" article type is what triggers the fee waiver in SageTrack; a note to the editorial office does not.
• If the office returns an under-blinded file for reformatting, the submission clock restarts — budget days, not hours, before any deadline that matters to you.

Anti-patterns

• Leaving author identifiers in the text, acknowledgments, or file metadata (temporary rejection)
• Abstract over ~150 words, identifying, or missing keywords
• No word count on the title page
• Sending a long paper to the Note type
• Treating the data policy as a mandate, or budgeting/skipping the $25 fee incorrectly (verify waiver)

Output format

【Type】Article (≤10,000) / Note (≤5,000) — cap met? [Y/N]
【Blinded】manuscript clean + separate title page? [Y/N]
【Abstract】~150 words, non-identifying, keywords? [Y/N]
【Word count on title page】incl. notes + references? [Y/N]
【ASA style】[Y/N]
【$25 fee】paid or waiver (resubmission / ASA student) applies? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → spq-rebuttal on R&R

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference managers, blinding, and repro tooling
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official SPQ URLs behind every fact in this pack