Submission Preflight (aaag-submission)

The last check before pressing submit on ScholarOne Manuscripts. The Annals is double-anonymous and caps almost everything against the word limit, so the two most common avoidable failures are an under-anonymized manuscript and an over-length one. Verify volatile specifics on the official pages before relying on them (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准).

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last pass before upload
• Unsure which files/metadata ScholarOne expects, or which area/type to pick
• Confirming the chosen type's cap is met and the manuscript is properly anonymized

Process facts (verify volatile items on the official page)

• Owner / publisher: American Association of Geographers (AAG) / Taylor & Francis (Routledge).
• Portal: ScholarOne Manuscripts (via the Taylor & Francis journal page).
• Review model: double-anonymous for Articles, Special Issues, Forums, and Commentaries — by one to three referees, one of which is the editor or a designate. Commentary Responses get single-anonymous review. Anonymize the manuscript; provide a separate title page.
• Areas (four + a cross-track): declare one — Geographic Methods; Human Geography; Nature and Society; Physical Geography, Earth, and Environmental Sciences — plus a General Geography / cross-disciplinary track. A subject editor leads each area (plus a Cartography Editor), all on four-year terms; your area routes the manuscript. Current area editors (verified 2026-06-22 via AAG announcements): Human Geography — Paul Adams (since Jan 2024); Nature and Society — Brian King (since Jan 2024); General Geography / cross-discipline — Rachel Franklin (since Jan 2025); Physical Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences — Michaela Buenemann (since Jan 2025); Geographic Methods — Anthony Howell (since Jan 2026). Re-confirm on the AAG page, as terms rotate.
• Article types & caps: Article (regular) ≤ 11,000 words (incl. abstract, references, notes, tables, figure captions); Forum intro 2,500 + papers 5,000 each, ≤ 25,000 total; Commentary < 2,000 incl. references; Special-Issue papers ~5,000 words. (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准)
• Style: Chicago Manual of Style, author-date; abstract + 3-5 italicized, alphabetized keywords.
• ORCID: provide for authors (Taylor & Francis standard; verify requirement).
• Fee: no submission fee stated for standard articles; any open-access APC handled by Taylor & Francis after acceptance (待核实).

Preflight checklist

Area, type & length

• Area declared (Geographic Methods / Human / Nature and Society / Physical, Earth & Environmental / General-cross)
• Article type chosen and its cap met (Article ≤ 11,000 / Forum ≤ 25,000 / Commentary < 2,000 / Special-Issue ~5,000)
• Total word count includes abstract, references, notes, tables, and figure captions
• Abstract present + 3-5 keywords, italicized and alphabetized at the abstract's end

Anonymity (double-anonymous)

• No author names, affiliations, or acknowledgments in the manuscript
• No obvious self-references; self-citations neutralized
• Identifying file metadata stripped; study-site detail not de-anonymizing
• Separate (non-anonymous) title page prepared as a distinct file

Format, exhibits & metadata

• Chicago author-date formatting; consistent reference list
• Maps/figures meet Graphics Guidelines (projection, legend, resolution) — see aaag-tables-figures
• ORCID ready; cover letter notes the area and contribution

Compliance & data

• Ethics / IRB / consent and geoprivacy handled (see aaag-transparency-and-data)
• Data-availability statement drafted; provenance + CRS documented
• Original work; preprint status checked against Taylor & Francis policy; AI-use policy reviewed

Geography-specific anonymity trap

Double-anonymous review is harder in geography because the study site can identify the author. A single-county study by the only group working there, named field stations, or distinctive local data can de-anonymize as effectively as a name in the header. Mitigations:

• Generalize identifying site descriptors where the argument allows ("a mid-sized county in the US Southeast" rather than naming a tiny home county) — or note the unavoidable in the cover letter.
• Cite your own prior fieldwork in that site in the third person; strip acknowledgments to funders/locals.
• Remove GPS metadata and identifying coordinates from figures and attached files.

File set for ScholarOne (verify current requirements)

• Anonymized main manuscript (no identifiers, clean metadata)
• Separate, non-anonymous title page (authors, affiliations, ORCID, acknowledgments)
• Figures/maps at required resolution per the Graphics Guidelines
• Cover letter (area, contribution, fit); data-availability statement; any supplementary materials

Anti-patterns

• Counting only the body and overrunning once captions/notes/tables/refs are added
• Leaving author identifiers in text, acknowledgments, study-site detail, or file metadata
• Submitting to the wrong area (lands with the wrong editor/reviewers)
• Non-Chicago citations; missing or non-italicized keywords
• Maps that fail the Graphics Guidelines (projection/legend/resolution)

Output format

【Area / type】GeogMethods/Human/Nature&Society/Physical-Earth-Env/General-cross · Article/Forum/Commentary/Special-Issue (cap met? Y/N)
【Word count】total incl. abstract/refs/notes/tables/captions vs. cap
【Anonymized】text + self-refs + metadata + study-site detail clean? [Y/N]
【Style】Chicago author-date + 3-5 italicized keywords? [Y/N]
【Data/ethics】geoprivacy + IRB + data-availability statement? [Y/N]
【Next】await decision → aaag-rebuttal on revision

Supplementary resources

• ./templates/checklist.md — copy-paste preflight checklist
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official Annals/AAG/Taylor & Francis URLs behind every fact