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I am new really to submitting papers for publication. I have an upcoming deadline for a conference. My paper seems to fit the guidelines for a long paper but it is closer to short paper length than long paper length.

  • How could I submit it?
  • Could I submit it as both a long paper and short paper?
  • If I submit is as a long paper, could it be accepted as a short paper if it were rejected as a long paper?
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    @Sverre In many fields (for example my own, electrical engineering), accept/reject decisions for conferences are made on the basis of the full paper, not an abstract. You submit the full paper (before the submission deadline) to the program committee, who arrange for peer review and then decide which submissions to accept based on the reviews. Accepted papers are published in the conference proceedings.
    – ff524
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 18:18
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    @Sverre Yeah, what ff524 says is true for me as well
    – demongolem
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 18:18
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    I'd recommend mentioning the field of research in the question, then, since questions of this type cannot be answered by people in fields like mine where this doesn't occur (I don't even know what this short vs. long paper business is about).
    – Sverre
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 18:21
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    @Sverre In computer science, you don't just submit an abstract to a conference: you submit a paper (typically a 10-12 page cut-down version). That paper will appear in the conference proceedings; you can then submit the full version to a journal. (Having said that, this doesn't sound like compsci as I'm not aware of any compsci conferences that have "long" and "short" papers.)
    – David Richerby
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 19:20
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    @DavidRicherby In Software Engineering, all conferences have short paper tracks (sometimes under different names, though - e.g., Work-In-Progress Papers, etc.).
    – xLeitix
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 20:41

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How could I submit it?

The length guidelines are generally for maximum length. You can submit a "long paper" that is shorter than the maximum length allowed for a long paper.

I've published papers 25% under limit without any comments from reviewers on the length. If there is enough original research content for consideration as a full paper, you should be OK.

However, you should consider whether it actually is substantial enough for a full-length paper if it's so short (your advisor can help you make this determination).

Whatever you do, don't pad the paper with unnecessary text (fluff) and/or giant images to fill pages so it looks longer. This lowers the quality of your paper. (As a reviewer, I have seen authors do this and it looks terrible.) If you decide you need to add to your paper to make it substantial enough to be a long paper, then you have to add substantial content.

Could I submit it as both?

Not unless the conference explicitly says this is allowed (usually it isn't). Submitting the same (or a similar) paper as both a long and short paper will get both papers rejected as duplicate submissions.

If I submit is as long could it be accepted as short if it were rejected as long?

This depends on the conference. It will either say something like, "Rejected long papers will not be considered as short papers" or "Rejected long papers may be considered as short papers."

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    +1, just to add that submitting a full-length paper that's significantly under a page limit is, in my experience, extremely rare and will not look good to reviewers (unless your paper is somehow exceptional!).
    – badroit
    Commented Apr 11, 2014 at 18:27

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