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AAAI Press Paper Source Formatting and Final
Archive Preparation for SoCS 2020

(For Authors with ACCEPTED Papers Only)

  • Deadline
  • AuthorKit
  • Preparing Your Submission Archive
    • Archive Naming Convention
    • What to Include in Your LaTeX Archive
    • What to Include in Your Word Archive
  • Page Limits and Extra Pages
  • Paper Formatting Instructions
    • LaTeX Formatting Details
    • Word Formatting Details
  • Submission Rules
  • Policy on Submitting Revised Papers After the Deadline
  • Email
  • Reformatting Fee
  • Publication Policy

1. Deadline

Deadline: Monday, 13 April 2020 at 4:59 PM (16:59) Pacific Daylight Time (UTC/GMT – 7.00 hours).

Submissions may NOT be emailed to us. The submission site is located in Los Angeles, California. It will close promptly at 16:59 (4:59 PM). You must have completed your submission by this time. We suggest you submit a few days early, because papers not submitted on time will not be published, regardless of circumstances. ABSOLUTELY NO EXTENSIONS — NO EXCEPTIONS.


2. Download the Author Kit

Authors are required to download and use the files in the latest version of the AAAI Press Author Kit. If you did not use these files, you must download them now.

  • Download the AAAI Press Author Kit

3. Preparing Your Submission Archive

Maximum Zipped Archive Size: 12 MB. (Archives must be .zip. No .tar or .rar archives will be accepted.)

Archive Naming Convention

Your compressed archive must consist of one zip file named with the following four elements:

  1. The prefix identifying your track. The prefix should contain a hyphen after the letters.
    • Long Papers — your prefix must be LP-
    • Short Papers — your prefix must be SP-
    • Extended Abstracts — your prefix must be EA-
  2. The surname (family name) of the first-named author of your paper (even if that is not you). Capitalize the first letter of the family name and lowercase the remaining letters. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS OR ALL LOWER CASE.
  3. The first initial of the given name of the first-named author of your paper (even if that is not you). This initial must be in all caps. Put a period after the initial. (If you have only one name, use the first letter of your name as the initial — e.g. MausamM.)
  4. Your EasyChair submission number.
  5. The file identification extension. This must be .zip. We will not accept any other filetypes.

Example archive file name using the SoCS Long Paper Track:

  • LP-MinskyM.1234.zip

If you do not conform to this naming convention, your paper cannot be included in the published proceedings.


What to Include in Your LaTeX Archive

You should include ONLY the following, all in the same directory:

  1. Your signed copyright file
  2. Exactly one .tex file using the naming convention (items 1-4) listed above.
  3. The bib file(s) used for your paper (required)
  4. A .bbl file
  5. One or more graphics files with a file extension .pdf or .png (no others allowed).
    • Consolidate your graphics files into as few files as possible. If you've created a table or figure that uses multiple images, compile the figure or table separately and then use the composite graphic in your paper instead. This will significantly cut the file size of your archive and make it simpler and faster to compile your paper.
    • Do not separate out the graphics files into subdirectories. They must be in the same directory as your .tex file. (Correct the links in your .tex file if necessary)
  6. A final PDF, which has been compiled using the source files in the archive you have provided to us. All fonts must have been subsetted and embedded, and the paper title and all author names as they appear in your paper must be included in the PDF document properties.

DO NOT INCLUDE ANY STYLE FILES except for aaai20.sty and aaai.bst. We require that your paper compile using the standard (2019) TeXLive installation (plus aaai20.sty and aaai.bst). If you are using old versions of some packages, you will need to update your commands and remove code dependent on obsolete packages.

DO NOT INCLUDE ANY FILES THAT AREN'T USED IN YOUR FINAL PAPER


What to Include in Your Word Archive

You should include ONLY the following, all in the same directory:

  1. Your signed copyright file
  2. Exactly one .docx file.
  3. Your final PDF in which all fonts have been subsetted and embedded, and the paper title and all author names as they appear in your paper have been included in the PDF document properties.

4. Paper Formatting Instructions

All papers (including extended abstracts), regardless of length, must include a brief abstract. There are no exceptions.

All papers must be formatted using the style files and formatting instructions found in the AAAI Press Author Kit. You are required to read the formatting instructions and prepare your paper in accordance with them:

  • Formatting Instructions for LaTeX (found in the AAAI-20 AuthorKit) — Use of aaai20.sty and aaai.bst is mandatory. Papers not using the correct style and bibliography file (including, but not limited to named.bst or aaai.sty) will be excluded from the proceedings (You will be required to resubmit your paper with the correct styles and pay a reformatting fee if you want the paper included).
  • Formatting Instructions for Word (found in the AAAI-20 AuthorKit) — Use of aaai20.docx, the embedded aaai styles, and the aaai bibliography and citation style is required.(If you don't use the correction bibliography and citation style, you will be required to resubmit your paper with the correct style and pay a reformatting fee if you want the paper included).

If your paper does not fit, you may not resort to formatting tricks to squeeze it into the proper length. We cannot accept the paper unless it strictly conforms to the formatting instructions. If your paper does not comply, it is unlikely that we will be able to fix it for you. Instead, you will be asked to reformat. A $125 formatting fee (which represents less than actual cost of processing and formatting your paper again) will be charged. You can avoid this fee by reviewing the list of common formatting errors. we've compiled, and ensuring that none of them apply to your paper.

AAAI imposes some requirements on your source and PDF files that must be followed. These requirements are as follows, and all papers submitted to AAAI for publication must comply:

  1. All fonts must be embedded in the PDF file, including those in your figures
  2. The text font must be Times or a variant thereof, and all fonts must be embedded.
  3. Text other than mathematics requiring non-Roman alphabets must be restricted to image files.
  4. Author and title metadata must be present in the PDF (for LaTeX, that means the pdfinfo fields must be properly completed for author and title)
  5. Your title must follow AAAI capitalization rules (Mixed Case, not sentence case — see below for rules). You need to follow this style in your source and in the metadata in your PDF. (Note that "are," "is," "be," "use," and "using," are all verbs. They require initial caps.)
  6. Two-column format in AAAI style is required for all papers
  7. The paper size for final submission must be US letter (for both source as well as PDF)
  8. The document margins must be as specified in the formatting instructions for Word or LaTeX found in the Author Kit. Nothing (including table rules and numbers) may intrude into any margin. Except for figures and tables that span both columns, nothing may intrude into the column gutter either, including mathematical formulae.
  9. Use of aaai20.sty and aaai.bst or aaai20.docx is required.
  10. The number of pages and the file size must be as specified for your event.
  11. No document may have password protection
  12. You may not use low resolution (> 250 dpi) files as illustrations in your document
  13. Your source must not have any page numbers, footers, or headers
  14. Your PDF must be compatible with Acrobat 5 or higher.

If your document does not comply with these basic requirements, you will be required to reformat it, and pay a reformatting fee.

AAAI Capitalization Style

  1. Always capitalize the first and last word of any title, and the first word following a colon. (See below for the words in between!)
  2. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs (including be, is, use, using, etc.) regardless of number of letters.
  3. Do not capitalize articles, prepositions (even lengthier ones such as between, among, and throughout), or coordinating conjunctions.

LaTeX Formatting Details

Once you have assembled your final directory, please compile your .tex file. (Use PDFLaTeX only. (This is the only version of TeX we will support — if you've use LuaTeX or XeTeX, or some other open source or commercial version of TeX, we will be unable to publish your paper.) Check the resulting log file for any overfull boxes and fix all of them. (If you use the hints listed below for graphics and tables, you can easily avoid most overfull boxes.)

Your .tex source must be as simple as possible. Do not include unused style files, and do not include large areas of commented out text, or conditional statements for various versions. (You may be required to reformat and pay the reformatting fee if your source is cluttered with extraneous text or scripted).

All .tex source files must include the following elements:

  1. In your preamble you must include the following style files:
    • \def\year{2020}\relax
      \documentclass[letterpaper]{article}
      \usepackage{aaai20}
      \usepackage{times}
      \usepackage{helvet}
      \usepackage{courier}
      \usepackage{url}
      \usepackage{graphicx}
      \frenchspacing
      \setlength{\pdfpagewidth}{8.5in}
      \setlength{\pdfpageheight}{11in}
    • \setcounter{secnumdepth}{0} %Change to 1 if you want section numbers.
  2. We will support some basic packages found the the TeXLive 2019 installation. This includes many common mathematics packages. If you are using Blackboard bold, be especially careful that you use recent packages that call for type 1 fonts. If your source creates PDFs that embed type 3 fonts, it cannot be published.
  3. Packages and Commands that May Not Be Used
    Please note that any package or command that globally alters floats, space above and below figures and tables, linespacing, fontsize or other basic settings of aaai20.sty is forbidden. Some common examples (but by no means all) include the following:
    • \usepackage{authblk}
    • \usepackage{balance}
    • \usepackage{caption}
    • \usepackage{CJK etc. (We do not support non-roman alphabets. If you need to include Cyrillic or Arabic or Chinese, Japanese Vietnamese, Thai, or Korean language characters, they must be created outside LaTeX and included as PDF or png graphics)
    • \usepackage{flushend}
    • \usepackage{hyperref}(or any other package that inserts links or bookmarks, whether visible or not)
    • \usepackage{lmodern}
    • \usepackage{natbib} (the formatting instructions include a workaround if you've used natbib commands)
    • \usepackage[{titlesec}
    • \usepackage{wrapfig}
    • \abovedisplayskip
    • \addtolength{\textfloatsep}
    • \addtolength
    • \baselineskip
    • \belowdisplayskip
    • \break
    • \clearpage
    • \clip(may not be used to crop figures)
    • \columsep
    • \hyphenpenalty (May not be used to disable hyphenation)
    • \include
    • \input
    • \intextsep
    • \newpage Do not include a page break between the end of the text of the paper and the references
    • \nocopyright
    • \pagebreak
    • \pagestyle{plain}
    • \renewcommand (in almost all instances, particularly when used to alter floats, baseline stretch, or otherwise used to squeeze text)
    • \renewcommand{\baselinestretch}
    • \renewcommand{\dblfloatpagefraction}
    • \renewcommand{\dblfloatpagefraction}
    • renewcommand{\floatpagefraction}
    • \setlength (except for titlebox when used to increase space and eliminate an overfull box)
    • \textfloatsep
    • \thispagestyle{plain}
    • \tiny (type is too small)
    • \titlespacing
    • \topmargin (or addsidemargin or evensidemargin)
    • \trim (may not be used to crop figures)
    • \vskip (when used before or after a section, subsection, figure, or table)
    • \vspace(when used before or after a section, subsection, figure, or table)
  4. PDF Info is also required. These fields are not parsed by LaTeX; they are directly passed through to the metadata fields in the PDF. Consequently, you may not include ANY LaTeX coding (including, but not limited to accents) in these fields, nor may they be scripted in any way). Please include \pdfinfo data exactly as reproduced below, substituting only the bold-faced items for your complete paper title and all your author names (without any accents) as they appear on your paper. (Substitute only the bold-faced items below. Leave everything else as is, including the parentheses.)
    • \pdfinfo{
      /Title (Complete Paper Title Using Mixed Case Exactly As It Appears in Your Paper)
      /Author (Include All Your Author Names (without accents) on Your Paper)}
  5. Title and Author Information must be presented as detailed in the author formatting instructions. You may not use any packages for this data, nor may you script them in any way or substitute a tabular environment. If you have many authors and affiliations, present the information in the following manner:
    • \title{Ensuring User Privacy in\\ Social Media Posting Data Sources}
      \author{
      John Wang,\textsuperscript{\rm 1}
      Gerald Jones,\textsuperscript{\rm 2}
      Xiaojuan Yang,\textsuperscript{\rm 3}
      Xiao Liu,\textsuperscript{\rm 4}
      Katherine Ross\textsuperscript{\rm 1}\\
      \textsuperscript{\rm 1}The XYZ University,
      \textsuperscript{\rm 2}The Company\\
      \textsuperscript{\rm 3}University of Artificial Intelligence,
      \textsuperscript{\rm 4}Country University of Finance and Economics\\
      author1@lab.org, author2@gmail.com, author3@university.edu.
      author4@mail.company.cn, author5@nonprofit.org
      }
    • Note that putting the comma before the superscripts saves considerable space and enhances readability. Also please note that AAAI does not allow the use of \tt for emails or urls. If your author list exceeds one line put a break (\\) and then put \bf \Large on the next line.
  6. Directly after your title and author information, please include the following:
    • \begin{document}
      \maketitle
      \begin{abstract}
  7. Graphics should be included as follows:
    • \includegraphics[width=.95\columnwidth]{figurefilename}
      Do not use actual measurements. Let LaTeX do the work. (Substitute \textwidth with \columnwidth (and adjust the value) for double-column figures).
    • Do not use trim or clip in your \includegraphics statement. Figures must be cropped outside LaTex.
    • You may not use minipage in conjunction with graphics.
  8. Tables should be resized as follows:
    • If single column tables are too wide, use \resizebox{.95\columnwidth}{!}{
      }(Use \columnwidth and adjust the value for double-column tables). Please note that, to ensure readability, your tables after reduction may not be smaller than 8 point type.
  9. Do not change the font size or font style of the caption. They must be as rendered in aaai20.sty (roman, not italic).
  10. References must be formatted using only aaai.bst. (If you use named.bst or some other reference style, we will be unable to publish your paper
  11. You can save space if you put your figures at the top of the page
  12. Figure and table caption size and font style may not be altered.
  13. Text must be rendered in black. Use of color must be restricted to figures.
  14. Use of non-roman fonts (other than for mathematics) in the text is not allowed.

Word Formatting Details
  • Formatting Basics
    • Your paper must have a uniform appearance. Word users must use all the custom styles we have created for you in the Word style template including Abstract Head, Abstract Text, Affiliation and Address, Author Name, Extract, Figure Caption (use for tables too), Paper Title, References, Section Heading, Subsection Heading, subsubsection Heading, Text, and Text-Indent. If you do not use these styles for your entire paper, we won't be able to process your paper and you will be required to resubmit.
    • No material may appear in any margin, including the top, bottom, and side margins. Resize all graphics and text if necessary so that the margins are straight and clean. (Not fixing this will automatically trigger a reformatting request and subsequent charge). In addition, single column text and graphics and tables may not intrude into the gutter between the two columns.
    • Do not delete the space above the title shown in the Word template. It is required.
    • All columns must be justified, including references.
    • Your paper (and the PDF you supply) must be US letter size. It will be rejected if it is A4.
    • Your document may not contain any tracked changes
    • You must strictly follow the author-year citation scheme, and AAAI reference style.
  • Graphics
    • Tables and figures must have at least one carriage return above and below the figure when there is adjacent text.
    • Resize all figures and tables so that they do not intrude into the margins or gutter. Tables and figures that span both columns may not intrude into the top, bottom, or side margins. (Not fixing this will automatically trigger a reformatting request and subsequent charge).
  • Copyright Notice
    • The AAAI copyright notice (which is included in the Word Template) must be present (it is not a regular footnote).
    • If your paper doesn't contain the copyright notice, please open aaai.docx (found in the AAAI AuthorKit). In the first column, under the Abstract, is an example heading: "Deleting this Example of a Section Heading will Remove the Copyright Line." After the word Line, there are two spaces. Copy them, then paste them into the first heading on your own paper under the abstract. The copyright line will be inserted.
  • Links and URLs
    • PDFs and Word source must not be set up to contain any embedded links or bookmarks. No colored text or underlined URLs may be present in your paper.
  • Fonts
    • Your PDF may not contain any unembedded fonts.
    • Times Roman or Times New Roman must be used exclusively in all AAAI Press Word papers. Using the embedded style sheets in aaai.docx will help ensure that this happens. If you used New York, or Palatino, or some other font, please note that we will be unable to publish your paper.
  • Metadata
    • Your PDF must include metadata. It can be added in Acrobat by going to file -->properties-->description and typing in the title and author information. (Older versions of Acrobat may have a different location for the window; check with Adobe if you are unsure.)
  • References and Citations
    • Citations must be formatted in accordance with AAAI style (author-year style). AAAI does not use numbers for citations.
    • References must be as specified in the Word Formatting for Authors file. References must be alphabetical by surname of first author and be presented in a block style. The Word formatting instructions provide examples (no exceptions or substitutions), and the built-in style sheet in aaai20.doc must be used to achieve the proper display.
  • Titles
    • Please capitalize the initial letters of all words in your title except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions (including both words in hyphenated terms). You need to do this in your source and in the metadata in your PDF. Note that "are," "is," "be," "use," and "using," are all verbs. They require initial caps.
    • The word template specifies the amount of space that must be left blank above your title (two carriage returns of space). That space must be retained in your final paper.

A list of common formatting errors is appended here. It also appears in the Author Formatting Instructions.


5. Submission Rules

Please do not submit your archive until you are absolutely certain that your paper is ready to be published, and that your submission is accurate and complete.


The page limits are 8+1 pages for long papers, 4+1 pages for short papers. Extended abstracts may be no more than 2 pages long. - Extra pages can be purchased for $275/page. Long papers can add up to 2 extra pages. Short papers can add up to 1. Extra page invoices can be found in the Author Kit. Invoices must accompany all papers with extra pages.

6. Policy on Submitting Corrections and Late Papers

Revisions of papers submitted after the paper deadline will not be accepted. Consequently, you should proofread your paper carefully, and more than once. It also helps if your coauthors also check the paper for errors. Be certain that you have included your acknowledgements and double check that if you've included any, your grant number(s) are correct. These errors (along with all others) cannot be corrected after the deadline.

No late papers may be accepted. This policy will be enforced without exception.


7. Email

Because of the high volume of email that we receive, we regret we cannot respond to requests for verification of receipt of your paper archive. Please also note that AAAI Press will not accept unsolicited email containing attachments. Do not email your paper to us. If you have a question regarding your paper that is not answered here or in the Author formatting instructions, and is not related to receipt of your archive, please contact us at the email address that will be provided to you with your submission url.


8. Reformatting Fee

If you have not successfully formatted your paper, the production house may require you to make changes to your paper. Because of the significant expense involved in redoing papers, you will be required to pay a reformatting fee. You may do so online at the following URL:

  • Reformatting Fee.

9. Publication Policy

All conference papers are governed by the AAAI Publications Ethics and Malpractice Statement and AAAI Publications Policy.

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