Call for Papers Best Practices: How to Write a CFP That Gets Quality Submissions

A call for papers (CFP) is how a conference communicates what it wants from prospective contributors. A well-written CFP attracts relevant, high-quality submissions. A poorly written one generates off-topic work, confused authors, and a program committee that spends its review time on papers that should never have been submitted. This guide covers what makes a CFP work — from writing the scope to setting deadlines to distributing the announcement.

What a CFP Must Do

Every CFP has three jobs:

1. Define the scope. Tell potential authors what work is in scope and what is not. Vague scope language produces off-topic submissions. Specific scope language — naming topics, methods, and perspectives you want — produces better-targeted submissions and saves reviewer time.
2. Specify the submission requirements. Word or page limits, formatting requirements, anonymization rules, file format, and how to submit. Ambiguity here creates author questions that clog your inbox and produce non-compliant submissions that have to be desk-rejected.
3. State the timeline. Submission deadline, review notification date, camera-ready deadline (for proceedings), and conference dates. Authors need to know whether they can realistically participate before they invest time in a submission.

Writing the Conference Scope

The scope section is the most important part of a CFP and the most commonly written badly. Two failure modes:

Too broad: “We welcome submissions on all topics related to [field].” This tells authors nothing. It produces a wide range of submissions that your reviewers are not qualified to evaluate, and a program that lacks coherence.

Too narrow: A 12-item topic list where every item is a sub-sub-specialty. Authors whose work falls between topics conclude they are not welcome and do not submit.

A useful scope section has two parts:

• A one-paragraph statement of what the conference is about and the intellectual questions it addresses. This is the “why submit here” paragraph.
• A topic list of 6 to 12 representative topic areas, framed as examples rather than an exhaustive list (“Topics include but are not limited to:”).

Name the things you do want, not just the things you do not want. If your conference specifically seeks empirical work, say so. If theoretical contributions are welcome, say that too. If you have a theme for this year's edition, put it in the scope statement — authors who find the theme compelling will write to it.

Submission Types and Formats

Many conferences accept multiple submission types with different requirements. If you do, define each type explicitly. Common submission types:

• Full papers (8 to 15 pages): peer-reviewed, included in proceedings, oral presentation. High bar for acceptance; most competitive track.
• Short papers / extended abstracts (2 to 4 pages): lower bar, often oral or poster presentation. Good for work-in-progress or preliminary findings.
• Posters (1 to 2 page abstract): accepted on scope and relevance rather than contribution quality. Interactive presentation format.
• Workshops and tutorials (separate application): half- or full-day sessions with their own organizers. Usually a separate CFP process with different reviewers.
• Industry talks / practitioner sessions (abstract only): for speakers presenting real-world applications rather than research findings.

If you have multiple tracks, each track should have its own acceptance criteria stated in the CFP. Authors who do not know what bar they are being held to cannot write to it.

Setting Deadlines That Authors Will Hit

Three deadline principles that matter:

Give authors enough runway. Most conference submissions require 2 to 4 weeks of writing time after the author decides to submit. Your CFP announcement should go out at least 8 to 10 weeks before the submission deadline. Twelve weeks is better for major conferences. Authors who learn about a conference with 3 weeks to the deadline typically do not have time to produce a good submission.

Do not set deadlines around major holidays. Deadlines on December 20, December 31, July 3, or other dates adjacent to holidays produce late submissions and extension requests. A deadline on the second or third Friday of the month at a specific time (23:59 Anywhere on Earth is standard in academic CS) is predictable and fair.

Build in a 1 to 2-week buffer for abstract registration vs. full submission.Many conferences require authors to register their abstract (title, authors, short summary) 1 to 2 weeks before the full paper deadline. This gives the program chair a headcount and allows reviewer assignment to begin before all papers are in. Abstract registration deadlines have lower no-show rates when the full submission deadline is clearly stated alongside them.

Anonymization and Review Policy

State your review policy explicitly. Do not assume authors know your norms.

Single-blind (reviewers know authors): State this. Authors do not need to anonymize their submissions.

Double-blind (neither party knows the other): State this explicitly with instructions for what to remove. Authors must remove their names, institutional affiliations, and any self-identifying references from the submission body. Include instructions for how to cite their own prior work without revealing authorship (usually “[CITATION]” as a placeholder).

If you accept pre-prints (work previously posted to arXiv or similar repositories), state whether submitting a pre-print violates anonymization. Many conferences explicitly permit pre-prints and ask reviewers not to search for them.

Writing the Submission Instructions

Author questions about submission logistics represent hours of program chair inbox time. Every question that could have been answered in the CFP is a failure of the CFP. Specify:

• File format (PDF required; DOCX not accepted is a common clarification)
• Template or style guide (link to the template directly)
• Page limits (does this include references? figures? appendices?)
• Supplemental materials policy (are they allowed? reviewed? optional?)
• Multiple submission policy (can authors submit multiple papers?)
• Dual submission policy (is simultaneous submission to another venue allowed?)
• Previously published work policy (is work that appeared at a workshop eligible?)
• Submission system and URL (link directly, do not make authors find it)

Distributing the CFP

A CFP that does not reach potential authors does not produce submissions. Distribution channels by field:

• Email lists and listservs. Most academic fields have disciplinary mailing lists where CFP announcements are standard. Find the 3 to 5 most active lists in your area and post there. For interdisciplinary conferences, post to lists in each relevant area.
• Conference websites and social media. Post to your own site and share on LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Mastodon (increasingly used in academic communities). Tag relevant professional organizations and societies.
• WikiCFP. A widely used aggregator for academic conference CFPs. Free to list. Many researchers have automated alerts set up for their topic areas.
• Direct invitations to established researchers. For a new or growing conference, personal invitations from the program chairs to 10 to 20 established researchers in the area — with a request to forward to colleagues — produce higher-quality submissions than any broadcast channel.
• Your institution's internal channels. Department newsletters, graduate student listservs, and faculty email lists for institutions where program committee members work.

Handling the Extension Request

You will receive extension requests. How you handle them signals something about the conference culture.

A blanket extension (extending the deadline for all authors by 1 to 2 weeks) is sometimes appropriate when there is a legitimate external reason — a major conference in the field just announced with an overlapping deadline, or a disaster affecting a key region of your author community. Announce it as a single extension with a firm new date. Announce it to all authors, not just requesters. Do not extend again.

Individual extensions are rarely appropriate and create equity problems. If you extend for one author with a compelling reason, you are obligated to extend for all who ask. The simpler policy is: the deadline is the deadline, extensions are not available, and late submissions are not reviewed.

Stating your extension policy in the CFP (e.g., “Deadlines are firm. Extensions will not be granted.”) significantly reduces extension requests.

After the Deadline: Author Communication

Authors who submitted should receive three communications:

1. Submission confirmation. Immediately after submission, automated confirmation with submission ID and title. Authors need to know the system received their work.
2. Review decision. Accept, conditional accept, or reject — with reviewer comments. The decision email should state any next steps (camera-ready deadline, presenter confirmation deadline).
3. Presenter confirmation request. Accepted authors should confirm their intent to present within 2 weeks of notification. Track this explicitly — no-show presenters at conferences are avoidable with a confirmation step.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a call for papers be?

800 to 1,500 words covers most conferences adequately. A CFP longer than 2,000 words typically buries important information in excessive text. Use headers, bullet points, and bold formatting to make key information (deadlines, page limits, submission link) scannable — most authors read CFPs the way they read any web page: they scan before they read.

When should I send the call for papers?

At minimum, 8 to 10 weeks before the submission deadline. 12 to 16 weeks is better for conferences where authors need to plan travel or coordinate co-authors across time zones. For annual conferences, distributing the CFP at the previous year's conference creates awareness even before the formal announcement goes out.

What is “Anywhere on Earth” (AoE) deadline?

AoE (UTC−12) is the most permissive timezone interpretation of a deadline — the deadline has not passed anywhere on Earth until it passes at UTC−12. For example, a deadline of “January 15, 23:59 AoE” means authors have until January 16 at 11:59 AM UTC. AoE is standard in computer science CFPs because it is unambiguous and fair to authors in all timezones.

Should I require an abstract registration before the full submission deadline?

For larger conferences (expected 100+ submissions), abstract registration 1 to 2 weeks before the full submission deadline is helpful for planning reviewer assignments. It also catches authors who intend to submit but procrastinate — having registered an abstract makes them more likely to follow through. For smaller conferences, abstract registration adds coordination overhead without much benefit.

How do I write a CFP for a new conference with no track record?

Emphasize the program committee. A list of respected researchers who have agreed to review signals that the conference is credible and that submitted work will receive expert evaluation. Include the names and affiliations of program committee members in the CFP. For a first-year conference, the PC list does more to attract submissions than the scope statement.

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