ACL / EMNLP / NAACL Article

What is the ACL template?

The ACL template covers the three biggest natural language processing conferences: ACL (Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics), EMNLP (Empirical Methods in NLP), and NAACL (North American chapter). All three use the same acl.sty style file with minor option changes — write once, submit anywhere.

The Sarmate template uses the official ACL 2026 style, pre-installed on our compile server.

When should you use this template?

• You're submitting to ACL, EMNLP, NAACL, COLING, or *ACL workshops — same style.
• You're posting to arXiv a paper that will go to one of those conferences.
• Your CFP says "use the ACL author kit" — that's this template.

Step-by-step: your first ACL paper

1. Pick the right submission mode

\usepackage[review]{acl}        % Submission (anonymous, line numbers, DEFAULT)
\usepackage[final]{acl}         % Camera-ready
\usepackage[preprint]{acl}      % arXiv version (with page numbers, non-anonymous)

Default is review — anonymous with line numbers. Switch to final after acceptance, or preprint for the arXiv version.

2. Title and authors

\title{Your Paper Title}

\author{First Author \\
        Department, University \\
        City, Country \\
        \texttt{first.author@example.com} \\\And
        Second Author \\
        Department, University \\
        City, Country \\
        \texttt{second.author@example.com}}

Use \And (capital A) to separate authors at different institutions. Use \and (lowercase) for authors at the same institution. The class handles the spacing.

3. Abstract

\begin{abstract}
We present ... Our approach achieves ... on the X benchmark.
\end{abstract}

Standard abstract. ACL doesn't strictly enforce a word count, but stay under 200 words.

4. The page limit

ACL/EMNLP/NAACL allow:

• Long papers: 8 content pages + unlimited references + 1 page for limitations + 1 page for ethics statement.
• Short papers: 4 content pages + unlimited references + 1 page limitations + 1 page ethics.

References, the limitations section, and the ethics statement do not count toward the main page limit. Everything else does.

5. The required Limitations section

Since 2023, ACL papers must include a Limitations section after the conclusion:

\section*{Limitations}

We discuss assumptions and the boundaries of generalization. Our
method assumes ... and may fail when ...

Use \section* (with star) so it doesn't get a number. The Limitations section can take up to one extra page beyond your 8/4 content pages.

6. The Ethics Statement

Required for all ACL papers since 2023:

\section*{Ethics Statement}

We discuss the broader societal implications of our work. Our model is
trained on ... which may contain biases related to ...

If your work has no ethical concerns (e.g., a pure mathematical result), say so explicitly: "We see no ethical concerns with this work." Don't skip it — papers without an ethics statement are desk-rejected.

7. Citations

\bibliographystyle{acl_natbib}
\bibliography{your_bib_file}

The acl_natbib style is installed on Sarmate's compile server. ACL uses author-year citations via natbib (loaded by the style file). Use \citet and \citep:

• \citep{vaswani2017attention} → "(Vaswani et al., 2017)"
• \citet{vaswani2017attention} → "Vaswani et al. (2017)"

Common errors and how to fix them

Authors visible in submission despite [review]

Check that the option is [review], not [final]. Also check you didn't accidentally put your name in the title or in an acknowledgment block.

Bibliography style looks wrong (numbered instead of author-year)

You used \bibliographystyle{plain} instead of \bibliographystyle{acl_natbib}. The latter is what ACL uses.

Limitations section appears in the table of contents

Use \section* (with star) — that suppresses the TOC entry and the section number.

Page count overflows past 8

Verify what's counted: main content yes; references, Limitations, Ethics no. If your main body still overflows, cut content. Don't shrink fonts (the class blocks most attempts).

Compile fails with "File acl.sty not found"

On Sarmate's server, acl.sty is installed system-wide. If you see this locally, download the author kit from the conference website.

Style options worth knowing

review

Default. Anonymous submission with line numbers.

final

Camera-ready. Authors visible.

preprint

arXiv version with page numbers. Authors visible.

FAQ

Are ACL/EMNLP/NAACL the same template?

Yes — same acl.sty file. The conference name in the header changes between editions but the format is identical. Re-use your source freely.

What's a "long paper" vs "short paper"?

Long papers (8 pages) report substantial new contributions. Short papers (4 pages) report focused results, opinion pieces, or system demonstrations. Reviewers calibrate expectations differently — don't try to cram a long paper into 4 pages.

How strict is the Ethics Statement requirement?

Very. Papers without an Ethics Statement section are desk-rejected automatically. Write something — even just "We see no ethical concerns" — to satisfy the requirement.

Can I include code with my submission?

Yes, as supplementary material. ACL strongly encourages reproducibility. For double-blind, anonymize the repository (e.g., via anonymous.4open.science).

What citations format does ACL use?

Author-year via natbib. Same as NeurIPS/ICML. Use \citep and \citet.

What's the relationship between ACL and the ACL Anthology?

The ACL Anthology is the open-access archive of every paper from ACL/EMNLP/NAACL/COLING and many workshops. It's the de-facto bibliography for NLP work. Search there before assuming a paper hasn't been done.

Going further

• ACL 2026 official website — calls, deadlines, formatting rules.
• ACL Anthology — every NLP paper, freely accessible.
• acl-org/acl-style-files — official source of acl.sty.