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How to submit a paper

arXiv posting

To submit a paper to the journal, you first need to post it to arXiv, formatted in LaTeX. (Do not use ToCTeX formatting (ToC style).) Select the CC-BY license when prompted. If you have difficulty with this part of the process, contact the editors at . You will get an arXiv identifier, like "arXiv:1812.08731" and a version number, like "v1". The full arXiv identifier combines these two elements, like "arXiv:1812.08731v1" (no space).

The cover letter

Once the paper has been posted on arXiv, send a cover letter in plain text by email to with the following content:

Subject: ToC cover letter [full arXiv identifier]

Body of cover letter:

• The full arXiv identifier
• The title of the paper
• Author names, in the form "Family name, Given names plus initials". Separate the names by "and" (no comma). Use ascii characters only; use TeX code for accents. Mark the corresponding author by an asterisk. Examples:
  • Li, Cedric Yen-Yu* and de Oliveira Filho, Fernando Mario [O]
  • Chl{\'a}mta{\v c}, Eden and Jayram, T. S.*
  • Le Gall, Fran{\c c}ois [L]* and de Wolf, Ronald [W]
  (Brackets: alphabetic position if not the first letter in the family name or if the family name is composite.)
• Affiliation and email address for each author
• The length of the paper in normal 11pt TeX pages
• A list of editors whose interests are close to the subject of the article
• Name(s) of editor(s) with whom you have discussed this paper (optional)
• If a conference version of this paper exists or is being planned, please state conference status (name, date of conference, submission/acceptance/publication status of paper) and give a link to the conference version; otherwise state: "no conference version." (Please inform the editors if the conference status of the paper changes while the paper is in the editorial process.)
• Are you aware of a competing paper? A "competing paper" is a paper that makes an independent claim for one of your main results. (Please inform the editors if a competing paper comes to your attention during the editorial process.)
• Please include the following submission statement.
  "The authors of the paper identified as [full arXiv identifier] ("the Work") submit the Work for possible publication in "Theory of Computing" ("the Journal"). The author(s) of the Work agree that if the (revised) Work is accepted for publication in the Journal, then
  • the (revised) Work will be published under the Journal's Copyright Policy, including the Agreement therein.
  • upon acceptance of the (revised) Work for publication, the authors will share the Work's arXiv credentials with the Journal's Editors to enable the Editors to post an authentic copy of the (revised) Work on arXiv as a version of the original Work.
  I, the corresponding author, warrant that all authors have been advised and have consented to the terms of the Agreement and I act as duly authorized agent of the other authors." [You may omit the last sentence in case of a single author.]
• Any submission purporting to solve a long-standing open problem in complexity theory must follow our P/NP policy (below).

Final typesetting

If the paper is accepted, you will need to edit the paper in ToCTeX format.

P/NP policy

Theory of Computing has adopted a variant of JACM's P/NP policy. Here is the text of our policy.