Call for Papers

• September 1st 2023: Paper submission deadline

• October 6th 2023: Notification of acceptance

• October 18th 2023: Camera ready papers due

• December 7th 2023: Big Picture Workshop at EMNLP 2023

All submission dates are AoE.

We welcome the following three types of papers for the workshop (but other topics that are similar in spirit are also welcome):

• Cross-lab collaborations – papers reconciling or distilling findings from different groups. Often different labs publish work on similar topics. However, there are almost always differences between such works, and familiarity with the precise differences and similarities is mainly limited to the original authors. In many cases, papers produce seemingly contradictory findings, or authors may register strong disagreements, which may be able to be clarified or reconciled through examination and discussion of the different approaches. Example topics that could benefit from such discussions include the question of how to measure bias in models and whether template-based datasets are sufficient [Nangia et al., 2020, Nadeem et al., 2021], which was debated in subsequent work [Blodgett et al., 2021]; how to measure social ethics and norms in models [Jiang et al., 2021] and whether we should even try doing so [Talat et al., 2022]; or whether language models can learn meaning solely from textual inputs [Bender and Koller 2020]. We encourage researchers to seek out and collaborate with researchers working in the same area, and to submit papers reporting the findings from these collaborations or discussions.

• Thesis-like papers – papers distilling a larger body of work from a given researcher. This category is particularly geared toward advanced PhD students (or recent graduates) who have a body of work on which their dissertation is, or will be, based. This workshop provides an opportunity for such researchers to distill their research contributions into a single coherent and concise story that conveys the bigger picture of their dissertation. Compared to existing venues such as doctoral consortiums or student research workshops, we encourage submitters not just to share a polished narrative of their work, but to highlight the limitations of early work, the surprising insights, and the lessons learned.

• Within-lab collaborations – papers distilling a larger body of work from a given research group. Principal investigators typically receive grants (e.g. ERC, NSF, etc.) to work on certain topics and applications, and have multiple students, collaborators, or employees who execute the larger research vision. This workshop provides an opportunity for such researchers and research groups to reflect on the work they have completed, to convey the larger story emerging from their body of work, and to let the community know what worked, what did not, and what comes next. Since these projects are not often discussed with the wider community, except in individual papers or in some invited talks, this venue will provide an opportunity to convey this larger narrative. 

Feel free to reach out to the organizers if you are not sure whether a specific topic is well-suited for submission.

Submission Instructions

We collect submission through OpenReview.

• Notice that you must have an OpenReview account in order to submit a paper.

Format: Please use the EMNLP23 proceedings format.

Archival papers of up to 8 pages + references + appendix. These are papers reporting on completed, original, and unpublished research. Note that submitted papers should not be standard conference papers but should be associated with one of the categories described above.

Paper submissions are non-anonymous. Aiming to preserve anonymity may make it harder to reference and discuss one's own work. As we expect submissions to discuss work completed by the authors, we opt for non-anonymous submissions so that authors can focus on the substance and clarity of the presentation.

Accepted papers are expected to be presented at the workshop and will be published in the workshop proceedings of the ACL Anthology, meaning they cannot be published elsewhere. They should report on obtained results rather than intended work. 

Accepted submissions will be presented at the workshop as posters or as oral presentations (determined by the program committee).

Dual submissions are not allowed.

Camera-ready information

Authors of accepted archival papers should upload the final version of their paper to the submission system by the camera-ready deadline. Authors may use one extra page to address reviewer comments, for a total of nine pages + references (an optional broader impacts or ethics statement is allowed on a 10th page).