TCAS-II Manuscript Submission Guide

The IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems—II: Express Briefs (TCAS-II) is a monthly publication with a distribution of over 11,000 copies. Its primary goal is rapid dissemination of original, timely, and significant contributions to the research community.

The targeted publication time is four months from the end of the month in which the manuscript is received, provided that the author responds immediately to all communications. In order to accomplish this, the outcome of the prompt review process will be binary: an accept, or a reject decision. Authors are strongly encouraged to submit well-prepared manuscripts that are complete and ready for publication. Only minor modifications to accepted manuscripts that do not warrant another review are allowed when indicated by the Associate Editor handling the paper.

The papers are expected to contain new results, ideas, or innovations that advance significantly the state-of-the-art in circuits and systems. Submission of a contribution is taken to imply that it has not been submitted, accepted, published, or copyrighted elsewhere. The specific technical content of submitted papers is expected to have a clear connection to the general theme of CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS, preferably and appropriately referencing prior TCAS-II and TCAS-I publications. For example, papers submitted in the SYSTEMS area that are discernibly aligned with other IEEE journals will be referred to those without a full review. Papers submitted in the CIRCUITS area that either do not demonstrate a performance advantage over prior work (commonly accompanied by measured results), or do not substantiate meaningful impact in practical existing applications or in emerging systems that are quickly gaining momentum, will also be sent back without a full review.

Manuscript Length: Papers submitted to TCAS-II are meant to be 5 pages in length in the two-column TRANSACTIONS format. Since this page limit is to be strictly followed, the authors are encouraged to use the IEEE style files here for the preparation of the manuscript.

All TCAS-II manuscript submissions must adhere to the strict page length requirement of 4.5 pages for Content and 0.5 for References (total 5 pages). The last column is reserved  ONLY for references. This is a strict formatting requirement. If any other information is present in the last column of the submission, it will be returned to the authors.

A. Submission of a Paper:

All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format:

  1. Go to https://ieee.atyponrex.com/journal/TCAS2

  2. You need to register if you are not already registered in the authors database. In this case, you will be asked to fill out a form with your name, address, e-mail address, etc. You will also be asked to provide a password.

  3. Follow the paper submission instructions on the web-page and submit your manuscript as a single PDF file.

  4. An acknowledgement e-mail will automatically be issued upon successful submission.

B. ORCID:

All IEEE journals require an Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) for all authors.  ORCIDs enable accurate attribution and improved discoverability of an author’s published work.  The author will need a registered ORCID in order to submit a manuscript or review a proof in this journal.

Follow these steps to link a ScholarOne account to a registered ORCID:

  1. Login to ScholarOne and click on your name in the top right corner of the screen.

  2. Click E-mail / Name in the dropdown menu.

  3. In the ORCID section at the top of the page, click the appropriate link to either register for a new ORCID or associate the account with an existing ORCID.

  4. A new page will open to create and/or validate your ORCID.  Once the validation is complete, the new page will close and you will return to ScholarOne.

  5. Save the changes to your ScholarOne user account.

  6. Authors who do not have an ORCID in their ScholarOne user account will be prompted to provide one during submission.

C. Style for Submission of Manuscript:

Manuscripts must follow the standard single-spaced, double-column IEEE TRANSACTIONS format, as specified here. Also, see here for style files and templates to guide the typesetting of the manuscript for submission. In addition:

  1. Provide an informative 100 to 250 word abstract, at the head of the manuscript, to appear with the paper; at least five keywords or index terms.

  2. Provide a footnote with affiliations of authors, including e-mail addresses, and acknowledgments of any financial support (see further instructions on disclosure of financial support below).

  3. Embed and properly reference all figures and tables in the manuscript.  Where possible, use vector graphics rather than pixel graphics for figures.

  4. If appropriate, provide an “Acknowledgments” section after the conclusion.  All personal financial and other interests by the authors must be acknowledged (see further instructions on disclosure of financial interest below).

  5. Make adequate and up-to-date reference to the literature, including latest TCAS-II and other IEEE articles where pertinent.  All past and “Early Access” IEEE articles are fully searchable and accessible on-line through IEEEXplore. References should appear in a separate bibliography at the end of the paper, and should be complete in IEEE style with items referred to by numerals in square brackets, e.g., [12].

  6. Manuscript Length: Papers published in TCAS-II are meant to be 5 pages in length in the two-column TRANSACTIONS format.

  7. The submission website provides further instructions about file formats and submission procedures.

D. Relationship to conference and prior publications:

Papers submitted to TCAS-II are expected to contain new results, ideas, or innovations that advance significantly the state-of-the-art. Submission is taken to manifest the fact that the contribution has not been submitted, accepted, published, or copyrighted elsewhere, with the exception of a previous conference publication under the following conditions.  TCAS-II will consider expanded versions of previously published IEEE conference publications, provided the manuscripts contain at least 30% substantive new material.  Any figures which are copied from or similar to previous figures must make explicit reference to the conference publication with a citation in the figure caption. This policy applies to non-IEEE-published conference publications as well, with the additional requirement that the authors must secure all copyright permissions for duplicate figures.  If a figure is modified rather than duplicated, the original publication must be cited in the caption as “modified from …”

E. Disclosure of financial support and author and project-related conflicts of interest:

We require the full disclosure of financial support for the project as well as any financial and personal relationships of the author that could even create the appearance of bias in the published work. The following must appear in the acknowledgments section of the paper.

  1. The acknowledgments section of the author footnote (see above) must disclose any agency or individual that provided financial support for the work, regardless of source. Examples include but are not limited to universities, governmental funding agencies, private foundations, and public and private companies.

  2. The “Acknowledgments” section after the conclusion (see above) must disclose any personal or financial or employment relationship between any author and the sources of financial support for the work. These requirements include the financial interests of the author in any company that may be licensing, patenting, or using results from the published work at the time of or prior to the date of manuscript acceptance.

  3. The editors reserve the right to ask the authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome to include in the acknowledgments a statement regarding the integrity of the work. An example statement is “The authors had full access to all of the data, devices, and materials used in this study and take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis and interpretation of outcomes.”

F. Guidelines for Submission of Graphics:

IEEE accepts PS, EPS, PDF, PNG, or TIF formats for graphics. Most graphics are published at one column width (3.5 inches or 21 picas wide) or two-column width (7.16 inches or 43 picas wide). Use the IEEE Graphics Checker Tool to check your graphics before submission.

IEEE accepts audio multimedia files in AIFF, AU, MIDI, MOV, MP3, RA, and WAV formats. Video multimedia files may be in ASF, WMA, AVI, GIF, MPEG, or MOV format. Datasets are typically provided in compressed format in TAR.GZ, TAR.Z, HQX, SIT, or ZIP format.

For more information about creating graphics, please visit the Author Center here.

G. Protection of human and animal subjects:

Internationally recognized conventions exist for the protection of human subjects and standards for animal research:

  1. If the published work utilizes human subjects, authors must indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and demonstrate that an appropriate institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

  2. If the published work utilizes animal subjects (including animal sources for in vitro research), authors must indicate whether the institutional and national guides for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. The institutional committees that provide such oversight and/or the published guidelines must be acknowledged.

H. Page Charges:

After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author’s institution will be approached with a request to pay a charge of $110 per page to cover part of the cost of publication. Color photos judged to be essential to demonstrate the results of a paper may be printed in color, but will incur extra cost on the author. Detailed instructions will accompany the page proofs.

I. Copyright:

Authors will automatically be redirected to the eCF (electronic Copyright Form) after they have submitted the final files. The eCF makes signing a publishing agreement easy. The form will determine which agreement meets your needs and enable you to complete it on-screen.

J. Electronic Form of Final Manuscript:

For the final printed production of the manuscript, the authors will need to submit source files of the manuscript as explained on the submission web-page. Make sure your files are complete including: abstract, text, references, footnotes, biographies, photos and figure captions. The preferred main formats are TeX or LaTeX. LaTeX style files can be obtained here.

K. Publication Final Materials:

The IEEE Author Center contains tools and information to assist with article preparation and submission, the article proof review process, and ordering reprints. Also included is a list of FAQ’s.

L. Open Access Option:

This publication is a hybrid journal, allowing either Traditional manuscript submission or Open Access (author-pays OA) manuscript submission. Upon submission, if you choose to have your manuscript be an Open Access article, you commit to pay the OA fees as specified in Section N below (discounts may apply), if your manuscript is accepted for publication in order to enable unrestricted public access. Any other application charges (such as over-length page charge and/or charge for the use of color in the print format) will be billed separately once the manuscript formatting is complete but prior to the publication. If you would like your manuscript to be a Traditional submission, your article will be available to qualified subscribers and purchasers via IEEE Xplore. No OA payment is required for Traditional submission.

M. Special Issues:

Special issues of these TRANSACTIONS may be proposed to the Editor-in-Chief by any individual when a new, exciting, and/or timely subject area is identified.

N. Article Processing Charges (APCs):

The Article Processing Charges (APCs) only apply to those manuscripts for which the authors have chosen to publish as open access papers and are as follows:

  • APC for articles submitted in 2024: $2,495
  • APC for articles submitted in 2025: $2,645

The following discounts apply:

  • IEEE Members receive a 5% discount
  • IEEE Society Members receive a 20% discount
  • Discounts cannot be combined
  • Discounts do not apply to undergraduate and graduate students
  • Information about IEEE's Low and Lower-middle Income Country Program is available

Some institutions offer assistance for open access funding. Check our institutional partners list to see if yours is one.