<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGDIAL 2020 CONFERENCE</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">July 1-3, 2020</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.sigdial.org/workshops/conference21/" class="">http://www.sigdial.org/workshops/conference21/</a></span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 21st Annual Meeting of the Special Interest Group on Discourse and Dialogue (SIGDIAL 2020) will be held on July 1-3, 2020 at the Jack’s Urban Meeting Place (JUMP) in Boise, Idaho, USA.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGDIAL will be temporally co-located with ACL 2020, which will be held on July 5-10 in Seattle, Washington, USA (<a href="https://acl2020.org/" class="">https://acl2020.org/</a>). </span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The SIGDIAL venue provides a regular forum for the presentation of cutting edge research in discourse and dialogue to both academic and industry researchers. Continuing a series of nineteen successful previous meetings, this conference spans the research interest areas of discourse and dialogue. The conference is sponsored by the SIGdial organization, which serves as the Special Interest Group in discourse and dialogue for both ACL and ISCA.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(67, 67, 67); font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">IMPORTANT CHANGE FROM PREVIOUS CONFERENCES</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Multiple Submission Policy: SIGDIAL no longer accepts papers that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TOPICS OF INTEREST</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We welcome formal, corpus-based, implementation, experimental, or analytical work on discourse and dialogue including, but not restricted to, the following themes:</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discourse Processing</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Rhetorical and coherence relations, discourse parsing and discourse connectives. Reference resolution. Event representation and causality in narrative. Argument mining. Quality and style in text. Cross-lingual discourse analysis. Discourse issues in applications such as machine translation, text summarization, essay grading, question answering and information retrieval.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dialogue Systems</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Open domain, task oriented dialogue and chat systems. Knowledge graphs and dialogue. Dialogue state tracking and policy learning. Social and emotional intelligence. Dialogue issues in virtual reality and human-robot interaction. Entrainment, alignment and priming. Generation for dialogue. Style, voice, and personality. Spoken, multi-modal, embedded, situated, and text/web based dialogue systems, their components, evaluation and applications.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Corpora, Tools and Methodolog</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">y: Corpus-based and experimental work on discourse and dialogue, including supporting topics such as annotation tools and schemes, crowdsourcing, evaluation methodology and corpora.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pragmatic and/or Semantic Modeling</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Pragmatics or semantics of discourse and dialogue (i.e., beyond a single sentence).</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Applications of Dialogue and Discourse Processing Technology</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">IMPORTANT DATES</span></div><ul class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long, Short & Demonstration Paper Submission: March 6, 2020</span></div></li><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long, Short & Demonstration Paper Notification: April 26, 2020 </span></div></li><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Final Paper Submission: May 11, 2020</span></div></li><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conference: 1-3 July, 2020</span></div></li></ul><br class=""><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SUBMISSIONS</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The program committee welcomes the submission of long papers, short papers and demo descriptions. Papers submitted as long papers may be accepted as long papers for oral presentation or long papers for poster presentation. Accepted short papers will be presented as posters.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long paper submissions </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">must describe substantial, original, completed and unpublished work. Wherever appropriate, concrete evaluation and analysis should be included. Long papers must be no longer than 8 pages, including title, text, figures and tables. An unlimited number of pages is allowed for references. Two additional pages are allowed for appendices containing sample discourses/dialogues and algorithms, and an extra page is allowed in the final version to address reviewers’ comments.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Short paper submissions</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> must describe original and unpublished work. Please note that </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a short paper is not a shortened long paper</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Instead short papers should have a point that can be made in a few pages, such as a small, focused contribution; a negative results; or an interesting application nugget. Short papers should be no longer than 4 pages including title, text, figures and tables. An unlimited number of pages is allowed for references. One additional page is allowed for sample discourses/dialogues and algorithms, and an extra page is allowed in the final version to address reviewers’ comments.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demo descriptions</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> should be no longer than four pages including title, text, examples, figures, tables and references. A separate one-page document should be provided to the program co-chairs for demo descriptions, specifying furniture and equipment needed for the demo.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Authors are encouraged to also submit additional accompanying materials, such as corpora (or corpus examples), demo code, videos and sound files.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(67, 67, 67); font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Multiple Submissions</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGDIAL 2020 </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cannot accept </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">work for publication or presentation that will be (or has been) published elsewhere and</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that have been or will be submitted to other meetings or publications</span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Any questions regarding submissions can be sent to program-chairs[at]<a href="http://sigdial.org" class="">sigdial.org</a>.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blind Review</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Building on previous year’s move to anonymous long and short paper submissions, SIGDIAL 2020 will follow the ACL policies for preserving the integrity of double blind review (see author guidelines). Unlike long and short papers, demo descriptions will not be anonymous. Demo descriptions should include the authors’ names and affiliations, and </span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">self-references are allowed.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Submission Format</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All long, short, and demonstration submissions must follow the two-column ACL format. Authors are expected to use the LaTeX or Microsoft Word style template from the ACL conference. Submissions must conform to the official ACL style guidelines, which are contained in these templates. Submissions must be electronic, in PDF format.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ADOPTION OF ACL AUTHOR GUIDELINES </span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As noted above, SIGDIAL 2020 is adopting the ACL guidelines for submission and citation for long and short papers. Long and short papers that do not conform to the following guidelines will be rejected without review. </span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Preserving Double Blind Review</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The following rules and guidelines are meant to protect the integrity of the double-blind reviewing process and ensure that submissions are reviewed fairly. The rules make reference to the </span><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">anonymity period, which runs from 1 month before the submission deadline up to the date when your paper is either accepted, rejected or withdrawn.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- You may not make a non-anonymized version of your paper available online to the general community (for example, via a preprint server) during the anonymity period. By a version of a paper we understand another paper having essentially the same scientific content but possibly differing in minor details (including title and structure) or in length (e.g., an abstract is a version of the paper that it summarizes).</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- If you have posted a non-anonymized version of your paper online before the start of the anonymity period, you may submit an anonymized version to the conference. The submitted version must not refer to the non-anonymized version, and you must inform the program chair(s) that a non-anonymized version exists. You may not update the non-anonymized version during the anonymity period, and we ask that you do not advertise it on social media or take other actions that would further compromise double-blind reviewing during the anonymity period.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Note that, while you are not prohibited from making a non-anonymous version available online before the start of the anonymity period, this does make double-blind reviewing more difficult to maintain, and we therefore encourage you to wait until the end of the anonymity period if possible.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Citations and Comparison: If you are aware of previous research that appears sound and is relevant to your work, you should cite it even if it has not been peer-reviewed, and certainly if it influenced your own work. However, refereed publications take priority over unpublished work reported in preprints. Specifically:</span></div><br class=""><ul class="" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are expected to cite all refereed publications relevant to your submission, but you may be excused for not knowing about unpublished work (especially work that has been recently posted or is not widely cited).</span></div></li><li dir="ltr" class="" style="list-style-type: disc; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In cases where a preprint has been superseded by a refereed publication, the refereed publication should be cited in addition to or instead of the preprint version.</span></div></li></ul><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Papers (whether refereed or not) appearing less than three months before the submission deadline are considered contemporaneous to your submission, and you are therefore not obliged to make detailed comparisons that require additional experimentation or in-depth analysis.</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">MENTORING</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Acceptable submissions that require language (English) or organizational assistance will be flagged for mentoring, and accepted with a recommendation to revise with the help of a mentor. An experienced mentor who has previously published in the SIGDIAL venue will then help the authors of these flagged papers prepare their submissions for publication.</span></div><br class=""><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BEST PAPER AWARDS</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In order to recognize significant advancements in dialogue/discourse science and technology, SIGDIAL 2020 will include best paper awards. All papers at the conference are eligible for the best paper awards. A selection committee consisting of prominent researchers in the fields of interest will select the recipients of the awards.</span></div><br class=""><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGDIAL 2020 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">General Chair:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Olivier Pietquin, Google AI</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Program Chairs:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Smaranda Muresan, Data Science Institute, Columbia University</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yun-Nung (Vivian) Chen, National Taiwan University</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Local Chair:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Casey Kennington, Boise State University</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sponsorship Chair:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David Vandyke, University of Cambridge</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mentoring Chair:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nina Dethlefs, University of Hull</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Publication Chair:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stefan Ultes, Daimler AG, Germany</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGdial President:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gabriel Skantze, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGdial Vice President:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mikio Nakano, Honda Research Institute Japan, Japan</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGdial Secretary:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Vikram Ramanarayanan, Educational Testing Service (ETS) Research, USA</span></div><p dir="ltr" class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGdial Treasurer:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ethan Selfridge, Interactions, USA</span></div><br class=""><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SIGdial President Emeritus:</span></div><div class="" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jason Williams, Apple, USA</span></div></body></html>