Suggested Guidelines for Describing the Status of Publications
For preparation of Professional Information Files and curriculum vitas and for the subsequent review of these by the recommending bodies, it is essential that all members of the Michael D. Eisner College of Education adopt a common vernacular for the status of publications. This glossary identifies the status of publications from initial ideation to final publication. According to the APA Publication Manual (2009, p. 211) “Unpublished work includes work that is in progress, has been submitted for publication, or has been completed but not submitted for publication. This category also includes work that has not been formally published but is available on a personal or institutional websites, an electronic archive such as ERIC, or a preprint archive.” Typically this is shown as:
Author, A. A. (year). Title of the manuscript. Unpublished manuscript [or “Manuscript submitted for publication ...” or Manuscript in preparation].
Please refer to the APA Manual (2009) on pages 211-215 for information regarding newspapers, blogs, photographs, etc.
In addition, as a College Personnel Committee we are very interested in knowing the status of your work in an even more elaborated way to understand your development as a scholar and ultimately to help support your research efforts. With these goals in mind, we are standardizing the use of terms so that we use a common language to understand your progress in publishing. We have adopted the common phrase of “a paper or chapter” but this can refer to a book in progress or other scholarly works, such as monographs. Note that steps 1-6 are “in progress” until an acceptance letter has been received (step 7).
- Conceptualization – this is the very initial stages of working on a paper, it is the general thinking about the problem. Usually some background reading, observation, and potential theory development occur at this first phase. Documented by a paragraph describing rough ideas and current status of evolution
- Literature Review – a systematic review of relevant literature. Documented by an annotated bibliography or a literature review in draft
- Data Collection – this includes the systematic collection of data, whether quantative or qualitative. Documented by a description of the data, such as the number of subjects and a copy of the instrument
- Draft – a working copy of the paper or chapter as evolved as possible. Documented by including the draft submitted in APA format with headers, references, etc.
- Submission – a document that has been submitted to a journal, editor, etc. Documented by including the submission and confirmation that the submission has been received and is under review. An email correspondence is appropriate.
- Resubmitted – most frequently, papers that are under consideration for a journal or book chapter are given the status of revise and resubmit when they are generally viewed as favorable but in need of additional edits or clarification. Documented by correspondence with the editors.
- Accepted – hooray! Your work is accepted! Documented by letter from the editor that the work is accepted and the projected time line for publication.
- In press – generally indicates that galley proofs are completed and final edits for minor points are finished. Documented by including the galley proofs in pdf format.
- Published – yippee! Documented by including the cover of the journal and/or the table of contents and the paper.
