How to Cite an Unpublished Work

Using unpublished work as part of ones research is a common occurrence particularly in academia. Students often share parts of papers written during degree programs. Unpublished articles and dissertations can provide a wealth of information to readers who may utilize shared concepts to flesh out new research and push understandings further. Work in progress papers presented at meetings are often distributed to audience members. It is important to the integrity of your own research that you give proper credit to all work utilized, even work that is unpublished.

Things You'll Need

  • Manuscript
  • Style-guides
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Instructions

    • 1

      Read the style-guide recommended by your professor. There are several and not all citations are done in the same manner. The best way to stay within the guidelines of your program is to always utilize the style-guide used by those who will be evaluating your research.

    • 2

      Write out and examine the format example of how to cite unpublished work. This will serve as your format equation to fill in the information you have about the unpublished work. For example, in APA format and style, the format for an unpublished manuscript is: Author's Last Name, Author's Initials followed by last names and initials of other authors if any. (Date on the Manuscript). Title of manuscript. Unpublished manuscript. Note that the title of the research should be italicized.

    • 3

      Retrieve the unpublished manuscript intended for the citation. Often all of the information you will need will be on the title page of the manuscript. Depending on the format of the paper, there may be information such as the date of the manuscript found on the inner pages. If there is no clear information as to the date, it is still important to find at a minimum, the general year the report was completed. This is important as there may be other versions in existence. It is important that you cite the version you are using in your research.

    • 4

      Complete the citation using the information gained from the unpublished work. Using one example, the full citation would be: Johnson, A. 2007. Understanding the conceptual frequency of bee communication. Unpublished manuscript.

    • 5

      Complete the citation in a different manner if the research is a paper presented at a meeting. In this case the APA format would be: Last Name of Author/Presenter, Initials of Author/Presenter (followed by last names and initials of other author/presenters, if any). (Year, Month and Day of Presentation). Title of paper. Paper presented at organization, and place of presentation.

      Using our example the full citation would be: Johnson, A. (2007, January 15). Understanding the conceptual frequency of bee communication. Paper presented at the American Society of Gardeners Conference, Charleston, South Carolina.

      Remember that the title of the research should be italicized.

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