Citing an unpublished manuscript

June 4, 2006 7:00 AM

I have a copy of a manuscript that has not yet been published. It's an unedited draft, but in the final stages (proofreading and some copyediting needs to be done, but I think that's mostly it). I want to cite some statistics from it (on a blog post). Is that copasetic?
posted by snortlebort to writing & language (17 comments total)

It's done sparingly in some journals. Just make sure you indicate that it's an unpublished manuscript.
posted by trey at 7:02 AM on June 4, 2006

I think you'd need to consult the author and give him some idea of how you're using it.

If it was part of a review of the manuscript, likely you'd get permission. But it if amounted to stealing the thunder of the manuscript by leaking something the author did a lot of work to figure out, I can't see how it would be copacetic.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 7:03 AM on June 4, 2006

Ask the author. Sometimes they'll have a working version that you can cite -- sometimes they'll want you to cite it as "forthcoming" in a journal. Do not cite it if you don't have explicit permission -- that's way uncool -- especially on the Internets where names and links can spread far and wide and be hard to take back.
posted by dness2 at 7:12 AM on June 4, 2006

NO!!!!!!!!!
posted by caddis at 7:43 AM on June 4, 2006

Ask the author.
posted by redfoxtail at 7:46 AM on June 4, 2006

Ask the author.

absolutely. And maybe then you can also add a "personal communications" citation.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:00 AM on June 4, 2006

My answer above assumes you have not gotten permission from the author. Of course with proper permission all things are possible.
posted by caddis at 8:18 AM on June 4, 2006

Perhaps I misread the post? I thought that the manuscript was of the original poster's own writing.
posted by trey at 8:33 AM on June 4, 2006

Think of it this way: if a manuscript is still in editing, it means that the author has not yet granted his/her "seal of approval" for the material in it to be publically released. So prereleasing any information from it is potentially directly counteracting the author's wishes. Once it is published the author is obligated to stand behind what was written, to either defend or revise it, and thus you are free to reprint it within the boundaries of copyright rules. If "I think that's mostly it" is the best you've got in guessing the author's desires on the subject, that's not good enough by academic or journalistic standards.

The only way, prior to publication, to determine the author's desires is to ask.

(Of course there is the lazy person's response, too: if your blog is not particularly notorious, the topic not particularly juicy or controversial, and the author's data not particularly earth shattering, if you just did it chances are nobody would notice or care).

I myself generally err on the side of an author's right, out of respect and courtesy if nothing else.
posted by nanojath at 8:47 AM on June 4, 2006

(huh, trey, rereading the question I can't exclude that interpretation... in that case, unless there are coauthors he needs to consult or some potential conflict with the desires of whoever is going to be publishing the manuscript or the university if it is coming out of an academic context, I'd think authors could do whatever they pleased with their own writing).
posted by nanojath at 8:52 AM on June 4, 2006

I knew it would not be cool to directly quote from the manuscript, but was wondering if i could allude. I've been in touch with the author but can't be at the moment. Just to be safe, I'm thinking i won't even allude that i know of its existence.
posted by snortlebort at 8:53 AM on June 4, 2006

I don't think it's just a question of whether to mention the existence of the manuscript or not.

Using information from it without permission of the author would not be good.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:12 AM on June 4, 2006

As other have said: get permission, it's a personal communication. Citing an unpublished work is really an unfortunate situation to have to be in. Esentially, it's worthless, the reader has to take you word for it, which plays counter to the idea quoting by reference: the reader can go check the original works for correctness and context.

On the other hand, if the document in is the porcess of being published, that's entirely legit. It happens all the time. Just cite it as "in press" with as much publishing information as possible. Again, permission for the author would be considered polite. It would be a real breach of ethics to cite from a galley as an anonymous peer-reviewer, to give an extreme example.
posted by bonehead at 11:52 AM on June 4, 2006

It's a blog post, not a dissertation, so forms of citation don't really matter.

Did you acquire the MS through work or a personal contact, or did you just grab it off the net? If it's available for download, then it's available for download and you can point to it like any other link. If the author doesn't like it, (s)he can take it down or have it taken down.

Assuming it's through work, or otherwise obtained privately:

Is there no earlier version that's publicly available that you can point to? No conference paper, no journal article, nothing?

If the MS has "not for citation" on it or similar remarks, it would be impolite to use it.

Citing an unpublished work is really an unfortunate situation to have to be in. Esentially, it's worthless

Not by a long shot. The reference is "Contact the author of the piece and ask for a copy." Citing a working paper is normal practice if there's no published form available.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:03 PM on June 4, 2006

It would be a real breach of ethics to cite from a galley as an anonymous peer-reviewer

Why? It seems to me that it would be entirely proper to say "I recently reviewed a piece that argued X, showing Y." You'd give up your anonymity as a reviewer, but that's your prerogative. Surely the author can't reasonably claim that they don't want it getting leaked out -- they were trying strenuously to publicize it, or they wouldn't have submitted it to a journal.

This is obviously not the case with snortlebort's MS, as the bort knows who wrote it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:08 PM on June 4, 2006

Why? It seems to me that it would be entirely proper to say "I recently reviewed a piece that argued X, showing Y." You'd give up your anonymity as a reviewer, but that's your prerogative. Surely the author can't reasonably claim that they don't want it getting leaked out -- they were trying strenuously to publicize it, or they wouldn't have submitted it to a journal.

As a reviewer you may well have seen a version that was absolutely not trying to be publicized. The article may change dramatically before it is published; it might get rejected and submitted to a different journal; etc. In many cases, one or more of the reviewers points out a serious problem that needs to be remedied before publication. If they are making it public in other ways (on their website), then people usually assume that it can be mentioned (though not in the context of the review). But during an ongoing review process, if that is the only way you have access to the article, it would be tremendously improper to cite, mention, or even discuss it with others. I think in the hard sciences where getting a first result matters, this is even more important.
posted by advil at 12:19 PM on June 4, 2006

As a reviewer you may well have seen a version that was absolutely not trying to be publicized.

Then why the hell did they send that very version to a journal, asking for it to be published? That doesn't make any sense.

Of course everyone expects reviewers to demand changes. But are you seriously saying that if a paper were flat-out accepted, the author would say "Oh, sorry, I didn't want this published as it is. Can you send it out to some more critical reviewers so I can do an R-and-R instead?"

This must be something that varies by discipline. I've been at several panels where the discussant has noted that they'd reviewed a similar piece recently, so Panel Author might want to try to find out who'd done it and have a chat with an eye towards collaboration. Once, a discussant did this in reference to another paper I had out under review. This is not a big deal.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:37 PM on June 4, 2006