Skip to Main Content

Coastal Carolina logo

UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Scholarly Communication

Manuscript Versions and Author Rights

Authors are automatically granted exclusive rights to their creative works but often give away those rights when they sign publication agreements. The chart below shows how copyright ownership may change throughout the different stages of the publication process:

Lifecycle of a scholarly article: Author owned: Submit to publisher (Submitted version) > peer review > edit > accepted by publisher (Author's accepted manuscript) -->Copyright Transfer Agreement (Publisher Owned): Copyediting/Typesetting (Proofs) > Published (Version of record)

Explaining Manuscript Versions in Manuscript detectives - submitted, accepted, or published? by Arthur Smith is licensed under CC By 4.0.

 

Version of Article Explanation
Author’s Original Manuscript / Working Paper / Submitted Manuscript / Pre-print

This is the first version sent to a journal for consideration, before any formal peer-review has been conducted. 

Authors hold rights to this version of the manuscript.
Accepted Manuscript / Post-print

This is the manuscript draft, after peer review and changes by the author(s) but before publisher info such as pagination or logos have been added. It often includes numbers beside each line of text.

Authors hold rights to this version of the manuscript.

Galley Proofs/Pre-Proofs

This version of  the manuscript is the final manuscript version before the publication version. It provides authors the opportunity to make final revisions before publication.

Authors are not usually allowed to publish this version of the manuscript.
Version of record / Publisher’s Version

This is the published version of a manuscript. It includes typesetting and journal branding and often also includes a DOI (digital object identifier).