One of the questions students in a graduate course I teach called “Writing Educational Research” is: What is the difference between a manuscript and an article?
The simplest way to understand it is this:
Manuscript = Written paper pre-publication
Article = Written paper that has been published
Now, scholars love to debate and I’m quite sure that there are academics out there who would delight in a robust debate on this topic. I agree that my definition may be simplistic. My purpose here is not to be reductionist, but rather to demystify the publication process for graduate students and novice researchers.
Examples of manuscripts include:
- Drafts
- Writing-in-progress
- Work submitted to a publisher that is under review or not yet published
- Term papers or elements of your thesis that you are crafting for submission to a journal.
The term “article” usually refers to work published in:
- Newsletters
- Professional publications
- Edited journals
- Peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journals
If you are looking at publishing your work in the proceedings of a conference, refer to it as a manuscript until the proceedings have been released.
There can be a delay between when your work is accepted for publication and when it actually appears in print. During this phase, you can call your work a “pre-publication article” or an “article in press”. At this point, you can call it an article because it has been accepted for publication.
Graduate students and novice researchers and scholars present themselves as uninformed and inexperienced when they run around referring to term papers and drafts of their work as “articles”, when the work has not yet been published. You will present yourself as more humble and knowledgeable about the publication process when you refer to your own work as a manuscript when it is in the pre-publication phase.
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- 10 Great writing resources for grad students – http://wp.me/pNAh3-1Bc
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- How to Get Your Academic Article Published in a High Quality Journal https://drsaraheaton.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/how-to-get-your-academic-article-published-in-a-high-quality-journal/
- Self-Plagiarism: Publishing Works Based on a Thesis or Dissertation https://drsaraheaton.wordpress.com/2024/01/28/self-plagiarism-publishing-works-based-on-a-thesis-or-dissertation/
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Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.
Learning, Teaching and Leadership 
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