Referencing a paper not yet published

Moojuice

Quick question: I am writing two papers, the 2nd of which builds on the work in the 1st. Justification of a certain approach is given in the 1st and is the same justification in the 2nd. I don't want to repeat the section from the first paper in the second. Is it possible to reference a paper as being in print? I do not want to end up with two papers with a section in each saying the exact same thing. I could wait until the 1st gets accepted and then reference it in the 2nd but time is of the essence. I am thinking that I may just have to do this and delay the 2nd paper. Anyone any ideas or been in a similar situation?

niamh90

Yes, you can reference a paper that hasn't been published yet, just replace the year with "in press", see the example below:

Brossard, D. and Nisbet, M.C. (in press) “Deference to Scientific Authority among a Low Information Public: Explaining American Opinion on Agricultural Biotechnology,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research.

Dr Strange

Hi,

just my 2 cents but I do not think you can reference a paper with "in press" if it has not been submitted and accepted for publication yet.

In that case it may be "in preparation" or even "submitted" (if that is the case) but "in press" denotes that it has actually passed the peer-review process and the editor has given the OK for it to be published.

Some examples from journal websites:

JLR Papers in Press are papers in manuscript form which have been accepted and published in the JLR Online, but which have not been copy edited and have not yet appeared in a printed issue of the Journal. Copy editing may lead to small differences between the Papers in Press version and the final version. There may also be differences in the quality of the graphics.

Source: http://www.jlr.org/papbyrecent.dtl

APS Articles in PresS are accepted, peer-reviewed research papers published online in manuscript form before they are copyedited and published in the printed issue of the APS journal to which they were submitted.

Source: http://www.the-aps.org/publications/articles_in_press.htm

Note to users: The section "Articles in Press" contains peer reviewed and accepted articles to be published in this journal. When the final article is assigned to an issue of the journal, the "Article in Press" version will be removed from this section and will appear in the associated journal issue. Please be aware that "Articles in Press" do not have all bibliographic details available yet. There are three types of "Articles in Press":
•Accepted Manuscripts: these are manuscripts that have been selected for publication. They have not been typeset and the text may change before final publication.
•Uncorrected proofs: these are articles that are not yet finalized and that will be corrected by the authors. Therefore the text could change before final publication. Uncorrected proofs may be temporarily unavailable for production reasons.
•Corrected proofs: these are articles containing the authors' corrections. The content of the article will usually remain unchanged, and possible further corrections are fairly minor. Typically the only difference with the finally published article is that specific issue and page numbers have not yet been assigned.

Source: http://www.gastrojournal.org/inpress


Here's an example of what some journals accept when referencing not-yet-published papers:

At the time of publication, all cited references must be published. Papers that are "in press" can be cited in a submission, but the paper must be available to provide to reviewers, and an accepted paper will be held until all references are published.

Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/res/refs.dtl

Odysseus

I have referenced unpublished papers before in theses. It is quite common to do in psychoanalysis; as we often used unpublished translations of certain texts. In the cases I have often seen in done in lots of published books and papers. Reference as normal except replace the publisher with the term unpublished. Hope that helps.

Time Magazine

"Forthcoming" if accepted to a journal; "Mimeo" if sitting on a shelf; "Working paper" if somewhere in between.

Black Swan

What style? (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.)

Moojuice

Thanks for the replies guys. I am writing a more brief version of that which is in the 1st paper for now. I am hoping the first gets accepted so I can referene it directly.

Blue: the current style I am using is the standard APA style but that might change depending on the journal I submit to.

Black Swan

Moojuice wrote: »

Blue: the current style I am using is the standard APA style but that might change depending on the journal I submit to.

See examples for unpublished manuscripts in APA:
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/researchsources/documentation/apa/unpublished.cfm