Ask three researchers to send you "the paper" and you may receive three different files. Scholarly articles pass through several distinct versions, each with its own status, and confusing them causes real problems: authors breach agreements by posting the wrong file, cite unreviewed work as if it were final, or fail a funder check because they deposited the wrong version. The vocabulary is worth ten minutes of your time.
The three versions
| Version | What it is | Peer reviewed? |
|---|---|---|
| Preprint | Your manuscript as posted publicly before (or during) journal review | No |
| Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) | The final peer-reviewed text after revisions, before copyediting and typesetting | Yes |
| Version of Record (VoR) | The published article: copyedited, typeset, paginated, with its DOI | Yes |
Some publishers add a fourth stage — an "accepted, uncorrected proof" posted online ahead of the final issue. It is a VoR in progress, and it will be replaced.
Why the distinction matters
- What you may share. Your agreement usually treats these versions differently. Posting the publisher's typeset PDF when you only had rights to the AAM is a common, avoidable breach.
- What to cite. Always cite the VoR and its DOI when one exists; the science may have changed between preprint and publication.
- Funder compliance. Mandates usually specify a version and a deposit deadline — often the AAM, deposited on acceptance (see funder open-access mandates).
- Corrections. Only the VoR carries the formal record: corrections, retractions and updates attach to it.
A note on preprints
Preprints are a legitimate and increasingly normal part of publishing — they establish priority and get findings out early. They are simply not peer reviewed, and should be labelled as such wherever they appear. Our guide on preprints versus peer-reviewed articles covers the trade-offs.
Practical rules
- Keep all three files, clearly named, with dates. Unless your article is open access under CC BY — where the version of record itself can be deposited — the AAM is the version a repository will need.
- Link to the DOI rather than uploading a PDF — readers always reach the current, correct version.
- If your article is open access under CC BY, you can share the VoR freely; that is the simplest position of all.
- When you update a preprint after acceptance, add a note pointing to the published DOI.