PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Unpublished manuscript

How to Cite an Unpublished Manuscript in MLA 9

An MLA 9 Works Cited entry for an unpublished manuscript gives the author's last name and first name, the title in quotation marks and title case, the department and university the work came from, the year, and the link if it's online. It ends with the word Manuscript, which tells your reader the work was never published. The in-text citation is the author's last name and the page, with no comma: (Schaufeli and Bakker 4).

The format

Last Name, First Name. "Title of the Manuscript." Department, University, Year, URL. Manuscript.

PERRLA MLA Experts ยท Updated October 30, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Choose Manuscript from PERRLA's reference types. Under Choose a type, pick the status that fits: Unpublished manuscript, Manuscript in preparation, or Manuscript submitted for publication. PERRLA's MLA entry doesn't print the status, so all three build the same Works Cited entry.

Add each person with the role Individual Author (person), or the organization as a Group Author (Organization), and type first names in full, as the manuscript gives them. Fill in the Manuscript Title and the Year Completed (the year only), then the department and university in Institutional Affiliation. PERRLA shortens University to U and Department to Dept. for you. If the manuscript is online, add its DOI or URL, and PERRLA drops the https:// from a URL. No title on the draft? Type a short description in square brackets, and PERRLA prints it as plain text.

PERRLA's reference search can't look up an unpublished manuscript, because there's no published record to find. Once the work is published, delete the manuscript reference and search for the published version by its DOI instead.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Author

Start with the first author's last name, a comma, and their first name in full, the way the manuscript prints it. End with a period.

Schaufeli, Wilmar, and Arnold Bakker.

Two authors: invert only the first name, then write and and the second author's name in normal order. Three or more: give the first author, a comma, and et al. A manuscript written by an organization starts with the organization's name. With no author at all, start with the title.

2. Title

Put the title in quotation marks, not italics, because the work hasn't been published. Capitalize it in title case, even if the draft uses sentence case, and put the period inside the closing quotation mark. Copy the wording of the draft you read, even if the authors later changed it.

"Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Preliminary Manual."

If the title ends in a question mark, the question mark replaces the period. If the draft has no title, describe it in plain words, with no quotation marks or italics: Draft of a study on teacher burnout.

3. Department and university

Next comes the place the work came from: the department or unit, a comma, and the university, followed by a comma. Shorten University to U and Department to Dept., the abbreviations MLA uses in Works Cited entries.

Occupational Health Psychology Unit, Utrecht U,

Leave out the city. Don't name a journal the manuscript was sent to, because it hasn't agreed to publish it. If you don't know where the work came from, skip this part and go straight to the date.

4. Date

Give the year the manuscript was finished, or the year of the draft you read, followed by a comma, or by a period when no link comes next.

2004,

Never put submitted, in preparation, or unpublished in place of the date. The date slot holds a date and nothing else. If the manuscript has been revised, use the date of the version you read. No date anywhere? Leave the date out.

5. URL or DOI

If the manuscript is online, such as on the author's own website or a university page, give its location next. Write a URL without the https://, or a DOI as a full https://doi.org/ link, and end with a period.

www.wilmarschaufeli.nl/publications/Schaufeli/Test%20Manuals/Test_manual_UWES_English.pdf.

Most manuscripts in preparation or under review aren't online. Then the entry goes straight from the date to the closing description.

6. Manuscript

End with the word Manuscript and a period. It describes the work's form and tells your reader at a glance that the source was never published.

Manuscript.

The closing word is an optional element in MLA, but it's worth adding for unpublished work, and PERRLA adds it for you. For a draft with no title, the description already says what the work is, so PERRLA leaves the closing word off.

Examples

An unpublished manuscript you can find online

The preliminary manual for the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, a measure used across nursing and health care research on burnout and engagement. It was never released by a publisher, so it's an unpublished manuscript. The cover names Wilmar Schaufeli and Arnold Bakker and is dated December 2004, the copyright page names the Occupational Health Psychology Unit at Utrecht University, and the authors post it on their own site, so the link goes in too.

  • In-text citation(Schaufeli and Bakker 4)
  • Narrative citationAs Schaufeli and Bakker explain, … (4).

A manuscript submitted for publication

When the 2004 UWES manual was written, this paper by Wilmar B. Schaufeli, Toon W. Taris, and Willem Van Rhenen was under review, and the manual's reference list gives it as submitted for publication in 2003, with no institution. Here it is in MLA 9 form: three authors, so the entry names Schaufeli and et al. The paper came out in 2008 in Applied Psychology: An International Review under a slightly different title. That's why you check: today, you'd cite the published article instead.

  • In-text citation(Schaufeli et al.)
  • Narrative citationSchaufeli et al. compare workaholism, burnout, and engagement …

A manuscript in preparation

A study of burnout and engagement among Finnish teachers by Jari J. Hakanen, Wilmar B. Schaufeli, and Arnold B. Bakker, listed in the same manual's references as in preparation in 2003. Nothing is online for a manuscript still being written, and the manual names no institution, so the entry goes from the year straight to the closing description. Drafts like this often change title, author order, or both before they're published. The same three authors published "Burnout and Work Engagement among Teachers" in the Journal of School Psychology in 2006, with Bakker listed second. So before you cite a manuscript in preparation, check the authors' recent publications for the finished version.

  • In-text citation(Hakanen et al.)
  • Narrative citationHakanen et al. studied burnout and engagement among Finnish teachers …

In-text citations

An unpublished manuscript is cited like any other MLA 9 source: the author's last name, plus the page number when the draft has page numbers and you're pointing to one passage. There's no comma and no p. between them, and no year.

  • One author: the last name and the page, with a space between them.
  • Two authors: both last names joined by and: (Schaufeli and Bakker 4)
  • Three or more authors: the first author and et al.: (Schaufeli et al.)
  • No page numbers on the draft: give the name alone: (Hakanen et al.). Don't count pages or paragraphs to make up a number.
  • Name in your sentence: give the page alone in parentheses at the end of the sentence: As Schaufeli and Bakker explain, … (4). With no page, you need no parentheses at all.
  • No author: a shortened version of the title, in quotation marks and title case, leaving off a leading A, An, or The.

If you cite two works by the same author, add a short version of the title in quotation marks: (Schaufeli and Bakker, "Utrecht Work Engagement Scale" 4).

Only read about a manuscript in someone else's reference list? Then you haven't read the manuscript. Cite the source you did read, and name the manuscript's authors in your sentence: Schaufeli, Taris, and Van Rhenen linked absorption to working excessively, as Schaufeli and Bakker report (9). If you quote words that source quotes from the manuscript, add qtd. in: (qtd. in Schaufeli and Bakker 9). Only the work you read goes on your Works Cited page.

Common mistakes

  • Schaufeli, Wilmar, and Arnold Bakker. Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Preliminary Manual.Schaufeli, Wilmar, and Arnold Bakker. "Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Preliminary Manual."MLA puts the title of an unpublished work in quotation marks, however long it is. Italics are for published, stand-alone works like books.
  • Schaufeli, W., & Bakker, A. (2004). Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Preliminary manual [Unpublished manuscript].Schaufeli, Wilmar, and Arnold Bakker. "Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Preliminary Manual." Occupational Health Psychology Unit, Utrecht U, 2004,That's APA. MLA spells out first names, joins two authors with and, uses quotation marks and title case, moves the year after the title, and has no bracketed status.
  • Schaufeli, Wilmar B., et al. "Workaholism, Burnout and Engagement … ?" Submitted for publication.Schaufeli, Wilmar B., et al. "Workaholism, Burnout and Engagement … ?" 2003. Manuscript.The date is the year of the draft. Submitted, in preparation, and unpublished never stand in for it.
  • (Schaufeli et al., 2003)(Schaufeli et al.)MLA in-text citations have no year and no comma. Add a page number only when the draft has one.
  • Occupational Health Psychology Unit, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands,Occupational Health Psychology Unit, Utrecht U,MLA shortens University to U and leaves out the city and country.
  • Keeping the manuscript entry after the paper comes outThe published article's entry, with its journal, volume, issue, year, pages, and DOICheck a manuscript's status before you turn in your paper. Once it's published, cite the published version, the way the Schaufeli et al. paper above became a 2008 journal article.

Quick checklist

  • First author inverted, full first name as the draft gives it
  • Three or more authors: first author, et al.
  • Title in quotation marks and title case, not italics
  • Department and university, with U for University and no city
  • The year of the draft, never submitted or in preparation
  • URL without https://, if it's online
  • Manuscript at the end

Questions students ask

Is an unpublished manuscript title italicized in MLA?

No. MLA puts the titles of unpublished works in quotation marks, even long ones like a 60-page manual. Italics are for published, stand-alone works. If the manuscript has no title, describe it in plain words instead, with no quotation marks or italics.

How do I cite a manuscript in preparation or submitted for publication in MLA?

The same way as any unpublished manuscript: author, title in quotation marks, the institution if you know it, the year of the draft, and Manuscript at the end. The date slot holds the year of the draft, so don't write submitted or in preparation in place of it.

What if the manuscript has been accepted by a journal?

Then it's forthcoming, not unpublished. MLA writes forthcoming in place of the date and names the journal it will appear in. See our guide to articles in press.

Is a preprint an unpublished manuscript?

No. A manuscript posted to a preprint server like medRxiv or PsyArXiv is publicly available, so you cite the server as the place you found it. See our guide to preprints.

My professor gave me a draft of their paper. How do I cite it?

Cite it as an unpublished manuscript, with your professor as the author, the title in quotation marks, their department and university, the year of the draft, and Manuscript at the end. Ask your professor whether it's been accepted anywhere, so you know whether a published version is on its way.

Why does the entry end with Manuscript?

The closing word describes the work's form, and Manuscript tells your reader the source is an unpublished draft, not a book or article they can look up. It's optional in MLA, but it's worth keeping for unpublished work.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapter 5 (the core elements and optional elements) and chapter 6 (in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center's posts on citing unpublished works: an unpublished student paper, an employee handbook, an author's unpublished notebook, an unpublished translation, forthcoming publications, and materials from physical archives (a closing word that describes the work's form). Example sources verified on October 29, 2026, against the UWES Preliminary Manual PDF on Wilmar Schaufeli's website (cover, copyright page, contents, and reference list), and the authors' full names against the Crossref records of the later published versions of both manuscripts.

PERRLA builds the unpublished manuscript entry from what you enter, with full names, title case, and the university shortened the MLA way.

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