Disclosure up front: I am an assistant professor and I make Vitae, a free Mac app for keeping an academic record. It appears in one section near the end, and the advice here works without it. The norms below come from public career-center pages, style guides and academics' own posts, linked in the text and listed at the bottom. None of them is a rule for your department. If your department, journal or funder supplies a CV template, follow that.
The status words and where each one goes
The example lines use placeholder names and titles. Reference style varies by field, so copy the status wording and placement, not the punctuation.
| Status | Use it when | Where it goes | Example line | Name the journal? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Submitted | The manuscript is sent but you have no sign that review has started. | Manuscripts under review section. | Lastname, F., & Lastname, G. Title of the paper. Submitted for initial review. | Usually not. Several sources advise against it. |
| Under review | The paper is with reviewers or an editor. | Manuscripts under review section. | Lastname, F., & Lastname, G. Title of the paper. Under review. | Usually not. Philosophy sources split, and some say to name it only after encouragement. |
| Revise and resubmit (R&R) | The editor invited a revision. Kreuter says to write "Invited to resubmit" until the revision is actually back with the journal. | Manuscripts under review section, listed first (Hargittai) or marked clearly (Daily Nous). | Lastname, F., & Lastname, G. Title of the paper. Invited to resubmit. | Your call. Some say name it for an R&R and not otherwise, one says never, because an R&R can still end in rejection. |
| Invited (not yet accepted) | You were asked to contribute a chapter, review or special-issue piece, and the editor has not accepted the text. | Manuscripts under review section. Daily Nous keeps even a sure-thing invitation out of the main list until it is accepted. | Lastname, F. Title of the chapter. Invited; in preparation for Book Title. | Name the volume if the invitation is in writing. |
| Accepted | The editor has accepted the paper in writing. | Main publications list. | Lastname, F., & Lastname, G. Title of the paper. Journal Name. Accepted. | Yes. |
| In press | Accepted and in production. In APA style "in press" takes the place of the year. | Main publications list. | Lastname, F., & Lastname, G. (in press). Title of the paper. Journal Name. | Yes. |
| Forthcoming | Same as in press. Kreuter reserves it for work the editor has committed to publish in writing, and adds the issue if it is known. | Main publications list. | Lastname, F. Title of the paper. Journal Name, forthcoming. | Yes. |
| Published | The article has appeared, online or in print. | Main publications list. | Lastname, F., & Lastname, G. (2026). Title of the paper. Journal Name, 12(3), 45-67. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx | Yes. Add the DOI. |
The short rule behind the table, from Daily Nous's 2026 CV post: only work that has been published or accepted belongs under headings such as "publications". Everything else gets its own heading. Choose one word for accepted work, either in press or forthcoming, and use it everywhere. The sources I read treat the two as near-synonyms, and the CV is easier to read when it does not mix them.
Should you name the journal?
This is where the sources disagree, so here are the positions with names attached.
- Leave it off. The Daily Nous 2026 post says not to list the target journal beside an unaccepted submission. In the comments on an earlier Daily Nous thread, one reader says naming journals lets a committee work out over time which ones rejected you. Another says it is tacky.
- Name it. Eszter Hargittai first wrote that she would not list the journal, because it could compromise blind review. After readers pushed back she updated the post to say it may be best to mention the journal, since the title alone can reveal the paper anyway (Crooked Timber, 2008).
- Only with encouragement. Several commenters on the 2016 thread name the journal only for an R&R, or only for an accepted paper.
- Double-blind risk. Kreuter notes that double-blind review can be a reason to leave a manuscript off a job-market CV so reviewers in your subfield cannot identify you (Inside Higher Ed, 2012).
My reading: leave the journal off until you have something worth signaling, such as an R&R, and leave it off entirely when the review is double-blind and the CV is going to people in your subfield. Those are my judgment, not a consensus.
Differences by field
- Humanities. The most detailed public discussion I found is philosophy's. Daily Nous advises a separate heading such as "Currently Under Review", no journal name, and a clear split between peer-reviewed and other items. Commenters disagree on whether to list under-review work at all, and several would list it only early in a career or on the job market.
- Social sciences. Psychology and neighbouring fields often write CV entries in APA style. APA's guidance on unpublished work puts the status in square brackets after the title, for example "[Manuscript submitted for publication]", and uses "in press" in place of the year once a paper is accepted. That is how APA formats a reference list in a paper, and applying it to a CV is a convention, not a rule. The examples I saw omit the journal for a submitted manuscript. I could not open APA's page from my tools, so this follows excerpts of it. Check APA's blog post on unpublished works yourself.
- STEM. The UNC Graduate School's career-development pages (TIBBS) say to include manuscripts that are submitted, under review or in press in the publications section. They call work in preparation a pet peeve for many PIs and say not to name the intended journal if you list it. That is advice for graduate students and postdocs. Read it next to the humanities view above: the two disagree about a separate section.
- Medicine. Medical schools publish their own CV formats, and they differ. Search excerpts describe the University of Washington's format as giving submitted manuscripts their own dated subsection, and Duke's template as leaving out unaccepted submissions. I could not open those files, so treat both as leads. Use your own school's template.
- "In preparation". UCLA's career center calls the label very discipline-specific and tells students to check with their advisor. A PhD CV template linked from UCLA's career materials, which I also saw only as an excerpt, says under-review and revise-and-resubmit work can go in the publication section when the status is clearly marked.
Job market, annual report or tenure dossier
- Job market. Readers skim. On the 2016 thread, P. D. Magnus says he does not usually list under-review work but did when he was on the market and up for promotion. Hargittai dislikes seeing it but says it can keep an applicant in the pile at the cut to a shortlist. Kreuter's advice is to list work the same way in every job document and not to overstate any status.
- Annual report. The form is your department's, so ask whether it counts submissions at all. In Vitae, the Annual Review mode leaves papers under review out, and so does its annual-report export (details below).
- Tenure dossier. I found no neutral guide for this. Dossier instructions are written by each institution, usually in the faculty handbook or the dean's letter. If your dossier lists work under review, put an "as of" date on that section and update it before the file is sent.
A separate section or inline
The published advice leans toward a separate section, usually titled "Manuscripts under review" or "Work under review", placed after publications. Daily Nous and Hargittai both say so, and Hargittai puts R&R papers first. The UNC page and the UCLA material I saw instead put labeled entries in the publications section. A separate section keeps a reader's count of your publications unambiguous, which is why I prefer it, but inline with clear labels is defensible if your field or template does it that way. Do not mix the two on the same CV.
What not to do
- Do not overstate a status. Kreuter's examples: "Revised and resubmitted" only after the revision is back with the journal, and "forthcoming" only with a written commitment. By the same logic, "under review" is for a paper that has actually been submitted.
- Do not pad with "in preparation". UCLA calls it discipline-specific, and UNC calls it a pet peeve for many PIs. If your field accepts it, list only projects that are really under way.
- Do not list rejected papers. Take a paper off the section when it is rejected. If you send it elsewhere, it goes back on as submitted, without the old journal. A preprint is a separate case: Daily Nous commenters say a publicly posted preprint is not a publication, and suggest listing it as work in progress.
- Do not call unreviewed work peer-reviewed. Keep peer-reviewed and other items apart, as Daily Nous says.
- Do not let the status go stale. When a decision arrives, move the entry the same week.
Where Vitae fits
If you keep your record in Vitae, the Mac app from Purplelink, it separates submissions from publications the way the advice above does. I checked the following against the app's source code and help text rather than by exporting a CV in every case.
- Each paper is a project with a status you set: Under Review, Revising (R&R), Accepted or Published. Recording a rejection or desk rejection on the current submission moves the project from Under Review or Revising to Drafting, and a major or minor revision moves an Under Review project to Revising. Vitae says what moved and Undo puts it back. Other decisions, such as acceptance, change nothing, so move the project yourself.
- The CV and Tenure & Promotion outputs list projects that are Under Review or Revising in a "Manuscripts Under Review" section, with authors, title, the venue in italics and a label of "under review" or "revise & resubmit". The one-page CV leaves the section out.
- The venue comes from the paper's latest submission, and reads "venue TBD" if none is recorded. Since version 1.4.0, Customize has a setting, Show journal names for manuscripts under review, on by default. Turn it off and each entry reads authors, title and (under review) in the preview and in every CV and package export.
- Annual Review leaves papers under review out. Its RIS and BibTeX annual-report export contains publications only. Acceptance estimates and forecasts never appear in any export.
- Setting a project to Accepted creates its publication record, marked forthcoming, and the CV labels it "in press" according to the citation style. Setting it to Published fills in this year. A paper moved back to Drafting, Dormant or Abandoned drops out of the under-review section.
- RIS exports from the CV screen and the File menu can include papers under review as unpublished records, with the stage in a note. It is a setting in Settings, Import & Export. BibTeX does not include them.
Vitae also has an "In development" section for research ideas, which appears only for ideas you tick to show on the CV. The sources above suggest leaving most of that off.
Frequently asked
Should I put a paper under review on my CV?
Usually yes, in its own section with the status stated. Daily Nous, Hargittai, Kreuter and the UNC graduate career pages all describe some version of that. Some philosophers prefer not to list it at all, and some fields treat it differently, so check one or two CVs from your own department.
Do I name the journal for a manuscript under review?
The sources split. Daily Nous advises against it. Hargittai first said no and later said it may be best to mention it. Others name the journal only for an R&R. Consider the blind-review risk before naming it.
How do I list a revise and resubmit?
In the under-review section, labeled as an R&R and listed first if you like (Hargittai). Kreuter says to write "Invited to resubmit" until the revision is back with the journal, and "Revised and resubmitted" afterward.
What is the difference between in press and forthcoming?
In the sources I read, both mean accepted. Kreuter reserves forthcoming for work the editor has committed to publish in writing. APA uses "in press" in place of the year. Pick one term and use it for every accepted paper.
Should I list a rejected paper?
No. A rejected paper is not under review. Remove it, and list it again as submitted if you send it to another journal.
Related guides
- Build your faculty annual report from your own record: a year-end checklist.
- Track your academic CV and tenure case.
- Export your ORCID works to BibTeX or RIS, for the publications you do have.
- All guides.
Sources, and what I could not check
Last checked October 17, 2026. I opened and read these pages myself:
- Daily Nous, "CV Do's and Don'ts" (February 17, 2026), including the comments.
- Daily Nous, "Invitations, Under Review, and Other CV Questions" (February 8, 2016). The post asks questions and the advice is all in the comments, from individual readers.
- Eszter Hargittai, "CV for the academic job market", Crooked Timber (June 9, 2008, with her update).
- Nate Kreuter, "How to Handle 'In Process' Work", Inside Higher Ed (December 2, 2012).
- UNC TIBBS, "CV dos and don'ts". The page is undated and written for graduate students and postdocs.
I could not open these directly, because the sites blocked my tools or the files were not readable, and I relied on search-result excerpts: APA's blog post on unpublished works, UCLA's career-center CV page and its linked PhD CV template, and the University of Washington and Duke medical school CV templates. Treat the statements about them as leads and read the originals. I did not test how any particular campus system or hiring committee treats these entries, and the older sources are opinion from academics in the humanities and social sciences.