Manuscript & Archival Material Citation Generator
Cite a manuscript that is not a published book or article: a draft you were sent, a paper under review, or a handwritten document in an archive. Enter the author, title, date and where it is held, and get the reference in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 and 10,834 other styles. Free, no sign-up.
How to Use the Manuscript Citation Generator
- 1. Check the source type. The form opens on Manual Entry with Manuscript (unpublished) selected. Archival material uses the same type.
- 2. Enter the author, title and date. For a journal-bound draft, type the title in sentence case; MLA and Chicago convert it to headline case. If the document has no title, describe it, as in Letter to Charles Fremont.
- 3. Put the holder in Publisher / Site. Type the department and university for a draft, or the library, collection and shelfmark for an archive, separated by commas.
- 4. Describe the version in Format / medium. Use Unpublished manuscript, Manuscript submitted for publication or Manuscript in preparation; APA shows it in square brackets.
- 5. Add a URL if the draft is online, pick a style and copy. Choose APA, MLA, Chicago or any of the 10,834 styles. Names go in either order: Eleanor Whitfield or Whitfield, Eleanor.
Unpublished, Submitted or Archival: What Kind of Manuscript Is It?
The word covers three different things, and the citation depends on which one you hold. A manuscript a reader can find only in a collection is cited by its location. A draft that has not been published is cited by its status. If the work has since been published, cite the published version instead.
| Your manuscript is… | Cite it by | APA 7 label |
|---|---|---|
| A draft not submitted anywhere | Author, year, department and university | [Unpublished manuscript] |
| A paper under review | The same, with its status | [Manuscript submitted for publication] |
| A paper still being written | The same, with its status | [Manuscript in preparation] |
| A historical or handwritten document | Library, collection, shelfmark or box and folder | A bracketed description, such as [Manuscript] |
APA 7 (§10.8) lists the author, the year, the title in italics followed by the status in square brackets, and the department and university as the source; add the URL when the draft is online. MLA 9 names the repository in the publisher slot and lets you add Manuscript or Unpublished manuscript at the end; an untitled document is described rather than titled, and the description is neither italicized nor put in quotation marks. Chicago 18 follows the archive's own order: author, title or description, date, collection, repository and city. Where the finding aid gives a different order, follow the finding aid.
Manuscript Citation Examples
A medieval codex first. The MLA entry is the MLA Style Center's own example for a complete work held in a library; the APA and Chicago lines apply their archival patterns to the same manuscript.
The Canterbury Tales, British Library, Harley MS 7334
APA 7:
Chaucer, G. (ca. 1400–1410). The Canterbury tales [Manuscript]. British Library (Harley MS 7334).
MLA 9:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Circa 1400-10, British Library, London, Harley MS 7334.
Chicago 18 note:
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ca. 1400–1410, MS Harley 7334, British Library, London.
Chicago 18 bibliography:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ca. 1400–1410. MS Harley 7334. British Library, London.
Now an unpublished paper. The author and institution are illustrative; the pattern is the one the APA manual teaches.
Unpublished manuscript
APA 7:
Whitfield, E. (2023). Tidal flows in the Harbor Survey [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of History, Hartwell University.
APA in-text:
(Whitfield, 2023)
MLA 9:
Whitfield, Eleanor. “Tidal Flows in the Harbor Survey.” 2023. Hartwell U. Unpublished manuscript.
MLA in-text:
(Whitfield)
Chicago 18 note:
Eleanor Whitfield, “Tidal Flows in the Harbor Survey,” unpublished manuscript, 2023, Department of History, Hartwell University.
What the Generator Gives You
Enter the Whitfield details with Hartwell University, Department of History as the publisher and Unpublished manuscript as the format, and the generator returns the APA reference with the status in square brackets, followed by the department and university. For MLA and Chicago it prints the status as a plain sentence after the title. That is a reasonable reading of both manuals, but the MLA Handbook italicizes the title of a complete work such as a bound codex, so italicize it yourself when that applies. The date box reads a year, a year and month, or a full date; a circa range such as ca. 1400–1410 is dropped, so type it into the copied reference.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I cite an unpublished manuscript in APA 7?
- Give the author, the year, the title in italics and the status in square brackets, then the department and university: Whitfield, E. (2023). Tidal flows in the Harbor Survey [Unpublished manuscript]. Department of History, Hartwell University. Use [Manuscript submitted for publication] for a paper under review and [Manuscript in preparation] for one still being written. In text: (Whitfield, 2023).
- How do I cite a manuscript in MLA 9?
- Name the author and the title or a description, then the repository and shelfmark: Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Circa 1400-10, British Library, London, Harley MS 7334. For a handwritten letter, add Manuscript at the end. In text, give the author's surname or, with no author, the first words of the title.
- How do I cite a manuscript in Chicago style?
- Chicago cites a manuscript in an archive by author, title or description, date, collection, repository and city, in the order the archive's finding aid uses. Cite the specific item, with box and folder where there are any. Unpublished manuscripts are often cited in notes only; check whether your instructor wants a bibliography entry.
- What if the manuscript has no title?
- Describe it in plain type, such as Letter to Charles Fremont or Diary entry, and put its date after the description. In MLA the description is not italicized or put in quotation marks; in APA a bracketed description follows it.
- What is the difference between a manuscript and a preprint?
- A preprint is a complete paper posted publicly, usually with a DOI or repository URL, and APA cites it as a preprint with the server's name. A manuscript is a private or archival document. If your draft sits on a public server, use the Preprint Citation Generator.
- Which citation styles does the manuscript generator support?
- All 10,834 styles in the library, including APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago 18. Chicago notes and bibliography is the usual choice for archival work, because it can carry the box, folder, collection and repository in a note.
- Can I cite a draft a colleague sent me?
- Yes, if it is a paper. APA gives an unpublished manuscript a reference-list entry with the status in brackets, even when readers cannot retrieve it. Ask the author before you quote it. Conversations, emails and similar items that nobody can recover are the ones APA treats as personal communications, cited in the text only.