Cite a rejected paper

sheldrake · May 23, 2016

I've found a paper that provides a great literature review but was rejected because it didn't address "and so what?"

Nevertheless, I've found it useful, and want to cite it. I can find no guidance for how to style such a citation, and none of the options for Item Type jump out at me as the right type.

Newbie academic, so it's possible this is a no-no and I just don't know it. So go gentle :-)

Rintze · May 23, 2016

You'd probably cite it as a manuscript (see e.g. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/50956/unpublished-sources-urgent/ and https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/1203/how-to-cite-lecture-notes-from-an-online-course/?Focus=166923#Comment_166923).

Or, if the document is not publicly available and was shared with you by the author, you could cite it as a personal communication (which typically don't get a bibliographic entry).

DWL-SDCA · May 24, 2016

I think that it would be a good idea to contact the author of the manuscript. It is likely that s/he will be thinking of submitting it to another journal. Does the author want the paper cited or, perhaps, instead of a cite maybe an acknowledgment of help with discovery of relevant literature.

edit: always ask before you achnowledge someone by name. There are several reasons one might not want to be acknowledged.

adamsmith · May 24, 2016

agree with manuscript. This would also vary by disciplinary norms, though. E.g. in some of the sciences, you should just not do this, whereas citing something as "unpublished manuscript" would be very common in many social science and humanities disciplines.

Also whether you need to ask permission or not depends -- if something is available online and doesn't have a "do not cite without permission" disclaimer, I wouldn't typically ask.

sheldrake · May 24, 2016

Thanks Rintze, DWL-SDCA, adamsmith. Really appreciated. I'll proceed as you prescribe :-)