Internet posting guidelines

Update effective November 17, 2023

If a paper is unpublished, the author may distribute it on the Internet or post it on a website but should label the paper with the date and with a statement that the paper has not (yet) been published and is not therefore the authoritative document of record. (Example: “Draft version 1.3, 1/5/16. This paper has not been peer reviewed.”)

Authors of articles published in APA journals—the authoritative document, i.e., peer reviewed publication of record—may post a prepublication copy of the final manuscript, as accepted for publication as a word processing file, on their personal website; their employer’s server; their institution's repository; a preprint repository like APA’s designated preprint server, PsyArXiv; reference managers (e.g., Mendeley); and author social networks (e.g., Academia.edu and ResearchGate) after it is accepted for publication.

The following conditions would prevail:

• The posted prepublication copy of the manuscript must carry the appropriate copyright notice and include a link to the authoritative document on the APA website using the article's digital object identifier (DOI) that may be found on the first page of the published article, in the upper right-hand corner.
• Further, the posted prepublication copy of the manuscript must include a statement like the following, with the appropriate copyright attribution:
  “©American Psychological Association, [Year]. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. The final article is available, upon publication, at: [ARTICLE DOI]”
• Authors who have posted their manuscripts to preprint archives, such as PsyArXiv, prior to submission should include a link to the preprint in the author note.
• APA does not provide electronic copies of the authoritative document for authors to post online, and authors are not permitted to scan in the APA typeset version of the published article.
• Authors are not permitted to download and subsequently post the APA typeset version of the published article (i.e., the authoritative document of record).

APA uses a service to seek removal of unauthorized online postings of APA journal articles. The goal is to seek removal of articles from commercial sites that post articles for profit without the author’s awareness.

Visit the Monitoring of Unauthorized Internet Posting of Journal Articles page to learn more.