How to list publications in a CV

A publication list is read by people who know the field and will look some entries up. Its virtues are completeness, consistency and exactness.

Divide by type

Do not run everything together. Use sub-headings, in roughly this order of weight, leaving out any that are empty:

1. Books (authored)
2. Books (edited)
3. Articles in peer-reviewed journals
4. Chapters in edited books
5. Conference papers published in proceedings
6. Patents
7. Working papers, reports and monographs
8. Book reviews
9. Popular writing: newspaper and magazine articles, if relevant
10. Work in press, under review, and in preparation (each labelled)

Number the entries, either straight through or within each type. Numbering lets a committee refer to "item 14" and lets you count honestly.

Order within each type

Latest first is the usual order and suits most readers. Some disciplines list oldest first; follow the custom of your field and keep to one order throughout.

What each entry needs

Use the citation style normal in your discipline and apply it to every entry without exception. Whatever the style, an entry must let the reader find the work. The examples below are invented, to show the parts.

Your name and your contribution

• Give authors in the order printed. Never move yourself forward.
• Put your own name in bold so that it is easy to spot.
• Where your field marks a corresponding author, you may mark it with an asterisk and explain the mark once.
• If a paper came out of a student's thesis you supervised, you may note "with research scholar" where that is the custom.

Work that is not yet published

Use the exact status, and move an entry up only when its status changes.

Do not write "communicated" for a paper that has not been sent. Keep acceptance letters; committees may ask for them.

Conference presentations

A talk or poster that was presented but not published in proceedings belongs in a separate section, "Conference presentations", with the title, the conference, the organiser, the place and the dates. Mark invited talks as invited. Do not list the same piece of work under both publications and presentations without saying so.

Indexing, impact and quality

Institutions and funding bodies often ask for particular information: whether a journal is on a named list or index, the ISSN, an impact measure. Give exactly what the form asks for, taken from the journal's own page or the index itself on the day you fill the form, since these change. In your own CV, the ISSN after the journal name is a helpful and neutral addition.

Be careful about where you publish. Journals that charge a fee and print anything without proper review exist in large numbers, and a list padded with them harms a candidate. Before submitting, check who edits the journal, who publishes it, and whether scholars you respect publish there.

A summary line

For a long list, a short table at the top helps: journal articles 14, book chapters 5, books 1, conference papers 9. Keep the counts exact and consistent with the list below.

Keeping the list up to date

Add each item to your master CV on the day it is accepted, with every detail. Keep a folder of first pages or acceptance letters in the same order as the list, since application forms often ask for copies. A reference manager can produce the list in any style from one set of records.

Questions people ask

More CV guides

Sample CVs

General guidance. This page gives general suggestions, reviewed in November 2026. If an institution, employer or country gives its own form, format or instruction, follow that. Every person, institution and publication in our examples is invented. Nothing here is legal, immigration or professional advice.