Web Posting of Articles
Elsevier understands researchers want widespread distribution of their work and supports authors by enabling such distribution within the context of orderly peer review and publication.
Editors of most journals published by Elsevier will consider (for peer review and publication) papers already posted in pre-publication versions to the Web. Pre-publication posting is common practice in, for example, physics and mathematics. However, some Elsevier clinical and biomedical journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals, follow the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and do not consider for publication papers that have already been posted publicly. Anyone with a question regarding pre-publication posting and subsequent submittal of a paper to an Elsevier journal should consult that journal’s instructions to authors or contact its editor.
An author can, without asking permission, do the following with the author’s article that has been or will be published in an Elsevier journal:
- Post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites including electronic pre-print servers, and retain indefinitely this version on such servers or sites (unless prohibited in a specific Elsevier journal’s instructions
to authors). - Post a personal manuscript version of the article on the author’s personal or institutional website or server, provided each such posting includes a link to the article's Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and includes a complete citation for the article. This means an author can update a personal manuscript version (e.g., in Word or TeX format) of the article to reflect changes made during the peer-review process. Note such posting may not be for commercial purposes as described previously in this section and may not be to any external, third-party website.
Elsevier-published authors employed by corporations may post their revised personal manuscript versions of their final articles to their corporate intranets if they are secure and do not allow public access.
This policy permitting open posting of revised personal manuscript versions applies to authors publishing articles in any Elsevier journals, including The Lancet and Cell Press journals.
If an article has multiple authors, each author has the same posting rights.
To preserve the integrity of the official record of publication, the final published version of an article as it appears (in PDF or HTML) in an Elsevier journal will continue to be available only on an Elsevier site. ![]()

