Author Accepted Manuscripts and Rights Retention: Why Language Edits Must Land Before Acceptance

An author accepted manuscript (AAM) sits between peer-reviewed research and the published article. Authors must keep its scientific accuracy intact while working out which licensing obligations apply and how the accepted version may be shared. Settling the editing and the author accepted manuscript rights questions before acceptance makes both easier.

Under the usual accepted manuscript definition, an author accepted manuscript is the author’s version accepted after peer review and agreed revisions, before publisher copyediting, typesetting and pagination [1]. The Version of Record (VoR) is the formal published version that includes that production work. Permission to share one version does not automatically cover the other, and publishers word their definitions slightly differently, so check the journal policy.

The AAM is also an editorial checkpoint. By acceptance, language inconsistencies should be resolved, numbers verified and the text should say exactly what the research shows. Routine proof corrections may still be allowed later, but substantive changes can need editorial approval, and the AAM you deposit will not contain them.

Pre-acceptance manuscript language editing should improve clarity without changing the evidential meaning. Correct grammar, tighten sentences, standardise terminology and clarify methods, results and conclusions. Any edit that touches outcomes, analysed populations, numerical results or interpretation needs author verification and may need further analysis or the editor’s agreement.

Plan S requires immediate open access for research funded by cOAlition S members, through a compliant journal or repository, with CC BY 4.0 as the default licence; CC BY-ND needs a justified, funder-approved exception [2]. The Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) is the cOAlition S mechanism that lets funded authors make the author accepted manuscript openly available without an embargo: at submission, authors state that a CC BY licence applies to any AAM arising from the work [3]. Plan S rights retention is implemented funder by funder, so check adoption, grant eligibility, the licence required and when the rights-retention statement must appear. cOAlition S has also committed to review the Plan S principles under its 2026–2030 strategy [7], so read the current funder text.

Three things must stay distinct:

• Funder obligations: conditions set by the grant or funding policy.
• Licensing and retained rights: the legal basis for sharing and reuse.
• Publisher agreements: the contract governing publication and the rights granted to the publisher.

Editing alone grants no repository permission, and a rights-retention statement does not replace scientific checking. You need both: a verified accepted text and a rights arrangement that lets you share it.

Publisher policies specify which version may be shared, where, when and under which licence. Elsevier is a useful example. Its sharing policy lets authors post the AAM immediately on a non-commercial personal website or blog, send it to research collaborators and use it for internal institutional purposes; public posting in an institutional repository or other non-commercial platform must wait for the journal-specific embargo, which runs from publication [5]. Every shared AAM must carry a CC BY-NC-ND licence and link to the published article’s DOI [4].

Run four checks before sharing an accepted manuscript:

• Version: it is the accepted manuscript, not the published PDF.
• Hosting channel: personal site, private institutional system or public repository.
• Licence: the licence the policy or your funder requires.
• Embargo: the current embargo period for that journal, and when it starts.

A standard embargo can conflict with a funder’s immediate-access rule. Resolve that conflict before signing. Elsevier’s own route for UKRI-funded authors, for example, is gold open access under CC BY [6]; otherwise seek institutional or funder advice rather than depositing and hoping.

Keep scientific quality control separate from licensing decisions, but settle both before publication.

• Waiting until acceptance to think about rights retention: where the funder requires a statement at submission, it is too late.
• Assuming copyright ownership means unrestricted sharing: ownership, a licence to publish, self-archiving permission and an open licence are different things.
• Editing the accepted file without tracking changes: keep the accepted version and document authorised corrections.
• Confusing publisher permission with funder compliance: sharing after an embargo may satisfy the publisher and still breach an immediate-access grant.
• Relying on old policy summaries: publisher and funder policies change; read the version in force when you sign.

No single rule covers every journal, funder or jurisdiction. This guide explains common positions; the binding terms are your grant, your publishing agreement and the journal policy at publication. Where they conflict, take institutional or funder advice before signing or depositing. Getting this right supports better open access publishing and self-archiving decisions.