What the difference in CVs between "submitted to" and "to appear in"? For those papers that have not been accepted, some people write "submitted to" in their CV and some others use "to appear in". I want to know the difference of "submitted to" and "to appear in". Thank you.
For those papers that have not been accepted, some people write "submitted to" in their CV and some others use "to appear in".


Does anyone really use "to appear in" to refer to papers that have not been accepted yet?  In my experience (mathematics in the U.S.), "to appear in" means "accepted, but not yet published", and it would be unethical to use it to describe papers that have not yet been accepted.  It might occasionally happen, since not everyone acts ethically, but you wouldn't want to get caught doing that.

I can't rule out the possibility that other fields use these terms differently, but I'd strongly recommend sticking with "submitted to".  It describes an objective fact, while "to appear in" is at best a prediction and could be viewed as an intentionally misleading statement.