The phrase "a draft of a paper" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when referring to an initial version of a written document that is not yet finalized.
Example: "I need to review a draft of a paper before submitting it to the journal."
Alternatives: "a manuscript of a paper" or "a version of a paper".
The Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw recently published a draft of a paper titled "Defending the One Percent".
They started writing a draft of a paper to describe the discovery, naming the new particle psi, the 23rd character of the Greek alphabet.
MORE than a year ago, Victor Fleischer, an untenured professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, finished a draft of a paper about the tax treatment of private equity.
He wrote a draft of a paper and showed it to a colleague who, Dr. Schwarz recalled, said, "If you want to send it to Nature, you have to take the hemline up a few inches".
The night before, he called me at around 10 o'clock telling me that he wanted to pick me up the next morning either at my home, or on the way coming down Massachusetts Avenue from Wisconsin Avenue, because he wanted me to give him a draft of a paper I had been writing with another assistant.
Much of the research so far has centered on seven astronauts who have shown symptoms, including one whose eyesight was so affected that he could "only see the Earth clearly while looking through the lower portion of his progressive reading glasses," according to a draft of a paper to appear in the medical journal Ophthalmology.
The report can also be a draft of a journal-quality research paper that has been submitted for publication.
Mr. Bernanke, a former economics professor, sounded as if he was assessing a draft of a student's term paper, saying Mr. Paulson's blueprint was "a very interesting and useful first step" for Congress to consider.
In very rare cases, we have asked students to leave the program if they could not pass their general examinations or were unable to provide a draft of an independent research paper by the beginning of the third year.
In her sunny office, Ms. Williams gestured toward several folders thick with papers, each a draft of a story in progress.
King has posted a draft of the paper, an extensive question-and-answer on the fragment and its meaning, and images of it, on the Divinity School website.
