Questions?
What is a preprint?
In academic publishing, a preprint is a version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly or scientific journal. The preprint may be available, often as a non-typeset version available free, before and/or after a paper is published in a journal.
Preprint Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|
Faster and wider dissemination: no wait times, no paywalls |
Perception of low quality: misunderstanding of preprints as manuscripts that can't pass peer review |
|
Record of priority: permanent datestamp within 24hrs of posting |
Risk of disseminating invalid findings: unvetted papers may be picked up by the public, journalists, etc. |
|
Does not preclude publication: usually not considered prior publication. Check SHERPA/RoMEO for specific journal preprint policies |
Risk of embargo violations: If press or public publish findings from preprint may be considered prior publication |
|
Establish a body of work: Good for early career researchers; funders like NIH and Wellcome accept preprints as part of application |
Harm: If you are posting a medical finding that people might use (medical, lay public), and it has unintended consequences, you may cause harm to somebody. Also true if experiments have serious flaws and somebody tries to repeat them. |
| Rapid evaluation of results: lots of eyes on a given paper |
More Detailed Information
Preprint Servers
Arxiv: mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance
BioRxiv: biology
Cogprints: cognitive sciences
MedArxiv: medicine and health sciences
OSF Preprints: multidisciplinary, including: science, social and behavioral science, medicine and health sciences
PsyArXiv: psychological sciences
SocArXiv: social sciences
Preprint Citation Index (1991- Present) Discover preprints for key research articles ahead of the formal publication in a journal from a range of international selected and evaluated preprint repositories in the sciences, social sciences and arts & humanities.
Tools
LaTex: document preparation system. Free to download, can be used on Windows, Mac, Linux.
Overleaf: used in conjunction with LaTex. It provides a rich text overlay to LaTex, for a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) experience. They also offer templates for major journals, thesis, and dissertation. Free for personal use, but there are professional, fee-based plans available.
PrePubMed: indexes preprints from various preprint servers.
R: free software environment for statistical computing and graphics.