Preprint considerations
Preprints are used to varying degrees across different fields of research, and in different ways within these fields, so it might be worth having a chat with your colleagues or educators to find out what the norms are in your field before deciding how and whether to upload your own preprints.
It’s important to consider that preprints that are published instead of, or alongside journal publication, have not always been peer-reviewed. This doesn’t automatically mean that they’re ‘worse’ than articles that have been peer-reviewed – many terrible manuscripts have slipped through peer-review, and many excellent ones have been rejected – but it does mean that readers should take the content with a pinch of salt and an even more critical eye than usual. This can be problematic when the public or journalists are interacting with preprints, as they might take the content as fact, which they shouldn’t even be doing for peer-reviewed work, let alone work that hasn’t been peer-reviewed.
Activity 2:
Allow about 15 minutes
Find a preprint server for your discipline, or if one doesn’t exist then use OSF Preprints. Spend ten minutes looking for the most interesting article you can find, and identify which stage of the research process it has been uploaded to the preprint server. Use keywords you would usually use to search for an article in your discipline, just like searching for a published article. Tip: usually, researchers will identify on the title page if the article has been submitted to or accepted by a journal.
When you are ready, press 'reveal' to see our comments.
Discussion
Hopefully you could see whether preprints were published before or after publication in a journal. Preprints can be an excellent way to access the latest research findings in your area. Publishing a preprint allows you to gain feedback early. Preprints can also allow policy makers and practitioners to make decisions based on the latest research, and early-career researchers to build up a publication record quickly.
Preprints