What are Preprints?

WHAT ARE PREPRINTS?: This short video by John Bond of Riverwinds Consulting discusses preprints.

Lists of Preprint Repositories by Discipline:
or

List of journals that do and do not accept preprint submissions (check each site though):

MORE VIDEOS on PREPRINTS can be found at:

CONNECT

BOOKS by John Bond:

Hi there. I am John Bond from Riverwinds Consulting and this is Publishing Defined.

Today I am going to discuss preprints.

In scholarly publishing, a preprint is a version of a paper that is posted at a repository and likely precedes publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The preprint allows early exposure of the work and allows for discourse about the findings of the paper earlier than the 6 to 12 to 18 months it might take to get the paper reviewed and accepted in a scholarly journal.

Using one of the preprint services is very straight forward. The author posts the complete paper and appropriate figures etc. in one of the standard formats. This procedure is very similar to uploading a paper to a journal’s website for consideration for peer review.

Some points to consider about preprints. First and most important is that the material is not peer reviewed. Next, an author may still (and will likely) pursue publication in a journal. Most journals will still consider articles posted in these repositories, but a small group of journals will not. I will post some links below to lists of which journals will not consider a preprint; but check with the journal’s policies. Also, preprints usually do not count toward tenure. Finally, the posted paper will persist even after an article is published in a journal.

Because of this lag time journals may take to peer review manuscripts and the desire for peer feedback, preprint services have seen impressive growth in the number of services or repositories and the number of posted of papers.

The popularity for a preprint services is many times credited to arXiv. arXiv was created by Paul Ginsparg in 1991 at Los Alamos National Laboratory for distributing theoretical high-energy physics preprints. arXiv is now a force to be reckoned with in academia and scholarly communications, as over 8,000 papers a month are posted with there, as of 2016, according to their statistics. The success has led to many other such hard science repositories such as engrXiv and bioRxiv and many others. In 2016, SocArXiv debuted in the social science arena.

Preprints have had a significant impact on research and scholarly pursuits, particularly in the open science and open access era. A continued recognition over this content not being peer reviewed is very important. The role these repositories will play in scholarly communication and in publishing will continue to evolve. Having these papers assigned a doi (or digital object identifier), be in CrossRef, fully indexed, and noted as not peer reviewed with search engine results will be essential.

Well that’s it. Hit the Like button below if you enjoyed this video. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel or click on the playlist to see more videos about preprints.

And make comments below or email me with questions. Thank so much and take care.

[neelkanwal]

is it okay to publish the article at two different preprint servers?

[leahkristensen]

Thanks, John! Your expanations are clear and concise for all audiences! #manuscriptmanager

[hanserwin]

I didnt know that arXiv was the first preprint also 1991!Nobody knows the web to this time.... I found arxiv through the millenium problems.... and this great man (grigori perelman) who solved 1 of this problems, but refused the 1 million $ for solving!


Thank you for the work sir Bond.