Publishing preprint of manuscripts is a growing trend now in academic writing and publication. Preprint gives a heads up and an insight into a particular issue that is worthy of investigation. Recently, I have also observed though with awe about the growing trend researchers citing preprint work even though these works have still not gone through peer reviewing. So my concern is whether it is scientifically ethical for a researcher to cite preprint works even though these works have not gone through scientific grilling from peers- don't get me wrong preprint are cool and platforms like Research Square are doing a great job publishing preprints, but are such preprints usable in scientific writing referencing?
Dear Jia Bainga Kangbai
Beyond any issue of being ethical or not, the real issue is that such citations of preprints are worthless to be made in a paper meant to be peer-reviewed and formally published, because all such preprints are susceptible to be modified by the author in ways that would invalidate the purpose of the citation, or simply be deleted from the internet by its author.
The only articles that will be considered as formal references in peer-reviewed articles, are other formally published peer-reviewed papers or books, that by definition cannot be modified or deleted.
A preprint is not a publication and I would prefer not to cite it. However, in some cases it is necessary to cite unpublished research. In case of a paper that has been submitted, one may indicate the bibliographic details as "submitted to ...". See also the following discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_a_preprint_be_cited_in_a_research_paper/1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_it_acceptable_to_cite_work_published_on_a_pre-print_server_which_has_not_been_peer-reviewed_or_published_in_your_thesis_or_paper/1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_to_cite_preprints_appropriately/1
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_think_citing_a_preprint_as_reference_is_logical_in_your_future_article/1
An see this discussion about preprints which will never be published:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/When_a_preprint_becomes_the_final_paper/1
It is common to assume that a publication went through a rigorous process of review has value while a publication that did not is actually not published. For same, this statement is right and other cases It is erroneous. Grisha Perlman did not publish his proof of the Poincaré Conjecture. Thus his work is unpublished and worthless. Of course, this claim is nonsense. While this case is a special case. Nonetheless, there are cases. My personal experience about my work is a bit strange. My works that were published are what I call above the averaged quality but my works that officially that did not officially published are breakthroughs. My work in October was (what I understand) the most read in the month Oct on RG.
Article Simplified Rolling Calculations: Part 1 The Basics
This work is part my efforts the radically change erroneous science ship stability and navigation. A work that shows that Euler, Bernoulli, and Foude were wrong in dealing with ship stability.
Of course, since no one will or can show that I am wrong I take it as the correct statement. Assuming that I am correct, that means that my
work without publication is very important. Well time will tellm but if that is the case in 20 years mean that my work was published?
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