My question is what is the importance of a preprint?

*** If you publish a preprint:

- It decreases the likelihood that someone publishes the same "paper". The longer papers are stuck in the review process the more likely this happens.

- You might get cited

*** If you read preprints:

- Avoid working on things that are likely published soon (most preprints are under review, so if you have the same idea as in a preprint, don't work on it)

- Work on the newest insights: Conference publications give you results of things discovered half a year or a year ago. For journals it can be several years. If you work in fast moving fields like AI, this is a long time.

Can we consider preprint as a publication?

Tricky. On plattforms like arxiv.org many preprints have higher quality than for some peer-reviewed conferences. But, it is a problem that anyone can just upload without (much) control.

So?

I always cite pre-prints if they are of high quality and close to what I am doing (most papers on arxiv.org are not much worse than peer-reviewed works). I might not cite a pre-print if there is peer-reviewed work doing the same thing (eg. I might cite a bit of an older survey if it is peer-reviewed) or I only want to say (there is some working in that direction, but don't care so much if it's the newest or not).

If I cite preprints, then only if they come from a domain, which I understand well and only after reviewing them myself (at least if the idea makes sense, they followed an acceptable methodology, English is ok etc.). I do this also for peer-reviewed. In fact, it is well-accepted (eg. for literature surveys) to filter results not meeting quality criteria.

That said, if you start reviewing yourself and use your own criteria for what work is acceptable to be cited and what not, the risk of subjectivity increases, ie. you filter publications to your liking. This problem is worse for preprints than for peer-reviewed work. Generally, as a reviewer depending on the area, I might reject a paper if it does not properly cite peer-reviewed work, but for preprints I would be much more hesitant to do so.

Preprint increases the possibility of citation.

It's a standard practice of open science.

There are a few types of preprints, such unreviewed preprints, and reviewed preprints that have not yet been through the final proof. Manuscripts used to be released to the public only after the final proof is done by the authors and typesetter to check for typesetting errors, conversion errors, and text accuracy. The increasingly broad use of the internet for many processes have allowed preprints to be shared online after review and prior publication. As a result, many preprints due the year after are released in journal databases a year before. For example, we can find year 2021 papers in sciencedirect.com in year 2020. In this context, a preprint is considered as an upcoming publication.

There are some benefits of releasing publications online in advance, in my opinion. The importance of preprints includes 1) disseminating new or urgent knowledge quickly (especially during challenging times such as now that is plagued with COVID-19), 2) ensuring the availability of cutting-edge information for up-to-date literature review or review articles (when review articles reviewed publications till the current year of writing, the information has aged albeit a bit by the time it got published), 3) increasing paper citations (@Zaki Farhana), 4) citing of latest publications - which has always been encouraged - and 5) sharing completed research in advance to avoid the publication of similar research.

However, I believe we as scholars should responsibly make sure that a preprint has been peer reviewed, due for publication / in press, and allowed by the journal to be shared openly before citing or placing it online.

Sources:

https://www.aje.com/arc/benefits-of-preprints-for-researchers/

https://www.springer.com/gp/authors-editors/journal-author/journal-author-helpdesk/checking-the-article--proofing-procedure/1270

Very well feedback Tan Suet May Amelia . Thanks a lot.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/benefits_and_usage_of_preprintsorg_for_authors

Next, preprints is well described topic at RG Help Center page:

https://explore.researchgate.net/display/support/Preprints

If preprint is a document that can be uploaded without a peer review. Furthermore, the document has been assigned a DOI so that any one can cite it. Is it not the case that we are allowing an unauthentic document to be a part of scientific finding. ???

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/why-as-a-young-researcher-i-love-preprints-2

https://www.researchgate.net/blog/post/three-reasons-to-share-your-preprints

Interesting. Since now, I had never shared a preprint.

My question is what is the importance of a preprint?

*** If you publish a preprint:

- It decreases the likelihood that someone publishes the same "paper". The longer papers are stuck in the review process the more likely this happens.

- You might get cited

*** If you read preprints:

- Avoid working on things that are likely published soon (most preprints are under review, so if you have the same idea as in a preprint, don't work on it)

- Work on the newest insights: Conference publications give you results of things discovered half a year or a year ago. For journals it can be several years. If you work in fast moving fields like AI, this is a long time.

Can we consider preprint as a publication?

Tricky. On plattforms like arxiv.org many preprints have higher quality than for some peer-reviewed conferences. But, it is a problem that anyone can just upload without (much) control.

So?

I always cite pre-prints if they are of high quality and close to what I am doing (most papers on arxiv.org are not much worse than peer-reviewed works). I might not cite a pre-print if there is peer-reviewed work doing the same thing (eg. I might cite a bit of an older survey if it is peer-reviewed) or I only want to say (there is some working in that direction, but don't care so much if it's the newest or not).

If I cite preprints, then only if they come from a domain, which I understand well and only after reviewing them myself (at least if the idea makes sense, they followed an acceptable methodology, English is ok etc.). I do this also for peer-reviewed. In fact, it is well-accepted (eg. for literature surveys) to filter results not meeting quality criteria.

That said, if you start reviewing yourself and use your own criteria for what work is acceptable to be cited and what not, the risk of subjectivity increases, ie. you filter publications to your liking. This problem is worse for preprints than for peer-reviewed work. Generally, as a reviewer depending on the area, I might reject a paper if it does not properly cite peer-reviewed work, but for preprints I would be much more hesitant to do so.

Well explanation dear @johannes

Mohammad - I fully agree with the detailed answer given by Johannes. We are working in the field of synthetic inorganic chemistry for 40+ years. During all this time we never published any preprint and I never cited any preprints. I know that in disciplines like mathematics preprints always played a major role. The are becoming more and more popular in our discipline, too. However, (I may be somewhat old-fashioned) I remain skeptical about the usefulness of preprints. What if the preprint is posted and the reviewing of the submitted manuscript takes much longer than expected? What is the submitted manuscript is rejected?

Dear Mohammad Meshbahur Rahman

I don't like the preprint of the publication since it can damage some good ideas and also can damage the publication process. I think it is a trend and will be stoped or has suitable rules after some time.

Well, you can focus on the question in this way but one could also ask, what is maybe wrong with the peer-review publication which might lead to the publication of pre-prints.

One touched already on the fact that peer-review takes a very long time, so in some areas like math or e.g. computer science papers published after 1 year are outdated. If you really want the new stuff, you need to go to pre-prints.

One could also question the whole peer-review process. It is quite interesting to observe that in certain journals they publish the same authors sth. like 20 times, which is a bit worrisome, hence this looks as the review is not completely blind (and I am not talking about scam journals).

Furthermore, peer-review has a tendency to favor minor changes rather than complete new ideas. If one would let's say question some existing practice, that work would hardly get published after a peer review. Hence this we might see fewer novice ideas in peer-reviewed journals (with exceptions ofc).

I am not entirely against peer-review, but I would question it and not always see it as the ultimate thing. One might need to come up with a public review of the mass to have the process more transparent, digital, and lean - I would have some ideas to offer here.