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What are Preprints, and How Do They Benefit Authors?

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Preprints are research papers shared before peer review. Here we discuss the benefits to authors including rapid credit, visibility & feedback.

Updated on March 29, 2018

Most researchers don't share their work until after it's been published in a journal. Due to lengthy publication times, this can result in delays of months, sometimes years. Authors are understandably frustrated by the amount of time it takes to share their research & reap the benefits of a published, citable research article.

But what if you could put post your manuscript online while it's going through peer review so that your peers and colleagues can see what you're working on? That's the idea behind preprints, and more and more researchers are using them for exactly this purpose.

Definition of a preprint

A preprint is a full draft research paper that is shared publicly before it has been peer reviewed. Most preprints are given a digital object identifier (DOI) so they can be cited in other research papers.

A preprint is a full draft of a research paper that is shared publicly before it has been peer reviewed.

Benefits of preprints

Preprints achieve many of the goals of journal publishing, but within a much shorter time frame. The biggest benefits fall into 3 areas: credit , feedback , and visibility .

When you post a preprint with your research results, you can firmly stake a claim to the work you've done. If there is any subsequent discussion of who found a particular result first, you can point to the preprint as a public, conclusive record of your data. Most preprints are assigned a digital object identifier (DOI), which allows your work to become a permanent part of the scholarly record - one that can be referenced in any dispute over who discovered something first.

For these reasons, the US National Institutes of Health and Wellcome Trust , among other funders, allow researchers to cite preprints in their grant applications.

For a complete list of funder policies see here .

In the traditional system, a submitted manuscript receives feedback from 2 or 3 peer reviewers before publication. With a preprint, other researchers can discover your work sooner, potentially pointing out critical flaws or errors, suggest new studies or data that strengthen your argument or even recommend a collaboration that could lead to publication in a more prestigious journal. The feedback can be provided publicly through commenting, or privately through email. Here is one scientist's story about the benefit of sharing his work as a preprint:

Last year I posted a preprint. Doing this set off a chain of events that convinced me I should post a preprint for ALL my manuscripts.Here's my story (1/17)— Dan Quintana (@dsquintana) February 10, 2018

Here's another author's journey from skepticism to loving preprints. By posting a preprint, this author was able to share their research 10 months earlier & it was viewed over 1,500 times in the first 2 months.

“To all researchers out there, I encourage you to stop worrying and love the preprint. Submit your manuscripts, but also read preprints and make comments.”

Visibility (and citations)

Preprints are not the final form of a research paper for most authors. Thankfully, preprints and infrastructure providers like Crossref link to the final published article whenever possible, meaning that your preprint can serve to bring new readers to your published paper. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association saw notable increases in citations and Altmetric scores when authors had posted their work first as a preprint.

Posting a preprint led to a significant increase in Altmetric attention scores and citations for the final published paper.

The citation effect is small, and more studies will be needed to confirm this finding, but the evidence for more attention in news and social media is strong (nearly a 3-fold increase in Altmetric attention scores). The more places you can be discovered by your peers and the public, the more attention your research is likely to get.

Conclusions

Preprints are a small but rapidly growing piece of scholarly communication. They present several strong advantages to improve the way research is shared - including credit for your work, early feedback & increased visibility - and we hope you will consider giving them a try.

A note to readers: AJE is a division of Research Square Company . Our colleagues built and operate the Research Square preprint platform. For more author resources on preprints we encourage you to browse the content on the Research Square Blog .

This article was updated by our team February 2020 .

Ben Mudrak, PhD

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Journal-integrated preprint sharing from Springer Nature and Research Square

Share your preprint and track your manuscript’s review progress with our  In Review service

Our commitment to early sharing and transparency in peer review inspires us to think about how to help our authors in new ways. So, in October 2018, we added a new option for you when you submit to select Springer Nature journals. This first-of-its-kind option, called In Review , brought to you by our partners at Research Square, makes it easy to share a preprint of your manuscript on the Research Square platform and gives you real time updates on your manuscript’s progress through peer review.  In Review clearly links your manuscript to the journal reviewing it, while it’s in review. 

How can you participate?

It's simple! Just select the In Review option when you submit your next article to one of the participating journals. ( But be sure all your coauthors agree to opt-in , too.) And here is a list of journals currently on  In Review . 

Learn more about In Review

Brought to you by Research Square

With In Review you can:

• Share your work early  with funders and others as a preprint on Research Square in a citeable way while it is under review, and engage the wider community in discussion to help make your article even better including through the Hypothes.is open annotation tool. And social sharing of your preprint is easy—every article page has social media buttons at the top
• Track the status of your manuscript , including when reviews have been received (see below for details)
• Benefit from early sharing, such as more collaboration opportunities and earlier citations

Your peers will be able to:

• Comment on/see emerging science in full HTML—in both phone and desktop-friendly sizes
• Find new discoveries with fully-indexed search
• Gain insight into the peer review pipeline at participating journals

What can you expect if you opt in?

The editorial and peer review process will continue through the peer review systems as usual. You can use  In Review  to access up-to-date information on where your article is in the peer review process. 

The system will also immediately post a preprint of your manuscript to the In Review section of Research Square, in easy-to-read HTML, and with a citeable DOI. There, it will become a permanent part of the scholarly record —that means that your manuscript will permanently remain publicly available, regardless of whether the journal you submitted it to accepts it or not. (The FAQ has more details about the mechanics of how this works.)

You can see an example in the article above .  

What happens when you opt in to In Review?

When you submit your article through the manuscript submission system you will get the chance to opt in to  In Review . All coauthors must agree to post a preprint and participate in  In Review . 

2. Quality control checks

If you choose to opt in, your article will undergo some basic quality control checks before being sent to the  In Review  platform. 

3. Preprint deposition

Research Square converts the manuscript to HTML, assigns a DOI, and posts on the platform with a CC-BY license. This is public, and permanent. 

4. Author notification

Research Square notifies authors of preprint posting, and sends a link to the author dashboard. Authors will need to create an account (i.e., password) before logging in to see the dashboard.

5. Author dashboard (private)

Authors will get real time updates on their manuscript’s progress through peer review in the private author dashboard. 

6. Peer review timeline

Updates appear on the public peer review timeline as the manuscript progresses through peer review* (*Not available on Nature-branded journals.)

7. Final Decision

If the article is published, the preprint is updated with a link to the version of record. If that article is rejected, the journal name and public peer review timeline will be removed but the preprint and any versions of it, if any, will remain public. 

Still have more questions about In Review?

If you still have questions about what In Review can do for you or how it works, read our FAQ. 

Find out more about In Review across Springer Nature

• Authors’ original submitted version and all versions are released in real time as peer review progresses
• Public peer review timeline
• Authors will be able to track peer review on their private author dashboard

(Including  Nature Communications )

• Authors’ original submitted version

• Coming soon

For further information, please contact Research Square at [email protected] . 

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Preprints: Where to Post a Preprint

• Recommendations for Authors
• Where to Find Preprints
• Where to Post a Preprint
• How to Cite Preprints
• Journal and Funder Policies

Preprint Repositories

• arXiv arXiv is a preprint server for physics, math, computer sciences, quantitative biology and statistics.
• Authorea Authorea is a platform for publishing articles, data, figures and preprints.
• bioRxiv bioRxiv is a preprint server for biology.
• ChemRxiv ChemRxiv is a preprint repository for chemistry.
• Figshare Figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner.
• medRxiv medRxiv is a preprint server for the health sciences.
• Open Science Framework (OSF) WUSTL is a member of OSF, a free, open platform to support your research and enable collaboration. OSF contains over two million preprints from a number of preprint repositories. Use your WUSTL Key to register for an account.
• Preprints.org Preprints is a platform dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable. Content on Preprints is not peer-reviewed and can receive feedback from readers
• Research Square Research Square contains over 25,000 preprints and allows authors to submit preprints and make edit prior to peer review in a journal.
• SciELO Preprints SciELO is an multidisciplinary international preprint server.
• SSRN SSRN is a multidisciplinary preprint server.

Guidance for Selecting a Preprint Repository

NIH offers guidance on selecting a repository for interim research products including preprints. 

The NIH strongly encourages interim research products arising from NIH funds to be deposited in repositories that ensure: 

• Content is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable ( FAIR ).
• Interim product metadata, including usage statistics, are open, and easy to access by machines and people (e.g. via application program interfaces).
• Content is easy to use by machines and people. This access is both a function of permission (e.g. use of Creative Commons licenses) and technology (e.g. application program interfaces).
• Policies about plagiarism, competing interests, misconduct and other hallmarks of reputable scholarly publishing are rigorous and transparent.
• Records of changes to the product are maintained, and users have clear ways to cite different versions of the product.
• Links to the published version, if available.
• A robust archiving strategy that ensures long-term preservation and access. 

Source:  Reporting Preprints and Other Interim Research Products

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Guidance

Per International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE):  Authors who choose to post their work on a preprint server should choose one that clearly identifies preprints as not peer-reviewed work and includes disclosures of authors’ relationships and activities. 

Source:  Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals , December 2024.

• << Previous: Where to Find Preprints
• Next: How to Cite Preprints >>
• Last Updated: May 13, 2024 12:26 PM
• URL: https://beckerguides.wustl.edu/preprints

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• Published: 29 May 2024

Accelerating scientific progress with preprints

Nature Computational Science volume  4 ,  page 311 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Peer review

We recognize the importance of preprint posting in communicating research findings and encourage our authors to make use of this service.

Since its launch, Nature Computational Science has implemented multiple policies and workflows with the goal of fostering research transparency and openness. For instance, our authors must adhere to specific guidelines regarding the reporting and reproducibility of published results, including the availability of relevant data and code. The journal also carries out code peer review 1 , mandates data and code citation 2 , and offers the option of transparent peer review 3 , in which reviewers’ comments, authors’ rebuttal and editorial decision letters are compiled and published alongside the manuscript if the authors opt in to this service. In addition, we also encourage our authors to deposit and share a preprint of the original submitted version of their manuscript prior to or during peer review, which represents another opportunity for increasing openness throughout the research process.

Preprints are certainly not new. As a matter of fact, they have had a long history in the physical sciences: arXiv , the popular open-access repository of preprints, launched back in 1991 primarily as a physics archive and then expanded to other areas such as mathematics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, and statistics. Since then, many other areas have embraced the deposition of preprints — including, but not limited to, biological and medical sciences, chemistry, and social sciences — and a large number of archives have become available to researchers, with some repositories more widely used than others. Crossref — a non-profit organization that registers digital object identifiers (DOIs) for research objects — reported six years ago 4 that the volume of preprints grew approximately 30% in 2016–2018, compared to an article growth of 2–3% for the same period.

But why have preprints increased in popularity? Why would researchers share preprints of their manuscripts?

Peer review can be a long process. Even though editors do their best to provide authors with a timely decision on their papers, there may be some issues along the way that delay the eventual publication of a paper. Preprints help minimize delays in communicating the research findings, circumventing the waiting period by allowing authors to publicly share and disseminate their articles as soon as they are ready to do so. As such, authors can lay claim to their findings and establish priority for the work that they have done. In addition, preprints are open access and, depending on the server, have associated DOIs, meaning that they are easy for other researchers to find and cite. Preprints can also supplement traditional peer review, as peers can discover the work and contact the authors with suggestions for improvements. Research 5 has shown that preprints can improve early visibility and citations, and major funders, including the US National Institutes of Health , the Wellcome Trust , and the Simons Foundation , to name a few, have voiced their support for preprint sharing in recent years. Many universities have also encouraged listing publications on preprint servers as part of applications for faculty hiring and tenure/promotion.

It goes without saying that, because preprints can be posted without peer review, they should not be reported as established information and therefore caution must be taken when making use of the described results. Because preprints are not available only to scientists, but to the general public as well, there is a concern that potentially unreliable data can become part of the public discourse through traditional and social media — which actually happened 6 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Servers such as bioRxiv and medRxiv , for instance, include a warning that preprints have not been peer-reviewed and that they should not be used to guide clinical practice. Peer review is still important, and preprints are not intended to replace scientific journals: after all, journals serve not only to manage the peer-review process but also to establish and uphold high standards and stringent policies for high-quality reporting and publishing of research findings. This does not mean, however, that preprints cannot be used responsibly for dissemination of research.

We at Nature Computational Science , together with other Nature Portfolio journals, recognize the important role of preprint posting in the process of open scientific discourse and actively encourage the posting of preprints for primary research papers, as described in our policy . Having posted a preprint does not compromise the novelty of the corresponding study, and therefore, does not jeopardize consideration of the study at our journal. In addition, the version that was originally submitted to the journal can be posted as a preprint at any time during the peer review process. Our authors can choose any preprint server of their liking; alternatively, at the time of submission, they can opt in to use In Review , a free journal-integrated preprint deposition service from Research Square . At the time of publication, Nature Computational Science offers authors the option to add a link from the published paper to its corresponding preprint, thus ensuring that the links are visible to all readers.

We believe that preprints provide a great vehicle for rapid dissemination of relevant findings. Provided that the scientific community and the media understand that the material might not have been vetted by peer review, the benefits largely outweigh the limitations.

Nat. Comput. Sci . 2 , 277 (2022).

Nat. Comput. Sci . 1 , 89 (2021).

Nat. Comput. Sci . 1 , 165 (2021).

Lin, J. Preprints growth rate ten times higher than journal articles. Crossref (31 May 2018); https://www.crossref.org/blog/preprints-growth-rate-ten-times-higher-than-journal-articles/

Conroy, G. Preprints boost article citations and mentions. Nature Index (9 July 2019); https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/preprints-boost-article-citations-and-mentions

Forster, V. No, the coronavirus was not genetically engineered to put pieces of HIV in it. Forbes (2 February 2020); https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/02/02/no-coronavirus-was-not-bioengineered-to-put-pieces-of-hiv-in-it/?sh=413daf2956cb

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Accelerating scientific progress with preprints. Nat Comput Sci 4 , 311 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-024-00641-4

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Published : 29 May 2024

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s43588-024-00641-4

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This is a preprint.

De novo designed proteins neutralize lethal snake venom toxins.

Snakebite envenoming remains a devastating and neglected tropical disease, claiming over 100,000 lives annually and causing severe complications and long-lasting disabilities for many more 1,2 . Three-finger toxins (3FTx) are highly toxic components of elapid snake venoms that can cause diverse pathologies, including severe tissue damage 3 and inhibition of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) resulting in life-threatening neurotoxicity 4 . Currently, the only available treatments for snakebite consist of polyclonal antibodies derived from the plasma of immunized animals, which have high cost and limited efficacy against 3FTxs 5,6,7 . Here, we use deep learning methods to de novo design proteins to bind short- and long-chain α-neurotoxins and cytotoxins from the 3FTx family. With limited experimental screening, we obtain protein designs with remarkable thermal stability, high binding affinity, and near-atomic level agreement with the computational models. The designed proteins effectively neutralize all three 3FTx sub-families in vitro and protect mice from a lethal neurotoxin challenge. Such potent, stable, and readily manufacturable toxin-neutralizing proteins could provide the basis for safer, cost-effective, and widely accessible next-generation antivenom therapeutics. Beyond snakebite, our computational design methodology should help democratize therapeutic discovery, particularly in resource-limited settings, by substantially reducing costs and resource requirements for development of therapies to neglected tropical diseases

The Full Text of this preprint is available as a PDF (1.8M) The Web version will be available soon.