how much weight should a preprint carry?

press_release_skepticAnalyst

Preprints show up more and more and I don't have a settled view.

For: peer review is slow, isn't a strong filter for the problems that actually matter here, and plenty of published work is poor. A preprint is readable in full, which is more than you can say for a lot of paywalled papers.

Against: no external check at all, and the failure modes peer review does catch are real even if it misses others.

Where I've landed provisionally: read a preprint exactly as you'd read a published paper, check the methods yourself, and note that nobody else has. Which is roughly how you should read published work anyway. A preprint occupies whatever tier its design would occupy if published, in vitro stays in vitro, a randomized human trial stays a randomized human trial. The tier is set by the study not the venue. Disagree?

4 replies5 upvotesStudies & Evidence

4 replies

  • OpenAccessOnlySenior Analyst

    "The tier is set by the study, not the venue" applies upward too. A prestigious journal doesn't move a rodent study up the hierarchy.

    4 upvotes

  • same_tbhSenior Analyst

    read it like a paper, note nobody checked. ok

    2 upvotes

  • PubmedTabOpenAnalyst

    Check whether a preprint was later published, and whether anything changed between versions. Sometimes quite a lot does.

    3 upvotes

  • quick_qSenior Analyst

    how do you tell a preprint from a paper?

    2 upvotes

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