Upping the pace of publishing: sharing your research as preprints

It can take a long time from submitting a manuscript to the publisher of a journal to its publication (and even longer for a book chapter or monograph). If you’d like to disseminate your research rapidly then choosing to make it available as a preprint could be an option. In this blogpost we offer an introduction to the preprint route to publishing research in a fast and open way.

What are preprints?

Preprints are draft versions of research articles that have not yet been through peer review. They are shared on preprint servers which are databases or repositories where manuscripts can be uploaded and made openly accessible instantly.

Preprints are common within disciplines like physics, astronomy, mathematics and computer science, and increasing within the life sciences and social sciences.

The lack of peer review does mean that readers of preprints need to be cautious when interpreting the significance of the claims they make as there may be errors or unvalidated claims in the work. Despite the caveats around reliability, a great deal of important research is published via preprints.

Why publishing preprints is good for your work

Speediness

Communicating the results of research quickly can be vital when a solution to an urgent problem needs to be found as is the case with public health emergencies like COVID-19. Journals articles may take months to publish but preprints can be made available instantly or within a couple of days.

Feedback

Sharing preprints helps you to gain valuable feedback on your work from peers and the wider research community which helps to strengthen manuscripts before submission to journals. This interaction also builds potential for future collaboration.

Priority

Preprints help to establish priority in research. When a manuscript is uploaded to a preprint server it is given a persistent identifier (a DOI) which ensures a permanent link to your publication and ensures it can be cited. The DOI effectively timestamps your work which confirms its primacy so whilst many researchers have concerns that sharing their research prior to publication can lead to them being ‘scooped’, publishing a preprint allows you to eliminate this risk.

Visibility and accessibility

Another benefit of preprints is that they increase the visibility of your research. Once a preprint appears on a preprint server and receives its DOI, it is indexed by search engines like Google Scholar and scholarly databases like Web of Science which amplifies the reach of your work. Preprints tend to be published open access, and free accessibility has been found to be one of the most important benefits for researchers (Ni & Waltman, 2024).  Furthermore, articles published as preprints have been found to receive more citations.

Recognition of work

As citable research outputs themselves, preprints provide an opportunity for researchers to share valuable research that might not be published by journals, for example where there are negative or null results. Preprints thus offer proof of productivity that can be particularly important for some researchers.

Where to publish preprints

There are many preprint servers and repositories where you can share preprints and it’s important to choose somewhere reputable for your work. You may want to choose a discipline-specific server like arXiv or bioRxiv, a commercial server like SSRN, or an interdisciplinary one like Research Square.

The following resources can help you choose a preprint server:

The Directory of Open Access Preprint Repositories provides a list of preprint repositories.

Asapbio also has a very helpful and detailed directory of preprint servers.

The Center for Open Science hosts over 20 preprint servers on the OSF preprints platform.

Good preprint practice

Most journals accept submissions of manuscripts that have been published as preprints, however not all do. You should check the submission guidelines of any journals you are considering publishing your work in before sharing it as a preprint.

You can check journal policies on Openpolicyfinder or by getting in touch with the journal.

Make sure you have the agreement of all co-authors before sharing work as a preprint. You should also all agree on the preprint server you are going to use and the licence for reuse.

Manuscripts need to be clearly labelled as a preprint when shared. They should highlight the status of the work as not having been though peer review and that authors should be aware of the provisional nature of any findings and conclusions.

When submitting your article to a journal, inform the journal if the manuscript has been shared as a preprint. Include the DOI or a link to the preprint on the preprint server. This can lead more readers to your work.

Once your article has been peer reviewed and published in a journal, ensure you update the preprint record to include the details of the published article, including the DOI.

In summary...

Preprints have become an established part of the scholarly communication landscape. Whilst they are not a replacement for peer review, they complement traditional publishing by enabling faster dissemination and greater openness.

If you’re a researcher looking to maximise the visibility and impact of your work, preprints can offer a speedy route to sharing your research with the world.

For more information on making your research practices open, get in touch with the Scholarly Communications Team at wire@wlv.ac.uk

References and further reading

Ni, R., & Waltman, L. (2024) To preprint or not to preprint: A global researcher survey. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 75(6), 749–766. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24880

Ettinger, C.L., Sadanandappa, M.K., Görgülü, K. et al. (2022) A guide to preprinting for early-career researchers. Biology Open, 11 (7), bio059310. https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.059310

Brainard, J. (2025) ‘Preprints often make news. Many people don’t know what they are’. Science, 6^th January 2025. Available at: https://www.science.org/content/article/preprints-often-make-news-many-people-don-t-know-what-they-are

Fraser N, Brierley L, Dey G, Polka JK, Pálfy M, Nanni F, et al. (2021) The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape. PLoS Biol 19(4): e3000959. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959

MRC guidance on preprints https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/mrc/our-policies-and-standards/research/preprints/

Sarah Dar, Scholarly Communications Officer

Photo by Jorge Alberto Vega Barrera on Unsplash