Preprints: Accelerating Research

1. What Is a Preprint?

Preprints and the Stages of Printing

Preprints are complete drafts of scientific documents. In the stages of printing (see figure below), preprints must complete many steps before becoming a published article, including submission to a journal, review by peers, and an editorial process.

Stages of Printing

A paper's lifecycle from preprint to author manuscript to published article showing Preprint, Post to Preprint Server, Submit to Journal, Peer Review, Edit, Accepted By Journal, Author Manuscript, Copyediting Typesetting, Published Article

(Image Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/nihpreprints/)

Prior to peer review, preprints are often made public at no cost. They are shared publicly to not only distribute information to the research community, but also to invite feedback. A preprint can be shared before or at the same time as it is submitted to a research journal¹.

Not all preprints made publicly available end up as published journal articles.

1.U.S. National Library of Medicine. NIH Preprint Pilot. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/nihpreprints/.