Screening on a preprint server is minimal and is not review. It filters obvious problems and nothing more, which is what it is designed to do.
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Evidence · Preprints · continued
Citing a preprint in a maintained document: our rule and its reasoning — does this still hold? posts 31–60
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1 · go to the accepted answer.
Post #30 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Where a preprint's numbers are the basis of a claim being repeated here, someone should check whether the published version exists yet. That check is nearly always overdue.
Small point, but it is the one that usually catches people.
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f.sjoberg, post #10: Reading a preprint properly means doing some of the reviewer's job: methods first, then whether the analysis matches the plan, then the conclusion. Same conclusion as the reply above, reached differently, which is mildly reassuring. Go to post
Where I part company with post #32, and it is a narrow parting.
The reason Citing a preprint is hard to answer is that the obvious measurement and the relevant quantity are not the same thing, and substituting one for the other is silent.
Check whether it was later published: searching for the preprint's first author and keywords in PubMed might find a published version. The published version is the stronger citation if it exists.
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w.novak, post #7: Building anything durable on a preprint means committing to rebuild it. That is a reasonable trade for a fast-moving question and it should be an explicit one. Go to post
Marking my place. If it changes for me I will come back and say so.
slow_titrator, post #16: Say it is a preprint in the first line rather than the last. Everything downstream depends on that status and readers arriving from search will not scroll for it. Go to post
Reading a preprint properly means doing some of the reviewer's job: methods first, then whether the analysis matches the plan, then the conclusion.
Where numbers change between preprint and published version, the changes are not random. They tend toward a smaller effect and a more carefully hedged claim.
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This follows post #41 rather than contradicting it.
What changes between preprint and publication: authors respond to reviewer comments, re-analyse data, correct errors found in peer review, and sometimes report different results from updated analyses. The published version is not the same as the preprint.
It is one reading of the data and not the only reasonable one.
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j.nwosu, post #24: Narrowing post #23, because the general version has more than one answer. A methods point on Citing a preprint rather than a substantive one: if the comparison is not like for like, the difference you are measuring is the difference in method. Go to post
Coming back to post #41, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
I think the Citing a preprint question is answerable and has not been answered, which is a more optimistic position than most of this thread.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
On post #41 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Author track record is a weak signal and it is a signal. A group that has published carefully for years is a different prior from an unknown one.
Not the answer, but possibly the question that gets there.
diluent_watch, post #31: Screening on a preprint server is minimal and is not review. It filters obvious problems and nothing more, which is what it is designed to do. Go to post
Retractions and corrections do not propagate well from preprint servers. A citation that was fine when made can quietly become wrong.
Not disagreeing with anyone above, just adding the bit I keep having to look up.
On Citing a preprint, the part that usually goes wrong is that the question is asked as though it has one answer. It has a range, and the width of the range is the interesting bit.
If you can post the two or three numbers you are working from, several people here will check the arithmetic rather than argue about the conclusion.
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Adding the measurement that post #48 says would settle it.
A preprint that has been up for two years without appearing in a journal is telling you something, and it is not necessarily that the work is bad.
A partial answer, offered because a partial answer beats none.
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j.nwosu, post #24: Narrowing post #23, because the general version has more than one answer. A methods point on Citing a preprint rather than a substantive one: if the comparison is not like for like, the difference you are measuring is the difference in method. Go to post
Where a preprint contradicts a published trial, the prior should favour the trial. Where it extends one, the preprint can be genuinely useful.
Practical experience of Citing a preprint, offered as one case with the conditions stated, not as a general finding. Conditions first, because they are what make it interpretable.
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The arithmetic in post #52 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
The number people quote for Citing a preprint is a central estimate presented without its interval, and the interval is wide enough that the estimate is nearly uninformative on its own.
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customs_ledger, post #20: Answering the question post #18 raises rather than the one it answers. For anyone finding this later: the short answer on Citing a preprint is that it depends on one thing, and the rest of the thread is people identifying which thing. Go to post
Answering the question post #54 raises rather than the one it answers.
Screening on a preprint server is minimal and is not review. It filters obvious problems and nothing more, which is what it is designed to do.
This is the sort of thing the wiki should carry and currently does not.
Always label it as a preprint in any discussion. A preprint is not a published trial and it is not settled knowledge. Use it for hypothesis generation and for understanding emerging evidence, not for drawing definitive conclusions.
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Peer review catches some things reliably — missing methods, unsupported conclusions, statistical mistakes of the obvious kind — and misses others routinely. Knowing which is which makes preprint reading easier.
The general answer and the answer for your case may diverge here.
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