A preprint is a draft of a scientific paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. As peer review takes quite some time (publication delay is at least several months and sometimes exceeds a year), preprints are the medium of choice to communicate current results within a scientific community.

What are Preprints Used For

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Until/unless they turn into peer-reviewed publications, preprints are usually not taken into account when making hiring or promotion decisions in academia. Also, preprints do not tend to be cited often. In citing references, most authors much prefer journal articles, which have passed peer review, have greater permanence, are canonically citable, and are easier for readers to find. (However, central preprint archives such as arXiv.org and institutional archives (or repositories) for both preprints and postprints are beginning to change this.) For over a decade, preprints tend to have been made public on the web rather than by distributing paper prints. The term e-print, or eprint is frequently used for preprints or postprints that are available electronically. The term was roughly derived by analogy with pre-print (a pre-publication printed version of an article, etc), post-print (a printed version of an article made available to others after publication) and reprint (a post-print printed by the journal publisher and provided to the author).

arXiv

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Posting preprints has been common in theoretical high-energy physics and has led to the creation of arXiv.org by Paul Ginsparg. As in some branches of physics, arXiv has already more importance as medium of communication than standard journals: it is considered one of the driving forces behind the currently ongoing trend against commercially published scientific journals (see article for details about this controversy). Indeed, David Mermin in 1992 described Ginsparg's creation as potentially "string theory's greatest contribution to science".

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Journals and Preprints - Twitter Search

Thinking about splitting my Machine Learning Feed into Blogs and Journals/Preprints. The latter just swamp the blogs... .
mikiobraun (mikiobraun) Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:22:43 -0000
Thinking about splitting my Machine Learning Feed into Blogs and Journals/Preprints. The latter just swamp the blogs... .

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