Preprint servers

"Preprint servers are a different and public place to put your manuscript file rather than your own computer's hard drive. According to the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a preprint is “a version of a scientific manuscript posted on a public server before formal peer review” that, once posted, becomes a “permanent part of the scientific record, citable with its own unique DOI.”1 The preprint server most readers will likely have heard of are the “Rxiv” series, the most well-known being the biology focused, bioRxiv.org. Another relevant to medical science would be medRxiv.org, which was launched in 2019.2 Although content posted to a preprint service does become a part of the scientific record, it has not been subjected to the rigors of the peer-review process and should be approached cautiously. In fact, the medRxiv homepage features a prominent message warning visitors that preprints “should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.”3 Given the lack of vetting by way of peer-review, readers may question the ultimate value of preprint servers. To understand this, one should look at preprint servers not as a terminal destination for a manuscript, but perhaps as a part of the drafting process. As publicly available content, manuscripts posted to preprint servers are widely available and open to comments from the larger community. This commenting process gives authors the opportunity to vet their work in an open manner, which allows them to both share their work with colleagues and refine their manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed publication. Are comments actually received to help the manuscript develop? At times."