Discovery and scholarly communication aspects of preprints

"The purpose of preprints is to increase the speed at which research results are disseminated. They are not a way to bypass peer review—they bypass delays resulting from the peer review process.2 They have clear benefits to the authors, as preprints allow authors to stake a claim in their research by putting a “time-stamp” on their ideas.3 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) cites both of these reasons for sharing preprints in a March 2017 Notice allowing NIH-funded researchers to cite preprints as products of NIH funding and cite them in further grant applications. It identifies additional benefits of sharing preprints: the ability to obtain feedback and offset publication bias.4...."