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Preprints could promote confusion and distortion

The scientific community must take measures to keep preprints from distorting the public’s understanding of science, says Tom Sheldon.
  1. Tom Sheldon

    1. Tom Sheldon is a senior press manager at the Science Media Centre in London.

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Thousands of papers are submitted every month to the platforms arXiv and bioRxiv, which make manuscripts available before they have been peer reviewed and accepted by a journal. Scientists applaud preprints because they enable researchers to claim priority and make their findings available more quickly, unshackled from sluggish and tyrannical journals.

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Nature 559, 445 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05789-4

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 25 July 2018: An earlier version of this article omitted to mention that the Science Media Centre is partially funded by Springer Nature, Nature's publisher.

Competing Interests

Funders of the Science Media Centre include Springer Nature, Nature's publisher.

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