Medical Preprints—A Debate Worth Having
Abstract
This Viewpoint discusses preprint publication of clinical research, outlining the benefits and risks of making early manuscript drafts widely available before their accuracy has been vetted through the traditional editorial and peer review process.
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Growing interest in preprints predates the covid-19 pandemic.
“Growing interest in preprints predates the covid-19 pandemic.6 7”
From Consistency of covid-19 trial preprints with published reports and impact for decision making: retrospective review (2022) · cites this paper as [6]
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References 6 · Cited by 53
- Authors
- Maslove, D. M.
- Affiliations
- Queen's University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Maslove, David M.
- ORCID
- Maslove, David M.
- Venue
- JAMA
- Publisher
- American Medical Association (AMA)
- Published
- 2018-02-06
- Volume
- 319
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 443
- ISSN
- 0002-9955 (ISSN-L)
- 0098-7484
- OpenAlex
- W2772653807
- Cited by
- 53
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 12.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- JAMA (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Publishing and Scholarly Communication
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Keywords
- preprint publication, clinical research, peer review, editorial process, manuscript drafts, research dissemination, scholarly communication
- MeSH terms
- Online Systems, Publishing, Peer Review, Research
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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