Journey of the preprint – introducing postLights

6 October 2022

Earlier this year, an Open-Access paper was published in PLOS Biology that systematically tracks the changes between preprint posting and journal publication during the COVID-19 pandemic (read it here). Among the authors of this paper are two preLighters – Jonny Coates (corresponding author), Gautam Dey – and the former preLights Community Manager Máté Pálfy. They used a combination of automatic and manual annotations to quantify how an article changed between the preprinted and published version and found that it changes little – an important finding that supports and highlights the continued importance of preprints.

As part of preLights, we are in a unique situation to describe the journey from preprint to published paper in even more detail. Our preLighters carefully read and describe their chosen preprints, making them the ideal ‘reviewers’ of the changes that have occurred after journal-led peer review. Moreover, they can assess whether any of the comments and issues raised in community reviews (eg. preLights) and preprint peer review (eg. PREreview, PCI) have been considered during journal-led peer-review. In other words, this could be a way to tie preprints and journal-published papers closer together.

The introduction of a new feature that allows preLighters to re-visit their preLights after it was published in a peer-reviewed journal, led to some encouraging and positive responses – eg. “I like the idea of tracking the manuscript through preprint to publication”, “I find [this] idea amazing” and “[this feature] will be a good start to return to prelights“. Three preLighters – Gwendolyn K. Kirschner, Olivia Tidswell and Kristina Kuhbandner – have so far published their ‘postLights’ on our website and, to quote Olivia, we are all “excited to see how this feature evolves”.

Noticed your preLighted paper has been published and would like to share your thoughts on (the lack of) any changes? Please do not hesitate to reach out to prelights@biologists.com.

preLight – postLight (below)