Should You Post a Preprint Before Submitting to a Journal?
A preprint establishes priority, invites feedback, and does not disqualify you from most journals. The reasons people avoid one are mostly misunderstandings, and a few are real. Here is how to tell which you have.
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Quick answer: Should you post a preprint before submitting? For most papers, yes. A preprint timestamps your work and establishes priority, it makes the work findable and citable months before the journal version, and it can surface feedback that strengthens the paper before formal review. The reasons to hold off are specific and checkable: a journal that forbids preprints, a patentable result, or sensitive data. Absent one of those, posting is the default most researchers now choose.
The decision is usually simpler than the anxiety around it. Most of what stops people is a worry, not a constraint.
Why posting is the default
The reasoning comes first, because it frames every exception. A preprint is a public, timestamped, citable version of your manuscript, posted to a server like bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, or SSRN before or alongside journal submission. It does three concrete things. It establishes priority, by creating a dated public record that this result was yours. It creates visibility, because the work can be read and cited during the months it would otherwise sit invisible in review. And it can improve the paper, because colleagues who find the preprint sometimes send exactly the comment that would have been Reviewer 2's objection, while you can still act on it freely.
None of that depends on the preprint being peer reviewed, and the evidence is that it is not worthless for lacking review. A large analysis of bioRxiv found that papers posted as preprints received more citations and substantially higher online attention than comparable papers that were not preprinted. The preprint is not a substitute for the journal version; it is a head start on it.
The three worries that stop people who should not stop
This is where the hesitation lives, and it is worth naming the shapes. In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts, the authors who hesitate over a preprint almost always hold one of three specific worries, and two of the three are misunderstandings.
The first is the scooping fear. The author believes that posting the result publicly invites a competitor to rush out a similar paper first. What we see is that this runs exactly backwards: a preprint is a dated, public, citable claim to the result, so it is protection against being scooped, not an invitation. The genuine scooping risk is higher for the paper that sits unposted for months in review, because during that time you have no public record at all.
The second is the eligibility worry. The author fears that posting a preprint will disqualify the paper at their target journal. For the large majority of journals this is simply not true; most now allow or encourage preprints, and the ones that restrict them are a checkable minority. The fix is not to avoid preprints, it is to check the one journal you are aiming at before you post.
The third is the "it doesn't count" dismissal. The author treats a preprint as meaningless because it is not peer reviewed, and so sees no reason to bother. In practice this undervalues what the preprint provides: a priority stamp, real visibility, and a feedback channel. It does not count as a publication, but "not a publication" is not the same as "worth nothing."
Two of these three dissolve on contact with the facts. The third, eligibility, is real but is resolved by a thirty-second policy check rather than by avoidance.
When it is genuinely a bad idea
Not every hesitation is a misunderstanding. There are real constraints, and they are specific enough to check against. So here is how to tell a constraint from a worry.
Situation | Post a preprint? | Why |
|---|---|---|
Target journal forbids prior posting | No | A minority of journals still restrict it; check first |
Patentable finding, filing not yet made | No | Public disclosure can compromise the patent |
Sensitive, embargoed, or restricted data | No | Disclosure rules or ethics constraints override |
Clinical trial under a reporting embargo | Caution | Follow the trial's disclosure timeline |
None of the above | Yes | The default; priority, visibility, and feedback |
Adapted from ASAPbio and publisher preprint policies (accessed August 2026).
The pattern to hold onto: the real reasons not to post are external constraints you can name and verify. If you cannot point to one of them, what you have is a worry, and the worries mostly run backwards.
How to post without stepping on the submission rule
A preprint and a journal submission are not the same act, and posting one does not create a duplicate submission, which is a separate rule worth getting right. Post to a recognized server, choose a license, and, if the paper is heading to a specific journal, note the target where the server allows it. The main servers split by field, so pick the one your readers actually watch.
Server | Field | Note |
|---|---|---|
bioRxiv | Life sciences | The largest biology preprint server |
medRxiv | Clinical and health | Extra screening for clinical content |
arXiv | Physics, math, CS | The original preprint server |
SSRN | Social sciences | Broad social-science and humanities reach |
ChemRxiv | Chemistry | The main chemistry server |
Recognized preprint servers by primary field (accessed August 2026). Then submit to one journal, disclosing the preprint and its DOI in the cover letter or the submission system as most journals request.
The one sequencing point that matters: the preprint is not a journal, so it does not count against the one-journal-at-a-time rule. You may have a live preprint and a paper under review at a single journal simultaneously with no conflict. What you still cannot do is have the paper under formal review at two journals at once. If you want the full picture on that separate line, our guide on submitting to two journals at once covers it, and the journal directory helps you confirm a target journal's preprint stance before you post.
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The decision, in two cuts
Use these to settle it quickly.
Post the preprint if: your target journal allows it, the finding is not patent-pending, the data are not sensitive or embargoed, and you want priority, visibility, and early feedback. That describes most papers most of the time, which is why posting is the default rather than the exception.
Think twice and hold off if: the journal's policy forbids prior posting, a patent filing is pending, the data are restricted, or a clinical or ethical embargo applies. These are the real reasons, and each is something you can verify rather than something you have to feel your way through.
The one move that costs you is avoiding a preprint out of the scooping fear. It is the most common reason people give and the one most likely to be backwards, because the paper with no public record is the one truly exposed.
What we see across manuscripts
Getting the most out of a preprint is not about being the boldest author. It is about checking your target journal's policy, confirming no patent or data constraint applies, and then posting, which earns a priority stamp and often a useful comment or two before formal review. Weigh this page when you are unsure whether your hesitation is a real constraint or just a worry, and read it before you submit. The preprint policies and the citation study we reviewed are cited below. If you want the paper read for readiness before it goes public and into review, our pre-submission review flags the issues you would rather fix before the preprint is timestamped than after.
Frequently asked questions
For most papers, yes. A preprint timestamps your work and establishes priority, it lets the community find and cite it months before the journal version appears, and it can generate feedback that improves the paper before formal review. The main reasons to hold off are specific: a journal that forbids preprints, a patentable finding, or sensitive data. Absent one of those, posting is the default that most working researchers now choose.
At most journals, no. The large majority of journals now explicitly allow or even encourage preprints, and you can confirm any given journal's policy in seconds through its author guidelines or a database like Sherpa Romeo. A small number of journals still restrict prior posting, so the one real step is to check your target journal before you post, not to avoid preprints on a vague worry.
A preprint does the opposite. Because it is a public, timestamped, citable record, it establishes that you had the result first, which is protection against being scooped rather than an invitation to it. The scooping fear is the most common reason people avoid preprints and it usually runs backwards: the risk of being scooped is higher for work that sits unposted while it waits months in review.
They count for more than authors expect. Preprints are citable, they are indexed, they accrue downloads and citations, and one large study found preprinted papers received more citations and higher attention than non-preprinted ones. They do not replace peer review or a journal publication, but treating them as worthless undervalues the priority, visibility, and feedback they provide.
Hold off when your target journal's policy forbids prior posting, when the finding is patentable and public disclosure would compromise the filing, when the data are sensitive or under embargo, or when a clinical or ethical constraint applies. These are specific, checkable conditions. If none of them holds, the usual reasons people give for not posting are worries rather than constraints.
Sources
- Fu and Hughey, Releasing a preprint is associated with more attention and citations (eLife, 2019): https://elifesciences.org/articles/52646
- ASAPbio, preprint FAQ and journal policies: https://asapbio.org/preprint-info/preprint-faq
- Sherpa Romeo, journal open-access and preprint policies: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
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