What is your personal policy with preprints?

[andresB]

Assuming you publish preprints at all, then the question is: do you publish you preprints before submitting the paper to a journal? or do you wait to your paper to be accepted before submitting the preprint?

Also, have preprints resulted in more promotion for your work? have you received more feedback?

I usually wait until the manuscript have been accepted for publication in a journal. But for my last work I decided to put it in arxiv first since I have no idea what journal would be suitable for it

 

[Vanadium 50]

or do you wait to your paper to be accepted before submitting the preprint?

Why would anyone do that?

 

[andresB]

Why would anyone do that?

If you want a double-blind process for the peer review, for example.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Who does double-blind in physics? Experimentally, description of the apparatus gives the secret away (and not just in high energy). Theoretically it's not much better. Heck, it's hard enough to make it single-blind. It's not at all unusual to know who the referees are by what they say and how they say it.

 

[crashcat]

I guess that's the huge difference between fields in physics. Working in nano and photonics, I publish in a lot of materials journals as well as physics, so single-blind can be expected. No one can keep track of several thousand researchers all doing related stuff.

No journal I've ever submitted to has been double blind. My name appears at the top. Is that a medicine thing?

But regarding the actual preprint question, it's a case by case basis. I've never felt the need because I've never felt that pressure that my paper needs to be on the record TODAY and not 8 months from now, and we often foot the bill for open access. But I've come to understand that in HEP, preprints are expected for any paper worth anything.

 

[Vanadium 50]

No one can keep track of several thousand researchers all doing related stuff.

You could say that about HEP. But it's often easy to tell.

 

[andresB]

No journal I've ever submitted to has been double blind. My name appears at the top. Is that a medicine thing?

I just saw the option in IOP for a recent submission in journal of physics A.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I think a time or two I waited in cases where a journal's pre-print policy was unclear or when I did not want a version out there that did not incorporate the referee's comments. But if the journal allows posting to arXiv before publication and the co-authors were OK with a version on arXiv without changes based on referee comments, I go ahead and post it.