“I run a preprint journal club that posts our comments on PREreview.org. It was really rewarding for me to be approached at the last Society for Neuroscience meeting by two senior Pls who authored two preprints our group reviewed, and be told the reviews were really helpful. Apparently for one, our group caught things the journal reviewers didn’t.”

“Preprinting and preprint servers give me the freedom to write a paper and opportunities to get feedback and widen my network. It will also be my exercise to share my research at the earliest possible point and explore it at the same time.”

“Preprints let researchers take control of the publishing system. Preprints are one of the best ways to engage with diverse scholarly audiences on new results that challenge existing dogmas. My mentor and collaborators are convinced to post our next manuscript as a preprint.”

“People started using our software, we got citations, and fellowship applications in a new area had credibility faster!”

“We were able to receive instant feedback on our paper & learned of other projects/resources we had missed in our original analysis. It gave us breathing room before submitting the article for peer review. And the media reported on our preprint, which was very exciting and didn’t require waiting for publication.”

“I felt way more energized by submitting my preprint than I did after final publication… Over two years later!”

“The day my preprint was posted, I tweeted links to the data, code, and a short ‘how-to-reproduce- this’ YouTube video. During the time the paper has been undergoing review and revision, I’ve already received two questions from scientists who are testing and using the code I made available.”

“I uploaded my master’s thesis to thesiscommons.org, a preprint server for student dissertations. I did not do a perfect job on the thesis and was not 100% proud, but I decided to upload it and include the marker comments anyway. I just checked it the other day and it has been downloaded over a hundred times. As an ECR, it is motivating to see that someone cares about the work I produce.”

“I couldn’t continue to ask researchers and scholars to participate in open preprints if I wasn’t. So, I have released all my research as preprints, read preprints that have redirected my research, and am proud to serve on the advisory board of the new Library and Information Science Scholarship Archive (LISSA).”

“I, and also my PI, wanted to support open access and a vital, interacting research community.”

“My preprint was the deciding factor when the UT Southwestern hiring committee was deciding whether to give me an interview or not. Once they saw my latest paper on bioRxiv, then they gave me the invitation. I’ll be starting as an Assistant Professor in January.”

“Preprints let scientists set the release schedule for their research. I can’t risk having my research’s availability be delayed for years by the journal publication process.

By preprinting, we get our ideas out there, so others can build off of them. In return, we get valuable feedback and attention for our research.”

“Soon after my manuscript appeared (on bioRxiv), an editor from an open access journal group contacted me saying that she would like to consider it for potential publication. [During the review process] I received another invitation letter from another open access journal editor for the same manuscript asking for the submission. So I don’t have to shop around so to speak.”

“The main aspect of the online submission at bioRxiv was the instant gratification of helping the community and getting feedback from our colleagues in other fields where our data is helpful, saving others precious time and even moving forward experiments in other systems, in addition to having our paper public in less than 48 hours without the disappointment or frustration that the review process sometimes carries.”

“While I was working to resubmit a manuscript, collaborators of mine decided it was time to submit a second paper related to the work. We had no way to reference my manuscript which laid the foundations for the second paper. Being able to submit a preprint saved me because within 48 hours I could submit my primary manuscript to bioRxiv and get a DOI for the second paper to reference.”