Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry 6(1): 5-6, 2022 Firenze University Press www.fupress.com/substantia ISSN 2532-3997 (online) | DOI: 10.36253/Substantia-1570 To Print or not to Print? Preprints and publication: how the Covid-19 pandemic affected the quality of scientific production Pierandrea Lo Nostro Department of Chemistry “Ugo Schiff ” and CSGI, University of Florence, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy Email: pierandrea.lonostro@unifi.it An interesting paper recently published in Peer J. by Enrique Teran and coworkers casts light on a pecu- liar side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic that concerns the quality of articles that appeared as preprints in archives or as regular papers in peer-reviewed scholarly journals.1 The authors report a detailed perusal of the scientific publications related to research on Covid-19 in a portion of the year 2020. What emerges from the study is that over the total number of preprints uploaded in the archives’ servers, that are not subjected to a formal peer-review process, only about 5.7% were later converted into regular arti- cles and published in scholarly journals after a regular peer-review process. The statistics is based on a global sample of 5,061 preprints uploaded in three different archives. The fast, almost immediate dissemination of experi- mental studies has certainly played an important role during the pandemic. In fact it was promoted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.2 Moreover, the World Health Organization3 and some journals require that manuscripts be shared as preprints before being sent to reviewers. In this way preprints are exposed to a public form of peer-review in real time. Fast publication as preprints certainly helped dif- ferent research groups to exchange data and interpreta- tions, hypothesis and proposals for public health guide- lines to secure a powerful response to the virus attacks. However, a conversion of 5.7% from preprints to regular articles seems to be too low. This may be due to the emergence of more accurate studies, to repeated ver- ifications of the presented data on different samples, and to the very fast communications of results that made fresh data look like old and outdated findings. But on the other hand, Covid-19 related topics are very delicate matters for their social and political conse- quences. No doubt they must be treated with extra care. So many fake news, accusations of conspiracies, distrust in official authorities’ statements have filled newspapers and websites, including the social networks that in this specific case have probably shown the dreadful and ter- rific power of some people’s madness and ignorance. Peer-review requires time. Reviewers are often reminded and urged to return their comments within few days. We know that a “short lapse between submis- sion and acceptance” is a very appreciated feature of scholarly journals. Authors are anxious to see their work published, and sometimes do not appreciate enough the benefit of an accurate review. Teran’s article also reports that between February and May 2020 about 17,500 articles have been published in peer-review journals indexed in PubMed, suggesting that even during the Covid-19 emergency, scholarly jour- nals kept pace with an enormous pressure from the sci- entific community and publish their articles after a for- mal peer-review process.1 Another interesting point is that articles published in scholarly journals received more attention and a high- er citation rate than preprints. The citation count is one of the quantitative indicators of the scientific relevance of a publication (although not all citations may be posi- tive).4 In conclusion, while the scientific communities have all the tools to confirm or reject the findings pub- lished in open access preprints, the same does not hold http://www.fupress.com/substantia 6 Pierandrea Lo Nostro for average non-specialized readers that sometimes take advantage of partial or limited results to discredit the conclusions of serious studies. And in our democracies the recent events have proved that these differences between scientists and self- proclaimed “experts” do matter. REFERENCES 1. Añazco, D.; Nicolalde, B.; Espinosa, I.; Camacho, J.; Mushtaq, M.; Gimenez, J.; Teran, E. Publication rate and citation counts for preprints released dur- ing the COVID-19 pandemic: the good, the bad and the ugly. Peer J. 2021, 9, e10927. DOI: 10.7717/ peerj.10927 2. ICMJE. Overlapping Publications 2020, http://icmje. org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-edi- torial-issues/overlapping-publications.html. Last accessed Feb 07, 2022. 3. Moorthy, V.; Henao Restrepo, A. M.; Preziosi, M.-P.; Swaminathan, S. Data sharing for novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Bulletin of the World Health Organiza- tion 2020, 98(3), 150. DOI: 10.2471/BLT.20.251561. 4. Aksnes D. W.; Langfeldt, L.; Wouters, P. Cita- tions, citation indicators, and research qual- ity: an overview of basic concepts and theories. SAGE Open 2019, 9(1), 2158244019829575. DOI: 10.1177/2158244019829575. Substantia An International Journal of the History of Chemistry Vol. 6, n. 1 - 2022 Firenze University Press To Print or not to Print? Preprints and publication: how the Covid-19 pandemic affected the quality of scientific production Pierandrea Lo Nostro Faraday’s Dogma Stephen T. Hyde Creativity in the Art, Literature, Music, Science, and Inventions Singlet Dioxygen 1O2, its Generation, Physico-chemical Properties and its Possible Hormetic Behavior in Cancer Therapy Marc Henry1, Miro Radman2, Luc Benichou3, Khalid O. Alfarouk4, Laurent Schwartz5,* Is the Second Law of Thermodynamics Able to Classify Drugs? Laurent Schwartz1,*, Luc Benichou2, Jules Schwartz1, Maxime Pontié3, Marc Henry4 History of Research on Phospholipid Metabolism and Applications to the Detection, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Cancer Peter F. Daly1, Jack S. Cohen2,* Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) and its Basic Principles in Historical Retrospect. Part 3. 1840s –1900ca. The First CE of Ions in 1861. Transference Numbers, Migration Velocity, Conductivity, Mobility Ernst Kenndler The Early History of Polyaniline II: Elucidation of Structure and Redox States† Seth C. 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