This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Following this. I have the same question and no better information than the first post.
Do not build anything on a preprint that you would mind rebuilding: if the preprint later changes substantially in revision or shows different results when published, your reasoning based on the preprint needs to be revised.
Posting it because the silence on this was starting to look like agreement.
Post #32 is the version of this I will quote in future. One addition.
Tracking a preprint is one of those subjects where the general answer and the answer for a specific case diverge, and the thread will go in circles until someone says which one is being asked for.
Where I part company with post #30, and it is a narrow parting.
Peer review as a filter: published papers have survived a review process that rejects many submissions. Preprints have not. Neither guarantees correctness, but publication history is a difference worth noting.
I have left out the parts I could not verify.
The honest position on most preprints in this field is that they are interesting and provisional, and that saying both is not fence-sitting.
Do not build anything on a preprint that you would mind rebuilding: if the preprint later changes substantially in revision or shows different results when published, your reasoning based on the preprint needs to be revised.
I had written a reply contradicting post #34 and deleted it. Here is what survived.
Adding the boring version of tracking a preprint, because the interesting version keeps getting posted and the boring one is usually right.
Check the ordinary explanations, in order, and stop when one of them accounts for what you are seeing. Most of the time the second one does.
Post #36 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Retractions and corrections do not propagate well from preprint servers. A citation that was fine when made can quietly become wrong.
That is the practical version. The rigorous version is longer and says the same thing.
Author track record is a weak signal and it is a signal. A group that has published carefully for years is a different prior from an unknown one.
I would hold that lightly until someone with a larger sample weighs in.
Narrowing post #39, because the general version has more than one answer.
Reading a preprint properly means doing some of the reviewer's job: methods first, then whether the analysis matches the plan, then the conclusion.
Not the whole picture, but the part of it I can speak to.
Helpful, and easy to find again, which is half of what a good reply is.
Always label it as a preprint in any discussion. A preprint is not a published trial and it is not settled knowledge. Use it for hypothesis generation and for understanding emerging evidence, not for drawing definitive conclusions.
Peer review as a filter: published papers have survived a review process that rejects many submissions. Preprints have not. Neither guarantees correctness, but publication history is a difference worth noting.
One more caveat and then I will stop qualifying: the sample selected itself.
Taking post #47 at face value and following it one step further.
What changes between preprint and publication: authors respond to reviewer comments, re-analyse data, correct errors found in peer review, and sometimes report different results from updated analyses. The published version is not the same as the preprint.
Take it as a starting point and not as a specification.
The question underneath tracking a preprint is usually "how would I tell?" rather than "what is true?", and that one has a method attached to it.
Write down what you would expect to see under each hypothesis before you collect anything. If they predict the same observation, collecting it will not help.
Post #50 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Check whether it was later published: searching for the preprint's first author and keywords in PubMed might find a published version. The published version is the stronger citation if it exists.
That matches what I was told, which is not the same as knowing it.
I read post #48 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
How to cite a preprint: author last name, first initial, et al. Title. Server name [preprint]. Posted date. Doi. Include the server name and note that it is a preprint.
It took me longer than it should have to see that.
The arithmetic on tracking a preprint is the easy part and it is where the errors are, which is an uncomfortable combination. Show your working and someone will catch it.
Narrowing post #54, because the general version has more than one answer.
Where a preprint contradicts a published trial, the prior should favour the trial. Where it extends one, the preprint can be genuinely useful.
Happy to be the one who is wrong here if it settles the question.
Say it is a preprint in the first line rather than the last. Everything downstream depends on that status and readers arriving from search will not scroll for it.