When to upload to PhilPapers?

In our newest “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

When is the right time to put a paper on philpapers? When it is accepted? When it is published? Thanks!

These are good questions that I imagine other early career readers might wonder about. Another reader submitted the following reply:

You should post the basic information about an article mon PhilPapers, including the abstract, when the paper is formally accepted. But you should check the publication agreement you signed in order to determine when and what you post, if you plan to post a copy of the paper. Incidentally, people will often contact you for a copy of your paper, even if you do not post it - provided you provide an abstract.

This sounds right, but one issue I’ve had is that some publishing agreements only let you post a “pre-peer-review” version of your paper on preprint server—that is, the version of your paper when you initially sent it to the journal, before any revisions. I wouldn’t want to post that version of my paper because it’s not the final version, so sometimes I’m not sure what to do other than link to the published version along on the journal’s website.

What do you all think/do?

Comments

[rules_schmules]

Follow up question: is it so bad to violate the publishing agreement? Do they really care if you upload the final version of the paper?

[Nick Byrd]

A few things:

1. I usually upload the accepted manuscript (i.e., whatever version of manuscript was under review when I received the acceptance). At that point, the journal has invested no copyediting into it and no copyright agreement has been made. In my view, the peer reviewers have a better copyright claim to it than the journal—and the peer reviewers clearly don't have a compelling copyright claim to it.

2. I consider it extremely important to state the status of the manuscript on the first page (ideally in a different font color, like red) so that it is clear whether or not has survived peer review and where—if accepted—the official version will be (Wingen et al., 2022).

3. If *I* find a substantial errors during proofing, I may annotate as much on my accepted manuscript and then re-upload it. (I have never had copyeditors note errors, but not because the errors do not exist.)

4. I often add the DOI to the uploaded manuscript once I get it so that people are still directed to the journal's version. This is good not only for the journal, but also for the author and reader because it directs readers to all of the bibliographic information that is necessary for a proper citation. As many people know, preprint downloads are associated with higher citation rates (Shuai et al., 2012).

5. I recommend uploading papers to platforms that have automatic notification systems for potential followers. While PhilPapers is one of these platforms, I find that few people outside of philosophy have ever heard of it. For this and other reasons, I use OSF and ResearchGate (but never Academia.edu)—I explain in these slides: byrdnick.com/archives/11393/personal-websites-academic-social-networks-how-to

I have never had a journal complain about any of this.

Shuai, X., Pepe, A., & Bollen, J. (2012). How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations. PLOS ONE, 7(11), e47523. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047523

Wingen, T., Berkessel, J. B., & Dohle, S. (2022). Caution, Preprint! Brief Explanations Allow Nonscientists to Differentiate Between Preprints and Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 5(1), 25152459211070560. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459211070559

[anon]

One time I accidentally violated one of these policies. I think what happened was that the publisher complained to Researchgate, and Researchgate sent me an email saying that they'd taken the preprint down, and that they encouraged me to try not to violate policies.

Didn't seem like a big deal overall. My impression of the complaint and the Researchgate response was that they were all/mostly automated.