Dear all,

Attention has been drawn once again to the non-intuitive nature of our terms “pre-print” and “post-print”. In our terms, as we all understand well in repository circles, these mean respectively “author’s version as sent to publisher before peer review” and “author’s version as sent to publisher following peer review”. It has nonetheless been noted many times on various mailing lists that authors (and others) often misunderstand our use of the terms.

On the basis of intuitive word formation, one would expect “pre-print” to mean the version prior to printing (rather than prior to peer review) and “post-print” to mean the version after printing (rather than after peer review). Since the author’s intervention is required between these two processes in order to correct and then re-send the manuscript in a new version, it is counter-intuitive to view peer review as part of the printing process, which is what is conceptually required in order to apply the term “pre-print” to the unrefereed paper. Secondly, the term “post-print” directly implies the form that is created by and exists as a result of printing, which strongly suggests the final PDF. (That PDF is a poor format for preservation is a quite separate issue.) It does not matter, incidentally, that “printing” may actually mean creating a PDF for an electronic journal: we should see the creation of the final branded version as “printing” whatever the eventual medium of publication, if we are going to understand the natural progressions of language that lead people to analyse word meanings.

It is clear that the preceding paragraph does not describe the “proper” use of these terms by the repository community. We must therefore ask ourselves if these are appropriate terms to use publicly, since many repository managers have reported misunderstandings based on these terms (as we may extrapolate from the incorrect assumption made by certain publishers reported below by Stevan Harnad). I am by no means the first to suggest that we need a more apt, and perhaps granular, set of terms of reference in order to avoid confusing our authors. I know, for instance, that those involved with versioning projects have already made similar suggestions. I am often left to work out on my own whether an author has or has not sent me what they have said they have sent, which could be avoided entirely if the terms were made more abundantly clear.

Perhaps we would be best using “pre-refereed” and “post-refereed” as the basic terms. We could then say “post-refereed author’s version” and “publisher’s final PDF” or similar phrases. I think a lot of repository managers already use “author’s final version/format” and “publisher’s final version/format” in this way. Naturally, I don’t suggest that we actually redefine “pre-print” and “post-print” more intuitively as described above, because they have had currency already and this would only add to the confusion that already exists. I am simply saying that we should try to keep these terms to ourselves as repository jargon, while using more intuitive terminology when dealing with academics and with other end-users of our repositories, so as not to create room for error. It would not hurt, though, to give preference to the clearer terms even in dealings with other repository professionals. New repository managers, of whom we hope there will be many, would certainly benefit too. After all, these are only terms, and the best terms are the ones with the clearest meanings.

I hope these remarks, while not especially original, will be useful in stimulating debate on how to avoid this kind of confusion. Thanks,

Talat

From: American Scientist Open Access Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
Sent: 22 April 2008 15:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Publisher's requirements for links from published articles

SHERPA RoMEO "Green" is not quite the right category, because it means "BOTH postprint-Green AND preprint-Green" whereas what you should be covering is postprint-Green, whether or not the publisher also happens to be preprint-Green, and you should also look carefully at the preprint Greens, because many of them mean "postprint" (author's final refereed draft) even though they say "preprint" (unrefereed draft) wrongly thinking that "postprint" means publisher's PDF!