Re: Author's final draft and citing

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:54:46 -0400

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On 22-Sep-08, at 2:24 AM, S Nieminen wrote:

      How have your academics reacted to the fact that it is
      often the un-paginated author?s version that needs to be
      put in the repository instead of the pretty publisher?s
      version?



This question has come up many, many
times: http://tinyurl.com/postprint-version

Also in the EPrints Self-Archiving FAQ:
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#2.Authentication

The short reply is that OA is intended for those would-be users who
cannot afford access to the publisher's proprietary version. For
them, the author's final, revised, peer-reviewed draft (postprint) is
a godsend. They can use it, and cite the published version (whose
metadata and link appears with the OA postprint) . Quotes and
excerpts can be specified by section heading and paragraph number
instead of page number.


      I?m having to speak to a number of people shortly and
      this will come up more and more. Some research staff are
      worried that [1]  the draft does not ?look good? or that
      [2] they won?t get cited from [3] papers that have not
      page numbers  [4] etc.



      [1] The right answer to "does not 'look good'" question
      is: 'Compare that to the look of a page that says "access
      denied" for all those would-be users whose cannot paid
      afford access to the publisher's version.' (As to those
      whose institutions have licensed access to the
      publisher's version: they are not the ones who need OA to
      that particular journal and article, and the link from
      the "looks-bad" postprint to the publisher's version will
      be there for them.)

      [2] Access-denied users use the postprint and cite the
      canonical published work. (They should also include the
      postprint URL in their citations, so other access-denied
      users can access cited work, and see what the citing
      author saw.)

      [3] In quoting, cite section-heading and paragraph number
      instead of page number. (That practice is optimal,
      self-contained, universal, and will supersede arbitrary,
      papyrocentric, obsolescent pagination anyway.)

      [4] What are the "etc."? Chances are they are all covered
      in: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/



      Research seems to show a great increase in number of
      downloads for OA papers, however, are author draft
      versions getting cited more? How would this happen? Do
      people read the draft paper and THEN chase up the
      published version whether freely available or not?



      (a) Unrefereed preprints are only cited as such until the
      peer-reviewed postprint, accepted for publication, is
      available.

      (b) OA officially begins with that postprint.

      (c) As of that moment, one cites the published version,
      not the self-archived version, which is not a publication
      but a means of accessing the content of the publication.

      (d) The postprint, being accepted, immediately includes
      the journal name in its metadata (as "in press," if
      the year, volume, issue and page-span are not yet known).

      (e) The year, volume, issue and page-span are added to
      the postprint's metadata as soon as they are available.

      (f) The postprint is linked to the publisher's
      proprietary version as soon as it is available.

      (g) Whenever the article is cited by the author or a
      user, the link to the OA version should be part of the
      citation.


I hope this answers your questions, and provides you with the
information to be conveyed to your authors, when they raise the very
same questions.

Stevan Harnad
Received on Mon Sep 22 2008 - 11:55:06 BST

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