I haven’t blogged here for a while because I have been busy writing other things, I have several projects on the go at the same time as usual because I hate being bored. Also, new job starting in April! I thought I would take a little time to pour out my thoughts about language teaching research, especially that done by teachers, and why preprint servers are fantastic. This post is aimed at very early career researchers like MA graduates or teachers who want to share findings with the wider research community (hello underrepresented teachers of young learners!)
Preprints are free and they can be updated based on any feedback that you get. You get your research out into the world while you wait for peer review (although check the policy of the journal you are submitting to). If you get feedback, usually through hypothes.is, you can address it quickly and the state of your research is basically much like a blog but you get a DOI for easy citation. This is something I have done with a few projects because I get really frustrated waiting to find out even whether my article has gone out for review.
Another good point about preprints is that if you cannot publish in an open-access journal, or afford to pay an extortionate article processing charge (APC), you can normally put up the preprint version, but check the journal’s policies first.
But Marc, why not just blog it if it isn’t peer reviewed? Well, the point is that it could be peer reviewed. Also, who is going to read an 8,000 word blog post? It would be a massive pain if you wanted to quote a part of it. You can also share your preprints on Research Gate (I virtually-met someone who didn’t know about Research Gate yet). I have 900 reads on there and about 1000 on SocArxiv if I remember right. This is pretty decent, I think.
So, yes, preprinting is great. You might get feedback, you might not, but at least people will be able to find your work.