From brainstorming your first idea to getting feedback on your preprint, here’s what you can expect from the eiRxiv process:
Start by asking a research question that interests you! Then develop a hypothesis and a plan for testing your hypothesis using experiments and/or data analysis. Make sure you get ethical approval before you start for any experiments or analysis using humans, vertebrate animals, or anything hazardous. Once you do your experiments, you can analyze your results, use them to evaluate your hypothesis, and draw conclusions.
Review our author eligibility guidelines, timeline, consent forms, copyright terms, and feedback framework with your parent/guardian and all authors to determine whether eiRxiv is right for you. We also encourage you to watch this video (link to video on front page) to learn more about the difference between a preprint and a peer-reviewed journal article.
After completing your research project, use our submission guidelines, submission checklist, and template to transform your research into scientific manuscript that meets our requirements for posting. We recommend reading all of the guidelines before you start and using them again to check your manuscript after you finish writing.
Choose a Coordinating Adult (such as a teacher, parent, or mentor) to submit the manuscript for you, handles all communication with eiRxiv, and guide you through any changes our editors request. After the Coordinating Adult submits for you, you can create a profile on our eiRxiv platform and follow your manuscript’s progress.
eiRxiv’s editors check every manuscript to make sure it is eligible, ethical, and meets our formatting requirements. Manuscripts that don’t meet our eligibility, ethics, or hypothesis guidelines will not be accepted. eiRxiv editors may ask you to revise your manuscript before it can be posted.
After passing the pre-review check, all adult authors and parents/guardians of student authors must give permission for eiRxiv to permanently publish the manuscript (often called “posting” for a preprint).
With approval from all authors, eiRxiv will post the manuscript – it is now permanently publicly available for scientists, students, and readers around the world!
After passing the pre-review check, all adult authors and parents/guardians of student authors must give permission for eiRxiv to permanently publish the manuscript (often called “posting” for a preprint).
From submission to receiving feedback, the eiRxiv process takes approximately 5-12 weeks:
However, these times will vary depending on whether or not your manuscript requires revisions, how quickly authors respond to consent forms, and the number of submissions we receive.
During our busy season (typically winter and summer breaks), each stage of the process you see above may be delayed by 2 weeks. We appreciate your patience as our volunteers work on your submissions!
You can always check the status of your manuscript by logging into your account on our submission platform.
Please note that the eiRxiv process is already quite rapid, so we do not expedite the review and publication process of any manuscript at eiRxiv.
Because preprints are intended to rapidly share information, we will also automatically withdraw your manuscript if we do not hear from you for more than 90 days at any point between submission and posting.
