New study: "#Preprints are increasingly treated as legitimate, autonomous objects of #citation independent of their later publication status."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.25220v1
PS: I'm fine with this, and so are the authors of this study.
I'm from the humanities, where it's common to cite unpublished letters and manuscripts, countless fiction and nonfiction genres never subject to peer review, and even an occasional "personal communication to the author". Cite your best sources, or your actual sources, and let readers judge their relevance and credibility. Every citation carries an implicit #FWIW ("for what it's worth").
I've seen fellow scholars insist that citable works must (1) be published, (2) be peer-reviewed, (3) have DOIs, or (4) most absurdly, be PDFs. To me, this is superstitious.
