Publish fast, but publish well
Publicar rápido, mas publicar bem

The years 2020 and 2021 were particular from a scientific point of view. The Brazilian Journal of Plastic Surgery (RBCP - Revista Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica) managed, through the collective effort of its editorial board, to consolidate its scientific credibility, raising the prospect of soon reaching the most desired level of scientific indexing.

During this same period, the scientific community faced a pandemic that brought up reflections on the role of research and its need for decision-making.

And decisions had to be made quickly, often immediate, and yet subject to change of course. The scientific community is looking for ways to accelerate the pace of scientific publications by fostering the process in electronic media, streamlining peer review and online publications of approved articles named “ahead-of-print.” These articles are truly reliable compared to articles published conventionally.

But in this context of pressure for information disclosure, repositories of preprint articles come into play, which differently receive articles written but not peer-reviewed. The main value of these repositories is to quickly inform and consolidate the authorship of an idea and record the originality of a study. However, the need for an independent and peer review remains imperative for validating any of these studies. High-quality research goes through this path without difficulties, and the articles are formally published, with the scientific information correctly applied^1,2.

The inappropriate use of information from an article published in a preprint repository, as published in a peer-review scientific journal, affects the scientific community and should be radically avoided. The increasingly frequent use of social media to disseminate information makes this situation even more dangerous. The authors’ intention to make such “confusion” must be considered unethical and directly faced³.

Even peer-reviewed and already published articles are subject to criticism. The information offered may eventually prove to be erroneous in a later evaluation⁴. In the context of the rapid publication process, due to the collective need for information, the scientific eyes of reviewers, readers and editors must be continually on the lookout for the quality of scientific information.

Dov Goldenberg,

Editor-in-chief.