ZENY: It very well might have. If they consider it ex-
ploratory, they should also point to alternative
hypotheses that would explain different results.
SOCART: Moreover, if preregistration becomes a badge
of honor or increases your chances of getting your
work accepted, because the ﬁndings have a differ-
ent air of trustworthiness,13 would this not be a
reason to encourage your students to perform con-
ﬁrmatory rather than exploratory research? Pre-
registration would, in other words, inject a bias
toward conﬁrmatory research into NLP.

ZENY: I, for one, would welcome this kind of bias.
(cid:88) Preregistration is challenged by r-harking and
may bias NLP toward conﬁrmatory research.

4 Some Expeditions May Prevent Others

If you ask an NLP researcher if they are “on a ﬁsh-
ing expedition” or if they are hypothesizing after
the fact, you will instantly make them feel very
uncomfortable. It is widely accepted that ﬁshing
A Two-Sided Discussion of Preregistration of NLP Research