Preprint
Preprint
[Blondie as a newscaster is sitting at a desk.  To the right is a screen with text, the bottom word is a thin line making the letters white. Just above her head is what she says as her opening line for her news story. But above this text, is more text which have been grayed out and scribbled over. This are three other alternative opening lines which she did not use, indicating revisions to her script.] Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: According to a new preprint… Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: …An unpublished study… Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: According to a new paper uploaded to a preprint server but which has not undergone peer review… Blondie: According to a new PDF…
Inset graphic: Breaking news
[Beneath the panel is a long caption consisting of an underlined headline with three bulleted points beneath it:] Benefits of just saying "a PDF": Avoids implications about publication status Immediately raises questions about author(s) Still implies "this document was probably prepared by a professional, because no normal human trying to communicate in 2020 would choose this ridiculous format."

This comic is about how media reports non- peer-reviewed research papers. The newscaster depicted is attempting to report breaking news based on information in a study; however, the study in question has not been formally published. This leads to uncertainty on the part of either the newscaster, Blondie , or her scriptwriters as they try to determine how to refer to this study, represented here by alternative introduction lines being scribbled out.
Randall suggests that, instead of explaining that the paper was in preprint , or unpublished or submitted to a preprint server and not peer-reviewed, the newscaster could simply say it was a PDF . PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format for documents developed by Adobe to be used independent of application software, hardware and operating systems.
Randall proceeds to lists several benefits of using "PDF":
The title text makes fun of what is incorrectly believed to be the official name of PDF; it is now an open international standard (ISO 32000-1), and the only PDF files that are "Adobe Acrobat files" or "Adobe PDF" files are those created using Adobe Systems' software. Further, Adobe does not use the ® designation in conjunction with PDF. (See Adobe Trademark Guidelines, 1 Nov. 2014 ) Adobe trademark guidelines were also made fun of here .
Since so many applications can create and even edit PDF files, implying a connection with Adobe every time someone talks about one is preposterous, and one could sarcastically pronounce the registered trademark symbol to show contempt for the fact that it is a registered trademark.
This comic was possibly produced in response to the preprint study "COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California" , Bendavid et al, which was posted online in mid-April 2020 before peer review. The authors of the paper went on a media blitz immediately after posting it, appearing on major cable news networks and writing editorials in major publications, claiming that their results show that COVID-19 is not nearly as bad as thought and that most people are already immune to it. Other scientists have pointed out that, if the very high false-positive rate of the test used and the sample bias of their methodology (testing only people who self-report as sick) are properly considered in the analysis, the data collected is such poor quality as to be meaningless, with properly applied error bars on the number of actual cases in the general population extending below 0. Nonetheless, many less-scientifically-literate politicians, media figures, and protest groups continue to use the much-criticized study as proof that COVID-19 should not be considered an emergency, and that quarantine measures should be cancelled. As of May 11 2020, the study has still not passed peer review, nor undergone any revisions since the first posting.
[Blondie as a newscaster is sitting at a desk.  To the right is a screen with text, the bottom word is a thin line making the letters white. Just above her head is what she says as her opening line for her news story. But above this text, is more text which have been grayed out and scribbled over. This are three other alternative opening lines which she did not use, indicating revisions to her script.] Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: According to a new preprint… Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: …An unpublished study… Blondie [gray and scribbled out]: According to a new paper uploaded to a preprint server but which has not undergone peer review… Blondie: According to a new PDF…
Inset graphic: Breaking news
[Beneath the panel is a long caption consisting of an underlined headline with three bulleted points beneath it:] Benefits of just saying "a PDF": Avoids implications about publication status Immediately raises questions about author(s) Still implies "this document was probably prepared by a professional, because no normal human trying to communicate in 2020 would choose this ridiculous format."
