[Frost1x]

Eh, there are plenty of actual pre-prints you can find on arXiv. Typical flow is you find a paper of interest published elsewhere then search arXiv for the same title, authors, etc. and can even find related work. A lot of publication isn't doing much in terms of genuine peer review but formatting, catching minor errors like grammar, typo, missing references etc. arXiv is great as a legitimate source for valid information tucked behind a paywall. It's not the only option but it's one of them (checking the primary author's personal site, researchgate, or associated research institutions repositories are also there, as well as contacting the author directly).