Cutting lower tier pubs from CV?

[futureapppsy2]

I'm in the fortuitous position of having more publications than the average grad student (about 20-25). About a third are in what I would consider "higher end" journals (no Science or Nature, but APA journals, flagship journals, or those with high IFs), about 40-50% are in what I would consider mid-tier journals (respectable journals that are well indexed and with decent IFs but a step below higher end journals), and 15-20% are in what I'd consider lower tier journals (nothing of the OA scam/academic spam variety, but not that well-indexed or with lower IFs). The lower tier ones were mostly small n or preliminary studies; one is an article that I worked on with an international colleague and published in a foreign journal. I don't think any of them are bad science--I wouldn't have put my name on them if I thought they were--but they are the weaker of my published work.

I'm wondering if it makes sense to cut the lower tier pubs from my CV when applying for faculty positions in order to draw more attention to my higher and mid tier publications. Even cutting the lower tier publications would still leave me with 20 or so publications, and I still have a little more than a year before I go on the market. Otoh, I wonder if it would look odd or suspicious if an article I cut were to show up in a PsycINFO or Google search of my name yet not be on my CV.

TL;DR: If the vast majority of my articles are in mid- to high-end journals, how do a few scattered ones in lower end (but legitimate) journals look? Would they hurt more than help?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[PsychBiker]

I really have no way to back-up my opinions, but on first thought, if you are determined to remove pubs from your CV, cut out past publications you feel are not relevant anymore to your current research and/or do not focus on your desired future research. However, keep in mind that some professors have CVs that go past 20, 30, 40+ pages. I think, in the end, how you structure your CV represents who you are, so do what feels right to you - you are obviously not an idiot. Though, I will point out that I haven't conducted in research in years.

 

[Ollie123]

I don't think anyone would view it suspiciously if it popped - they would probably just assume you forgot to update your CV. Or that the authors forgot to inform you that it got accepted (which isn't terribly uncommon).

That said, if they are legit I don't think there is any reason to take them off. MAYBE the foreign language one just because that can look suspect. There is no real PC way to say this, but I would probably decide based on how foreign-sounding the names of your co-authors are. When I see a publication with a bunch of American-sounding names published in a non-English journal I've never heard of, I wonder if this is a shoddy journal and they couldn't get it in anywhere else - if this was clearly a collaboration with someone in another country than I don't give it a second thought. Unless I know the people involved though, the only way for me to tell is by the names. Maybe I'm a bad person though

Very few people publish exclusively in top-tier journals, so I would almost certainly include everything. Obviously for your biosketch (when you are limited) it is more important to pick and choose, but for a CV I'd just include it. If most of someone's publications are in questionable places I grow suspicious, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a productive researcher who doesn't have a few pubs in less-than-stellar journals. And sometimes these are among their most-cited publications!

 

[Stannis]

A pub is a pub. I was on a clinical psych faculty search committee as a student rep. Yes, more than one "stellar" candidate did not get an interview because they had too many pubs. This was because you could tell they had latched onto an advisor's research (including pubs as first author), and had no funding experience or unique interests. Publications are counted and mean a lot. If you have a line of research that you're expanding, it is all good, regardless of the journal. Of course, if they were ALL in low tier journals, that would be red flag. I say keep them and be proud. Nice work! Plus... it would be weird to google scholar your name and find other articles.

 

[MCParent]

"Deans can't read, but they can count."

Keep them and make them part of the narrative of your career path, especially if the lower-tiered ones are prelim studies or exploratory work that you later built on.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I don't think anyone would view it suspiciously if it popped - they would probably just assume you forgot to update your CV. Or that the authors forgot to inform you that it got accepted (which isn't terribly uncommon).

That said, if they are legit I don't think there is any reason to take them off. MAYBE the foreign language one just because that can look suspect. There is no real PC way to say this, but I would probably decide based on how foreign-sounding the names of your co-authors are. When I see a publication with a bunch of American-sounding names published in a non-English journal I've never heard of, I wonder if this is a shoddy journal and they couldn't get it in anywhere else - if this was clearly a collaboration with someone in another country than I don't give it a second thought. Unless I know the people involved though, the only way for me to tell is by the names. Maybe I'm a bad person though

Very few people publish exclusively in top-tier journals, so I would almost certainly include everything. Obviously for your biosketch (when you are limited) it is more important to pick and choose, but for a CV I'd just include it. If most of someone's publications are in questionable places I grow suspicious, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a productive researcher who doesn't have a few pubs in less-than-stellar journals. And sometimes these are among their most-cited publications!

Thanks for the input! Your last paragraph confirms what I was thinking, so that's really good to hear.

WRT to the pub with my international colleague, the pub itself is in English, and the journal is about 75%/25% or so split on [foreign language]/English language pubs. I honestly both really like this collaborator and this study, so I'm a tad biased towards leaving it on there. My colleague wanted publish a couple things in a journal in their country, as they hope to seek a faculty position there, and it was a smaller study that would likely not get much interest from mid-tier or better US-based journals, so it seems like a good fit for that goal.

 

[EverHopeful]

I have seen many professors with a "selected publication" section. If you titled the section of your CV in this way, it is upfront and not sketchy at all.

 

[CheetahGirl]

I like that idea too, "selected publications." it is what I have on my CV.

As I mentioned before on other posts, I had about 10 years of clinical research experience before applying to my doctoral program. I had about 8-pages of publications, poster & oral presentations from my co-authorships over the years. I eventually cut it down to 4-pages of "relevant research" and included all upper-tier journals articles. For me, it was much easier to trim down because I had few journal articles, and then several relevant presentations directly related to my own research that I included in a separate section. All else was very interesting, but related to basic science and surgery, so it really would not impact my overall picture as an applicant to anything other than to say I knew a lot about something once and could get it presented. Plus the discussions we've had about authorships before are applicable too. I would include all first- & second-author work...and it sounds like you have plenty of publications to choose from (good job!) so you'll never be guilty of padding your CV with poster presentations and the like.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Personally, it always bothers me when I see something like "selected publications" on a CV, unless someone is already tenured, because I always wonder what exactly that means and feel like I don't really have a complete view of their publication history. I guess this is probably a sign that I shouldn't do it myself. I can see it being a good move in cases like CheetahGirl's when you have a lot of research in another field, like bench science or non-behavioral medicine, but none of my research feels far enough afield to justify that, at least it this point. As Ollie mentioned, grant biosketchs are a different animal in that regard, of course.

(As for posters, I just stick them at the end of my CV, with the expectation that they likely won't get a whole lot of interest from most people reviewing my CV).

 

[EmotRegulation]

I would not advise cutting publications from your CV, as someone who just sat on a search committee this year. Some search committees literally count the number of publications and use this information when presenting candidates to the full faculty. The higher tier journals will pop out because they are known by many in the field; you don't need to emphasize these by trimming the low ones, they'll stand out just fine on their own. In fact, having a range of published outlets is to be expected. I'd be far more suspicious of someone who doesn't have *any* lower tier pubs (well, depending on some other factors like prominence of the mentor).

 

[futureapppsy2]

I would not advise cutting publications from your CV, as someone who just sat on a search committee this year. Some search committees literally count the number of publications and use this information when presenting candidates to the full faculty. The higher tier journals will pop out because they are known by many in the field; you don't need to emphasize these by trimming the low ones, they'll stand out just fine on their own. In fact, having a range of published outlets is to be expected. I'd be far more suspicious of someone who doesn't have *any* lower tier pubs (well, depending on some other factors like prominence of the mentor).

Thanks so much for the advice!