Getting published...FAST

[Pox in a box]

Anyone got any ideas on how to get published in relatively little time? Know any projects you can do (perhaps through e-mail correspondence to others at different universities) and get it published quickly?

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[vesper9]

Lancet Neurology boasts a 6 week to print (early online access) timeframe...but it has to be good research

Also, letters to the editor, commentary, reviews should take less time

although, honestly if you do get published somewhere fast it probabaly won't be that good of a journal (especially if you don't actually have a project/research started yet)

 

[Pox in a box]

Lancet Neurology boasts a 6 week to print (early online access) timeframe...but it has to be good research

Also, letters to the editor, commentary, reviews should take less time

although, honestly if you do get published somewhere fast it probabaly won't be that good of a journal (especially if you don't actually have a project/research started yet)

I've heard of "fly-by-night" research that gives people taglines on their CV but have no idea how people do it. Granted, it does inflate a CV.

 

[Adcadet]

I got a "quick" publication (like, 4 months) when I joined a research group that already had data collected for a paper that was a logical follow-up to previous published ones in the same journal we submitted to. I was working on a related project and they wanted somebody to put together this "quickie" one together fast and I was happy to help.

For another project I got a dataset that had just finished being collected...2 years after getting the data we submitted and we've been arguing with reviewers now for over 6 months

I suggest starting your own journal.

 

[Surg Path]

I suggest starting your own journal.

Yeah that's probably the fastest. A letter to the editor probably won;t go anywhere if you don't have a senior (or even junior) position as an attending or senior fellow.

Might try the Op/ed section of your local newspaper.

 

[Lanced]

The Public Library of Science is a newer online journal but according to the 2006 #s has a pretty good impact factor. It's certainly less prestigious than older journals but there are advantages.

They will read your paper and give you an idea if its a good fit. If you submit for publication its quicker than most journals and they allow longer papers if you have more complex methods sections to describe.

http://www.plos.org/journals/index.html

 

[tbo]

Yes, generally the higher the prestige in the journal, the longer it takes to get published. These new online publications (I only know the one for Biomedical Informatics - Journal of Healthcare Informatics Management) has a pretty quick turnaround. A colleague of mine wrote a commentary on Electronic Patient Records in like a few weeks and got it published 1.5 months later. Online journals like this might be your best bet.

Out of curiosity, what's this whole rush to get something published? Applications?

 

[ski_bum]

I know people (both med students and residents) who have been successful getting letters to the editor published. Sometimes in well respected journals. I know of one (a med student at the time) who had her letter published in the NEJM. The key is to make a succinct, very well thought out, and strongly supported/referenced argument.

Or, depending on your drive and time available, a decent review article that can be published in a so-so or below journal can be pumped out in a weekend.

good luck!

 

[BlackNDecker]

Poster sessions are also a quick way to beef up a CV as they are equal to a publication and you could do multiple posters at local meetings.

 

[tbo]

I don't mean to nit-pick here, but I'd be cautious about saying posters and publications are equal. I agree that it's a quick way to document an achievement in research. Posters are likely equal in the context of a CV - in that a poster presented deserves it's own line item, as much as a publication deserves its own line item.

However, a poster is rarely peer-reviewed and/or scrutinized to the degree that a journal publication is. Getting your work through the peer-review process is thought by many to be an achievement in itself.

 

[Adcadet]

I don't mean to nit-pick here, but I'd be cautious about saying posters and publications are equal...

Very good point. Most people list posters separately from papers to highlight this difference. I won a national award for a poster, who's paper is now entering its 4th revision and 10th month of review. I feel I've learned just as much during the review process as actually doing the data analysis.

 

[Surg Path]

Very good point. Most people list posters separately from papers to highlight this difference. I won a national award for a poster, who's paper is now entering its 4th revision and 10th month of review. I feel I've learned just as much during the review process as actually doing the data analysis.

Just to reiterate, posters have far less impact than a paper, especially a paper in a decent peer reviewed journal.

Good poster sessions are always a nice place to get peer feedback, which I think helps the research project (and the process of getting a paper published).

 

[Jocomama]

Yep. Poster is bottom of the barrel. Presentation at local meeting next, then regional, then national. Mini-pubs (extended abstracts published and referenced in PubMed) next, and I think (don't hold me to this) published letters to Ed, followed by peer reviewed journals.
These are all separated out on your CV.
So if you have bunch of posters and presentations, but no full peer-reviewed papers, than you ain't a finisher.
ABC - "Always be closing" - Alec Baldwin - Glengary Glenross
tbo is right on the money:

I don't mean to nit-pick here, but I'd be cautious about saying posters and publications are equal. I agree that it's a quick way to document an achievement in research. Posters are likely equal in the context of a CV - in that a poster presented deserves it's own line item, as much as a publication deserves its own line item.

However, a poster is rarely peer-reviewed and/or scrutinized to the degree that a journal publication is. Getting your work through the peer-review process is thought by many to be an achievement in itself.

 

[RxnMan]

Yep. Poster is bottom of the barrel. Presentation at local meeting next, then regional, then national. Mini-pubs (extended abstracts published and referenced in PubMed) next, and I think (don't hold me to this) published letters to Ed, followed by peer reviewed journals.
These are all separated out on your CV.
So if you have bunch of posters and presentations, but no full peer-reviewed papers, than you ain't a finisher.
ABC - "Always be closing" - Alec Baldwin - Glengary Glenross
tbo is right on the money:

I would agree, with the exception of letters to the editor, which, unless you mean something other than an op/ed sort of letter, doesn't don't belong in the science publication hierarchy. Do letters to the editor present new research? Do they have a testable hypothesis?

Posters are a type of publication (anything that is presented to the public and is read has been published), but it is not the same FLA by any stretch of the imagination. All of these are listed as different items on the AAMC CV website guide.

 

[D30417995]

I'm totally new to the whole research arena; just wondering, say if, as a med student, you're part of a research team and your job is to do some data collection/analyses or anything else secretarial in nature, would your name still appear on the journal article if the results get published? All I know is that the first author is the most important figure in the team.

 

[RxnMan]

I'm totally new to the whole research arena; just wondering, say if, as a med student, you're part of a research team and your job is to do some data collection/analyses or anything else secretarial in nature, would your name still appear on the journal article if the results get published? All I know is that the first author is the most important figure in the team.

Each lab has their own system, based on many factors, one of which is the generosity of the PI funding the project. So, in general, the 1st author (and maybe the 2nd author) is the one who did most of the work. She may have written everything, done the experiments, etc. She reported to someone who funded everything, the priniciple investigator, who is generally listed as the last author. They are the money and the guiding light of the project. Since many papers are written by students, the PI is the one guiding the student author and teaching them how to write a paper. Everything else is the doldrums of 3rd and + author. They may have provided an afternoon's consult, they may have done the statistics after everything else was done - all minor contributions.

To bring it back to the generosity of the PI, if you put in an afternoon's work, my experience is that the average PI won't put your name on the 'by' line.

 

[RxnMan]

Note that effort invested, not degree (PhD, MS, MD, or BS) determined if you got on or not.

 

[Adcadet]

Each lab ...

RxnMan is likely showing a bias towards basic science, something I've noticed frequently here at SDN and too frequently in the rest of the world. Arguably here at SDN a non-basic science bias should be the norm.

They may have provided an afternoon's consult, they may have done the statistics after everything else was done - all minor contributions.

And in many non-basic science research studies, the statistical analysis can be much much more than minor contributions.

 

[RxnMan]

RxnMan is likely showing a bias towards basic science, something I've noticed frequently here at SDN and too frequently in the rest of the world. Arguably here at SDN a non-basic science bias should be the norm.

What's your point? I can only comment on my experience, and I already said every lab has their own rules (which includes office, library, etc, for the non-lab folks).

But maybe you are saying that medical research is different than basic science research? Or that clinical research is different than basic science research? I've conducted both clinical and basic science research in medical settings (Hospitals and medical schools) and what I've experienced is what I wrote. I don't know how, say, a historian bestows authorship, but I still think my experience is pretty relevant to the average SDN user.

And in many non-basic science research studies, the statistical analysis can be much much more than minor contributions.

Compared to theoretical development of the project, getting funding (which includes writing grants, writing updates to granting agencies, writing closing reports to funding agencies), getting experimentalists, training experimentalists (unless you want to everything yourself), creating a testing protocol, refining the testing protocol, gathering subjects, testing subjects, IRB compliance (which includes, but is not limited to: reams of forms, IRB education for every experimentalist, informed consent/education for every subject, proposals to the IRB, IRB renewal, and final reports to IRB), getting lab time, collecting data, refining data, writing the paper, writing posters, and presenting the work? The statistics are the last step before writing everything up. And until then, you don't know if you've got a paper yet. There are a HOST of steps that have to take place first, and hours or years of effort come before it. So, while applying statistics may require significant effort, in comparison to the above steps, the statistics are a minor contribution to the overall project.

 

[DougFlutie]

Want to publish at the speed of light? Get into genomics. Run a gene chip, pull the lever, and wait for your computer to correlate something for you. Publish whatever you find, regardless of its utility. You should push out one a month and you'll probably hit Science or Nature by month #5.

 

[Hardbody]

ABC - "Always be closing" - Alec Baldwin - Glengary Glenross

And I thought I was the only person alive that actually watched that movie.

 

[RxnMan]

Want to publish at the speed of light? Get into genomics. Run a gene chip, pull the lever, and wait for your computer to correlate something for you. Publish whatever you find, regardless of its utility. You should push out one a month and you'll probably hit Science or Nature by month #5.

My old boss runs a gene-chip facility, so I know exactly what you mean: "genes of interest" Things are tightening up again, so you can't do that as much anymore.

 

[GuP]

Want to publish at the speed of light? Get into genomics. Run a gene chip, pull the lever, and wait for your computer to correlate something for you. Publish whatever you find, regardless of its utility. You should push out one a month and you'll probably hit Science or Nature by month #5.

More details on this please

 

[RxnMan]

More details on this please

Just run a Google search on 'genomics' and you'll get an idea of what he means. Again, things are tightening up again, now that the field is getting flooded with these papers, so it isn't that easy anymore.

 

[bosky]

I would agree with RXNMAN about authorship.

Some people do get on a paper with an afternoon's work (or less!) but they are usually more powerful people or people in a position for quid pro quo (sp?), not typically gopher medical students. However, the difference I see with basic versus clinical publications is that MD's tend to give authorship to more of their colleagues (not necessarily med students though), whereas PhDs can sometimes be downright stingy with authorship.

fMRI is kind of like genomics - you image some people wiggling their finger in a 1.5T magnet, see a 4% change in noise (that even if it were real probably reflects them thinking about their grocery list) then use some teleological argument about the region of brain activation and voila... publication in prestigious neuroscience journal with the NYtimes calling you. We refer to fMRI as "fictional MRI"...

 

[RxnMan]

Some people do get on a paper with an afternoon's work (or less!)

I have personally benefitted from this. To do so, figure out the major deadlines for the lab, that is, the major conferences where most of the staff submit papers. Then just schedule time to be available the week before the deadline. (If you're presenting, submitting, make sure you get it done early.) Make it your mission to help everyone else's papers out the door. At worst you look like a saint, helping everyone make the deadline. At best, you swoop in on an afternoon and get yourself on a by-line.

MD's tend to give authorship to more of their colleagues (not necessarily med students though), whereas PhDs can sometimes be downright stingy with authorship.

PhD = publish or perish
MD = do research and publish if you want, or go into private practice when you're tired of it.

We refer to fMRI as "fictional MRI"...