How do you guys have so many publications?

[lkthlttr]

There's a difference between the term "being published" that gets thrown around quite a bit, and having your own "publication".

If you're listed beyond second author on a pub, should you refer to as "my publication on xxx"? No (unless there are extremely extenuating circumstances). Can you put it on your CV under Publications? Yes.

Anybody in academia (PIs, adcomes, whatever) understands the difference between these two, and all that it entails.

This is exactly correct. 1st author >>> 2nd = 3rd = 4th etc. But those secondary authors are still valuable and contributing their intellectual material, not simply running PCR or washing dishes.

And for an undergrad who is looking to be published in a timely manner, I would suggest looking for a young untenured professor in a biotechnology field. (S)he's less likely to have a great deal of hierarchy in the lab which will prevent you from getting a position where you can make intellectual contributions, and (s)he is less likely to sit on a publication once it's ready to go.

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[YouNeverKnow22]

This is exactly correct. 1st author >>> 2nd = 3rd = 4th etc. But those secondary authors are still valuable and contributing their intellectual material, not simply running PCR or washing dishes.

And for an undergrad who is looking to be published in a timely manner, I would suggest looking for a young untenured professor in a biotechnology field. (S)he's less likely to have a great deal of hierarchy in the lab which will prevent you from getting a position where you can make intellectual contributions, and (s)he is less likely to sit on a publication once it's ready to go.

I don' agree that 2nd author=3rd author


There sometimes is a huge gap between 2nd and 3rd authors on a paper

 

[lkthlttr]

I don' agree that 2nd author=3rd author


There sometimes is a huge gap between 2nd and 3rd authors on a paper

This is most likely field dependent. I definitely know that when you're looking for a job in the basic sciences, many people who read your CV will roughly divide your publications into two categories: first author & non-first author. There are also exceptions, such as instances when the PI/corresponding author puts him/herself first to get the recognition when the article is referenced, then the second author is typically recognized as having done the actual work, or when two authors evenly divided the work on a project, then many journals will put an asterisk on the first two authors and note that the work was shared equally among these authors.

But for the purposes of applying to medical school, I think that any authorship whatsoever as an undergrad is a major accomplishment and I'm sure that adcoms will appreciate that. Anything above that is just gravy.

 

[BrightandClear]

When it comes to publications, you also need to figure out how generous a potential PI is with giving out authorship spots.

Some PIs are notorious for adding brief collaborators, lab techs, etc as authors in papers. Others put those people in the acknowledgements section and leave it at that. If you are in a lab with a generous PI, and you do your work, you will probably get your name on a paper...regardless of whether you really deserve it. In other labs, unless the project was your brainchild, you oversaw it, and did the much-loathed troubleshooting, you won't be on the paper. It doesn't matter if you collected 100% of the data - if it wasn't your project, many PIs won't put your name on it.

Just something to keep in mind.

This is so very true. When you look at a lab's publication record, in addition to looking at how much they publish, you should also look at WHO is on the publications.

There sometimes is a huge gap between 2nd and 3rd authors on a paper

I definitely know that when you're looking for a job in the basic sciences, many people who read your CV will roughly divide your publications into two categories: first author & non-first author.

Unfortunately, these are both very true statements. As an example, I worked on a project that I designed, did all the work for, interpreted the data and came up with the conclusions, and wrote half of the first draft. Then my PI came in and wrote the rest and took the first author spot. Ergh. But she's up for tenure, I was new to the lab at that point, and the paper got published in the top journal in our field, so... It's frustrating.

But for the purposes of applying to medical school, I think that any authorship whatsoever as an undergrad is a major accomplishment and I'm sure that adcoms will appreciate that. Anything above that is just gravy.

 

[sarahss]

What does one have to do to get a 1st author publication? Write the entire or a majority of the paper?

 

[BrightandClear]

What does one have to do to get a 1st author publication? Write the entire or a majority of the paper?

IME, come up with the idea (hypotheses), design the study, interpret the results to form conclusions, contribute to the paper (ideally write the first draft)

 

[kami333]

Genetics can be easy to publish.

My 1st lab was a genetics lab where we did a lot of risk variant/SNP genotyping. We were producing about 2 papers a month in mid-tier journals. Looking back it now that I have more experience in other areas I can see we left a lot of holes in our work, namely we didn't do much of the molecular work (protein modeling etc) which is the time consuming part. But that could also be my bias in looking at it from what I'm interested now too.

 

[MasterK]

It think genomics/bioinformatics is easy to publish in. Also, epidemiology, especially if the data is there and you just need to crank numbers. And by easy, I mean relatively easy. There is still a lot of work that goes into each publication.

I did molecular biology research on cyanobacteria and it took me about 3 years, working 60-80 hrs per wk to get my publication - sole first author (with my PI). I helped design experiments, performed all the experiments, prepared all the figures, and wrote majority of the manuscript. My PI was not very generous with sharing research projects. Even as an undergrad I had my own project - he did not let me tag-along on other pubs.

Now doing cancer research, my publication is not close. In my experience, it's difficult to publish first author if there is hard core molecular biology.

 

[anfractouspath]

Just to throw in my own two cents here - I'd keep an open mind about the field of research you choose if you feel like publishing is that important. I go to a small college, and our bio department publishes very rarely while our chem department pushes its students a lot harder, leading to far more frequent pubs. But I honestly agree that it's the experience/passion/interest that matters: 1) the experience is far less miserable and 2) it'll show in your recs from your PI(s).

 

[GoodGame]

Cancer therapy... re-designed.

[YOUTUBE]1QwyMWM0Jjg[/YOUTUBE]

What a garbage ass video. That's not nanotechnology. That's a slap in the face.

First case, where the antibodies are used to 'identify' the tumors, is just simple antibodies with some kind of radioactive molecules attached to them. The whole idea of finding these cells does not rest on nano-technology, but on the biochemistry of cell receptors and antibodies. So many companies nowadays using 'hip' terms such as nanotechnology to sell their products, that it makes the development of ACTUAL nanotechnology seem dull. Go sell your crappy marketing somewhere else.

I was also angry that I had to watch like a 40 second intro to that video where the guy is just saying vague crap about the company he is representing and embeleshing it by using the word nanotechnology a ****-ton of times more than he should have. 40 seconds before they actually showed something useful. Here's the kind of message that they send to me with that sorry excuse of a video:

"Hey we need to sell our bullsh*t, but educated people are too smart to buy it. Oh, I know, let's market it for all the idiots out there. Since they're idiots, we'll make a long ass intro about how amazing our products are, and we'll use words such as nanotechnology and cancer in the same sentence to impress them. We won't mention any experiments or describe the actual product that we're marketing, but we'll make some cheap graphic that looks like a pile of **** swarmed by fireflys and call it cancer fighting nanotechnology. Then, we'll blow the **** up and say we can cure cancer."