Independent Study = Research Experience?

[TroutTrout]

Hi,

I am wondering if I can/should list an independent study for research experience on my app and CV, as that is all the research experience I have? I do have an LOR from my exercise physiology prof that was my supervisor for the course. I wrote a 40 page literature review on carnitine metabolism and body composition and presented it to faculty and other students. I was told by my prof it was better than some of his masters students and I could probably get it published, but never ended up putting in the extra time to do so. Is there a way to list this as research experience or should I just leave it out and assume they are going to read my LOR (already have biochem and anatomy LOR so they may not look at it if it is extra)?

Thanks!

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[giguerex35]

I'm by no means an expert but I have done research and I would say this is not research. Unless you did some sort of hypothesis testing and have familiarity with the procedures/equipment used, meaning you did it more than once or twice it probably shouldn't be considered research. Also just because you wrote a paper that can be published doesn't mean you did research. I would say no but others may disagree.

 

[TroutTrout]

All I wanted to know, thank you.

I'm by no means an expert but I have done research and I would say this is not research. Unless you did some sort of hypothesis testing and have familiarity with the procedures/equipment used, meaning you did it more than once or twice it probably shouldn't be considered research. Also just because you wrote a paper that can be published doesn't mean you did research. I would say no but others may disagree.

 

[Doctor or bust]

Was it a poster presentation type deal? Did you do any testing? I could be wrong but I think one of the learning points of doing research is understanding the effort put into these projects and gaining insight into the scientific method. It is also great for learning about the process of how data is put together and how to work with variables to produce a result from a hypothesis based upon literature review. I don't doubt that what you did was good work but I'm not sure it would count as research since it sounds more like a review paper than a paper based off of work that you did yourself or with others.

I'm no AdCom though, that is just my two cents of it.

 

[Goro]

Hi,

I am wondering if I can/should list an independent study for research experience on my app and CV, as that is all the research experience I have? I do have an LOR from my exercise physiology prof that was my supervisor for the course. I wrote a 40 page literature review on carnitine metabolism and body composition and presented it to faculty and other students. I was told by my prof it was better than some of his masters students and I could probably get it published, but never ended up putting in the extra time to do so. Is there a way to list this as research experience or should I just leave it out and assume they are going to read my LOR (already have biochem and anatomy LOR so they may not look at it if it is extra)?

Thanks!

What you did was library work.

The research we're talking about is you learning something about the scientific method.

So no, it doesn't count.