Is there any disadvantage to having a lot of lower-authored articles?

[futureapppsy2]

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Hi all,

I've heard having a lot of lower-authored publications can hurt when applying to faculty jobs, but is the same true when applying to grad school? For example, I have one third-authored pub out, one second (tentatively) author invited manuscript in prep (soon to be submitted), one fifth author submitted, and one fourth author in prep, and I'm unsure if these will raise eyebrows by making it look like I haven't really contributed. (FWIW, I have contributed significantly to these projects, but for the lowered authored ones I wasn't working there throughout the whole research process, though I've contributed to the analysis and dissemination). If it matters, I also have one each of first and second authorship on conference presentations/posters.

I'm of two minds about this--one is that, at this stage in the game, any publication is a good one to have on my CV; the other is as described above.

Thoughts?

 

[cmuhooligan]

I'm of two minds about this--one is that, at this stage in the game, any publication is a good one to have on my CV...

Thoughts?

I would agree with you. It is difficult for undergrads to get a pub in any capacity, yet alone being 1st author. So, no, I wouldn't worry about it, it should look quite good on your C.V. at this stage of your career.

 

[Ollie123]

Agree with cmuhooligan - at this stage any authorship looks good. I think what matters is being able to demonstrate you know your stuff. Many labs seem to throw authors on left and right, but half the folks on the paper probably only have a vague idea of what its about. As an undergrad, if you have a number of lower order authorships and can talk intelligently about them...yes its certainly not as "good" as if you had a bunch of higher order authorships, but as long as you know your stuff I think it would look better than someone coming in with none at all.

Also, I'd never heard that having lots of lower-author pubs would look BAD for faculty positions. Just that its the higher author pubs that really count. I'm not sure I'd see the logic behind hiring someone with 4 first-authored pubs and no other publications versus someone with 4 first authored pubs and 6 other publications with lower authorships. At least I'd hope that's the case but I like getting involved in a lot of different projects and definitely expect to have have a fair number of low authorships in addition to the things I'll be first authoring!

 

[PsychPhDone]

It's fine.

 

[dynamicmind01]

You don't have to worry about authorship order at this point. Anything you can put on your CV is good. What I will say is that you will look like a COMPLETE fool (and it will totally hurt you) if you walk into an interview and a professor asks you about a paper and its clear you know nothing about it ("oh, I'm not sure, I just did some data entry for that"). So if you put it on your CV, it is fair game.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Good point. I know all our projects very well--I have to, because I do a lot of the writing/editing on the manuscripts, so I have to have a really firm grasp of the whole picture (and I find it interesting, of course!).