Publications

[autodf06]

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If you have some abstracts published, do those count as publications or not? I have done a summer research program and was able to publish an abstract but not a complete paper, as well as some research at my own college that has resulted in an abstract and a poster at a undergrad chem convention. Are these viewed as "real" publications or no? More importantly, do these types of things look good on a med school app? Thanks.

 

[Phlame217]

Yes, they are viewed as a publication. In your EC's be sure to include the back ground info on the event.

I personally have presented a poster twice at national conventions and also have had an abstract published. It was through a summer research program. I will be doing that program again this summer.

 

[Zona Pellucida]

All I can answer is the "Does this look good on a med school app?"

And yes, it does.

Curious to hear the responses as I will soon be in your shoes as I just started research using P. aeruginosa and C. elegans.

 

[MDman87]

Like the OP, I'm a little confused about what qualifies something as a publication. I'll also be participating in a summer research program. A good description of what exactly passes as a 'publication' would be appreciated.

Here's an excerpt from our requirements in this research program: "[Participants] are required to submit a written report on their research project in the style of a journal in which their mentor publishes." This sounds like a publication to me, but I'm really in the dark about this sort of stuff

 

[ChubbyChaser]

Yeah thats a good thing

but just curious, how do you publish just an abstract?? and what did youpubllish it in?

 

[scarletgirl777]

Yeah thats a good thing

but just curious, how do you publish just an abstract?? and what did youpubllish it in?

If you get an abstract accepted into a conference, sometimes there will be a journal attached to the society that runs that conference, and they will "publish" all accepted abstracts in a supplement of the journal.

 

[Phlame217]

There are all sorts of journals out there, and they publish alot. Publish typically means your summarize you're research and put it out to be peer reviewed.

A good site to read and review abstracts and all is the pub med site, google it.

 

[mdmarty]

Abstracts published in your school's science journal do not qualify as publications and should not be classified as a 'Publication' on AMCAS. Instead, you should select the 'Research' EC type and describe your research and mention that you 'published' an abstract of your work in your school's journal.

A good rule of thumb is that if you cannot find the paper through PubMed, it is not a publication.

 

[PandaBrewMaster]

To me, a "publication" is a journal paper, book chapter, or book. It's the result of a significant amount of research and is always rigorously peer reviewed before publication. "publication" also only happens once something has been approved for publication, "submitting for publication" doesn't really carry much weight.

Abstracts on the other hand, are much shorter thing, usually describing projects in progress or otherwise incomplete. Some can be presented at conferences, and then published in the corresponding journal that conference is attached to. Giving a poster presentation at a conference is something to be proud of, but doesn't carry quite the weight that giving an oral presentation at a conference does (which is quite a big deal!).

In my mind, I separate these two categories into "publications" and "abstracts" simply because abstracts do not represent quite the amount of work that a full-on publication does. The peer review process for abstracts is also usually significantly more loose than it is for papers.

As far as an application, both are certainly nice to have, publications being superior. What you list them on your app is up to you, I'm not the one to ask for that. I separated my abstracts and publications into 2 things because well....I wanted to.

Here's a little support for my argument. This is a question on Stanford's secondary application from this past cycle:

"If you have publications resulting from scholarly endeavors, then in the space below, please complete a citation for each of your publications using the following format: Author, Title, Journal, Volume, Pages, and Date of Publication. This section applies for papers that have been published or been accepted for publication. Please do not include abstracts or unpublished conference papers."

Notice the separation. my 0.02$

 

[ChubbyChaser]

There are all sorts of journals out there, and they publish alot. Publish typically means your summarize you're research and put it out to be peer reviewed.

A good site to read and review abstracts and all is the pub med site, google it.

right, for some reason I was always under the impression that an abstract was just a brief overview of your paper basically stating "we did this, this is what we got, and this is why its important"

I didnt know they were published independently of a paper sometimes

 

[PandaBrewMaster]

Here's an excerpt from our requirements in this research program: "[Participants] are required to submit a written report on their research project in the style of a journal in which their mentor publishes." This sounds like a publication to me, but I'm really in the dark about this sort of stuff

That would not count because it is not peer-reviewed, nor actually "published" in written form by a publisher, and is more like a "end of research project report" thing for the program itself.

I hope I don't sound mean or anything.....these are my opinions. And I'm pretty sure I'm right at least about this one.

 

[shindotp]

pub·lish (p

b

l

sh)v. pub·lished, pub·lish·ing, pub·lish·es
v.tr.1. To prepare and issue (printed material) for public distribution or sale.
2. To bring to the public attention; announce.

If it was released to the public (AKA scientific community) in printed material, it was published.

Abstracts are published as proceedings from conferences.

"[Participants] are required to submit a written report on their research project in the style of a journal in which their mentor publishes."

Means it won't be published, but it's written as if it were to be.

 

[shindotp]

As far as an application, both are certainly nice to have, publications being superior. What you list them on your app is up to you, I'm not the one to ask for that. I separated my abstracts and publications into 2 things because well....I wanted to.

Here's a little support for my argument. This is a question on Stanford's secondary application from this past cycle:

"If you have publications resulting from scholarly endeavors, then in the space below, please complete a citation for each of your publications using the following format: Author, Title, Journal, Volume, Pages, and Date of Publication. This section applies for papers that have been published or been accepted for publication. Please do not include abstracts or unpublished conference papers."

Notice the separation. my 0.02$

Just because they said don't include abstracts does not mean abstracts are not publications. Abstracts can be published. Scientific material which is published is by definition a scientific "publication."

It's analogous to this statement: If you have opinions, feel free to post them. Please do not post opinions that may offend others.

But it's good to know that med schools don't give a crap about abstracts.

 

[autodf06]

Thanks. I figured abstracts didn't count for much, but at least they count for something and look OK on a resume. My project is presenting a poster/abstract to a undergrad science convention in town in a couple weeks and are in the process of writing the paper and submitting it to a national chem journal. Hopefully we will be able to get it in. Thanks for the input.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

if it has a PMID it's a publication

 

[CCLCMer]

Yeah, like other people already said, you should include the abstract on your AMCAS because it shows you did something significant enough in your lab to warrant an abstract. Same with a poster if you present one at a conference. But those things are not the same as publications, so you shouldn't list them as publications because it would misrepresent them.

 

[chutzpah]

If I already have a paper published (2nd author), is there a point in mentioning that I did a poster presentation on the subject prior to publishing?

 

[scarletgirl777]

If I already have a paper published (2nd author), is there a point in mentioning that I did a poster presentation on the subject prior to publishing?

People do that on regular resumes all the time (list both). I can't speak to official AMCAS protocol though, but a poster presentation also involves talking to other people about your work, so I think that deserves to be mentioned even if it's not it's own line.