Publications

[Ollie123]

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Quick question for those on an academic track:
How does one find the balance between quantity and quality during their early career? Obviously you want to make everything as good as possible, but is it going to look bad to have a number of "meh" articles, as long as you have some higher quality work too?

I'm involved in many (too many) projects, and am just trying to figure out how to focus my efforts and maintain some semblance of sanity. There are many "meh" projects that are publishable, but if its going to look bad to have too many of those compared to the larger-scale, higher-quality stuff than I may not devote much time to it, and end up further down the author list or dropped off it completely depending on the project.

For the record by "meh" I'm talking about small-scale, exploratory experimental studies that will probably still be publishable in a mid-tier journal with an IF around 2...not grad student journals or the local psychology bulletin or anything like that.

 

[thewesternsky]

According to my professors, what you call "meh" articles do not dilute the quality of your CV... And do in fact actually add to it, especially at the beginning of your career. They're still contributions to the literature, and there's nothing wrong with publishing in mid-tier journals, especially if you also have a few stronger publications.

The professors who will be on your job committees likely publish in those same journals, at least occasionally and/or with smaller-scale projects or projects where the data's somewhat unclear.

 

[LM02]

Quantity and quality both matter, so I would shoot for a combination of the two.

For example, I've seen grant reviews come back to early investigators with specific reference to total number of pubs and no mention of the quality, per se (eg, "This is a promising young investigator with 25 peer reviewed publications.").

At the same time, if you want to be competitive for a psychology department job, you will need publications demonstrating a theoretically grounded, programmatic line of research. And these papers should ideally be in higher impact journals. So try to publish the stuff that is the 'meat' of your work in good outlets, and get the ancillary stuff out wherever. That is what I try to do, anyhow...

 

[cmuhooligan]

I'll add that journals with IF of 2 are not what I would traditionally consider "meh"...rather, they're pretty good. I tend to view an IF of 1 or lower as "meh"...I guess that speaks to the subjectivity of meh 🙂

 

[JockNerd]

I think it gets a bit weird because different levels see different things. In a faculty interview, if you're interviewed by a dean she or he may have no idea about the level of quality of the journals you're published in ("Deans can't read, but they can count")--being up the author totem pole, having several papers, and having grant money is, as far as I'm told, what matters to them. The faculty in your area would know the level of the journals, but according to what I'm told people really do *read* the articles--I've seen some pretty cruddy stuff in APA journals that probably wouldn't impress readers, and may in fact turn them off, and interesting work put out in less prestigious journals.

I've been told consistently that the level of work I do in grad school is likely to be taken as representative of the level of work I'll do as faculty.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

SCIENCE or bust!

😀

I think a good mix of niche and more widely read, as well as external renewable funding...at least in an ideal world. As a non-academic looking to stay in academic medicine, I'm trying to secure funding, 1st author, and also get in on larger studies to show I can be productive.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Just wanted to thank you for posting this, as I was wondering something similar myself, and have found all the responses very helpful.

I also have a relatively, um, elementary question: How do you figure out what are the top tier journals in your subfield? My work (which is surprisingly unified in topic, considering) sits on the edges of two or three (depending on if you count my undergrad work, some of which I'm submitting for publication this year) subfields in psych and also has a good amount of overlap with special ed. Thus, opinions on what's a "top tier" journal seem to vary greatly among PIs/advisors/Co-I's, etc., depending on what subfield they most identify with.