Publishing Literature Review in an Undergraduate Journal

[gabbythepremed9999]

Hey guys! I hope y'all are safe during this pandemic.

I've recently written a literature review on some treatments for Alzheimer's Disease. It's a paper I'm extremely proud of because it took me A LONG time and a lot of research. I was told by a friend (who is also a pre-med) to publish it in an undergrad journal.

I know it's possible to publish research papers as an undergrad, but is it possible to publish a literature review? I mean, I'm no expert to be reviewing experts' work. I'm just a Neuroscience student.

Do you guys know anything about this?

I appreciate any help! 🙂

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[Engrailed]

Is this for your school publication?

Kudos for putting in all the hours and doing research on it. But for the sake of med school applications, it wouldn’t hold as much weight as say, something in a journal that went through a rigorous peer-review process where experts in the field examine your paper/review.

That said, I still think it counts for something. If you were including this on your application one day, just note that it was a school publication.

 

[jma90]

Hey guys! I hope y'all are safe during this pandemic.

I've recently written a literature review on some treatments for Alzheimer's Disease. It's a paper I'm extremely proud of because it took me A LONG time and a lot of research. I was told by a friend (who is also a pre-med) to publish it in an undergrad journal.

I know it's possible to publish research papers as an undergrad, but is it possible to publish a literature review? I mean, I'm no expert to be reviewing experts' work. I'm just a Neuroscience student.

Do you guys know anything about this?

I appreciate any help! 🙂

Did you do the research with a faculty member? Did you have a research librarian involved to inform the search strategy? If the answer to either/both of these questions is yes, you can always consider submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. You'll need the help of a faculty co-author, but it could certainly be worth a shot.

 

[seeinghowitgoes]

If you wrote it on your own, kudos on demonstrating work ethic but thats the extent you’re really getting out of it. Best you’ll do is publishing in your undergrad journal. The most this will do is show interest in medicine (not even in research as a narrative lit review is not research), writing ability, and work ethic. Nothing to scoff at but much less differentiating than doing the same work with a faculty member, getting a letter, and getting a pub in an indexed journal

If you wrote this with a faculty member, I’d absolutely go for a real medical journal. Would give all the benefits of showing hard work and writing ability and follow-through more strongly and with effects that will last beyond Med school applications (because nobody in residency is going to care about a pub in an undergrad journal).

Also will just say some faculty have very strong views of even Med students doing reviews on disease topics without close oversight - I’ve had faculty call such Med students arrogant for thinking they had enough experience to do so. I don’t necessarily agree with those hardliners but do mention it because you’ll need to be wise how you spin this in the future if you did indeed try to summarize a very complicated disease as a pre Med without expert support. Sorry to be a buzzkill with that but I have definitely seen it bite people.