Pubs gotten from Post-Bacc and Internship

[The Cinnabon]

---

Members don't see this ad.

So, I was fortunate enough to have a very productive post-bacc and a lot of those papers are finally getting through the review grinder ... So much so that I'm actually worried my PhD will be seen as less productive.

I'm likely going to be finishing my first year of PhD with 6-7 publications, a majority being from Post-Bacc, published during my PhD, although I'm feeling optimistic on an R&R that was the major focus point of my first semester.

I'm pretty interested in a research heavy career and I was just wondering if I should weigh my post-bacc publications to a lesser degree than publications acquired in graduate school?!

 

[.Calamity Jane]

I'm curious what you mean by weighing your post-bacc publications less?

 

[The Cinnabon]

I'm curious what you mean by weighing your post-bacc publications less?

I just mean will pubs from my post bacc lab, pulled less weight than publications earned in my mentor's lab during my PhD. I only ask because my post bacc lab still has stuff coming through that I worked on. My mentor is productive but my former lab has been a bit obscene in its level of productivity as of late.

I think it's a very real risk that I only match the amount of publications I received during my post bachelorette training in my actual PhD.

 

[.Calamity Jane]

I don't think post-bacc matters as much as level of involvement, types/prestige of journals, and relevance of the research do. If you were on a lot of papers but only middle to late author order level of involvement, it'll look less good. Same if its really mid to low tier journals. Additionally, if you changed research course the older stuff will not be as helpful. But in general no one is going to be picking it apart that closely or looking at the timelines. Research is research and if you have high involvement in work published at good journals that's still relevant to your career, post-bacc won't matter so much. You just have to keep it up to some degree, of course.

 

[Ollie123]

Don't overthink this. Labs vary in productivity in the first place. This is particularly true given many people do post-bacs in more medical settings, where the emphasis is often on quantity over quality and the nature of the work often makes it easier to crank things out at a rate unrealistic for folks in a psychology department. Also, everyone knows publications takes forever to get out and there is nothing to say you aren't continuing to collaborate with your post-bac supervisor while in graduate school (several of my post-bacs have done this).

If you have 20 middle-author pubs as a post-bac and then nothing during graduate school with a several-year gap it might look weird. What you are describing is unlikely to even be noticed.

 

[futureapppsy2]

As someone who graduated my masters (8, I think?) and PhD (45?) with more than the average amount of pubs (approximate numbers in parentheses), I can confirm that no one cares when you got them as long as there isn’t a huge gap. Congratulations on the pubs, btw!

 

[The Cinnabon]

As someone who graduated my masters (8, I think?) and PhD (45?) with more than the average amount of pubs (approximate numbers in parentheses), I can confirm that no one cares when you got them as long as there isn’t a huge gap. Congratulations on the pubs, btw!

45 is STRIKING!

What was your secret?? Although I've been worrying so much less about total pubs now and instead really honing in on developing a program of research in the event I decide to try for TT jobs (yes I hate money).

 

[futureapppsy2]

45 is STRIKING!

What was your secret?? Although I've been worrying so much less about total pubs now and instead really honing in on developing a program of research in the event I decide to try for TT jobs (yes I hate money).

Having a program of research definitely helps, as you get to know the literature very well; also, having a good network of collaborators is super helpful as well and being a good/fast writer.

 

[ClinicalABA]

45 is STRIKING!

What was your secret?? Although I've been worrying so much less about total pubs now and instead really honing in on developing a program of research in the event I decide to try for TT jobs (yes I hate money).

Some folks around here are a bit humble 😉. Being a really talented, well trained researcher with the personal and professional focus to just get s**t done probably played a big role in it, as well as focusing on a topic(s) that was interesting and important enough to be of interest to others, including editors and publishers. That's definitely NOT me!