Question about my Undergrad Research?

[remedy23]

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Hey guys,

I just got my first research assistant position as an undergraduate (with no prior research experience, but had relevant experience in their field of research). And I have a few questions.

1) Is it normal as a research assistant to not have anything to do with writing? I was expecting being able to gain literature search skills and at least write something like a literature review, but it seems like the PI just wants me to run participants, do some data entry, data analysis, maintenance & organization. I also do a lot of tedious work like data cleaning, and video filming of participants and editing of videos (which I'm not sure how it relates to research)

2) Is running participants, doing data entry, data analysis, data cleaning and keeping maintenace of databases and organizing them enough to warrant any authorship (even second to last author is fine).

3) If I contributed to writing a small section of the paper (such as a part of data analysis, or the methods section), would it be fair to list me as author (second to last author)?

I Haven't done ANY writing or even used a literature search database, which is a bit disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy to get these skills, because now I have something to make me more appealing for future research positions.

 

[itsthat1guy]

people that publish reviews are generally highly regarded in that field, not undergrads new to the game. If you want to lean how to effectively search pubmed, you can do that on your own time. it seems like you expect to be published or write a paper soon but thats unlikely to happen for another semester or two

what does "running participants" mean

 

[remedy23]

remove

 

[remedy23]

people that publish reviews are generally highly regarded in that field, not undergrads new to the game. If you want to lean how to effectively search pubmed, you can do that on your own time. it seems like you expect to be published or write a paper soon but thats unlikely to happen for another semester or two

what does "running participants" mean

Because from the undergrad research assistants I've talked to, most of them were involved in literature searching and creating literature reviews, and the process is more than just effectively searching pubmed.

I was only wondering about publishing because I've heard undergrads do get published for doing small things, even though it's near the end of the list. The publishing would be a bonus, and I don't expect first or second or third or fourth author, just credit if it seems like I contributed enough to the paper, since I'll be in the lab for 40 hours a week for 4 months.

But even if I don't get published, I definitely got a lot of invaluable research skills, and for my next research placement, I'll look for something where I can assist in writing a literature review of some sort.

And running participants is when the clients come in to participate in a motor skills assessment after they've received a treatment, and I walk them through some of the assessment to collect data and film their assessments.

 

[itsthat1guy]

Because from the undergrad research assistants I've talked to, most of them were involved in literature searching and creating literature reviews, and the process is more than just effectively searching pubmed.

I was only wondering about publishing because I've heard undergrads do get published for doing small things, even though it's near the end of the list. The publishing would be a bonus, and I don't expect first or second or third or fourth author, just credit if it seems like I contributed enough to the paper, since I'll be in the lab for 40 hours a week for 4 months.

But even if I don't get published, I definitely got a lot of invaluable research skills, and for my next research placement, I'll look for something where I can assist in writing a literature review of some sort.

And running participants is when the clients come in to participate in a motor skills assessment after they've received a treatment, and I walk them through some of the assessment to collect data and film their assessments.

so your undergrad friends wrote reviews? im calling bs

 

[cactus8910]

Hey guys,

I just got my first research assistant position as an undergraduate (with no prior research experience, but had relevant experience in their field of research). And I have a few questions.

1) Is it normal as a research assistant to not have anything to do with writing? I was expecting being able to gain literature search skills and at least write something like a literature review, but it seems like the PI just wants me to run participants, do some data entry, data analysis, maintenance & organization. I also do a lot of tedious work like data cleaning, and video filming of participants and editing of videos (which I'm not sure how it relates to research)

2) Is running participants, doing data entry, data analysis, data cleaning and keeping maintenace of databases and organizing them enough to warrant any authorship (even second to last author is fine).

3) If I contributed to writing a small section of the paper (such as a part of data analysis, or the methods section), would it be fair to list me as author (second to last author)?

I Haven't done ANY writing or even used a literature search database, which is a bit disappointing. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy to get these skills, because now I have something to make me more appealing for future research positions.

Your best bet would be to talk to your PI about whether he/she would consider your contribution to be significant enough to warrant authorship. If he/she says no, ask what you can do to get to that level. It sounds to me like the amount of work you're doing should be enough to get you somewhere on that author list, but it really depends on the PI and the project itself.

 

[baxt1412]

you don't have to have an authorship to get into med school. but like cactus8910 said, approach your PI and see if there is anything you can do to help out more and potentially become an author... but it's definitely not necessary whatsoever.

 

[Gibbward]

so your undergrad friends wrote reviews? im calling bs

+1 Your friend may help with compiling information for the review, but will he/she really be an author or just get an acknowledgement?

But back to the topic, pub authorship really depends on the PI. I had a research mentor who has me as a 3rd author for a manuscript after completing ~1.5 months worth of data collection/analysis for her. Granted, she already knew me very well from classes and research work I did for other professors so that surely helped.

 

[remedy23]

so your undergrad friends wrote reviews? im calling bs

Undergrad friend wrote a review, but this was with a totally different PI, was only there for 3 months, and got authorship. If you call bs, that's okay too.

 

[remedy23]

+1 Your friend may help with compiling information for the review, but will he/she really be an author or just get an acknowledgement?

But back to the topic, pub authorship really depends on the PI. I had a research mentor who has me as a 3rd author for a manuscript after completing ~1.5 months worth of data collection/analysis for her. Granted, she already knew me very well from classes and research work I did for other professors so that surely helped.

Sorry I wasn't clear, my friend did a full literature review with another PI, and he got published just for working on it for 3 months. What my role is: basically there's 50 sets of data that was collected before I arrived, that none of the researchers really organized or even touched. So, I was responsible for organizing it, and figuring out which sets of data can be included in the analysis and which ones cannot. And now, I'm responsible for making notes of any interesting patterns that can potentially be discussed. I was told this is sort of like my mini project, I wasn't given much direction on it, so I'm going to do as much as I can with it by reading other papers to figure out what patterns are typically looked for, and hopefully the researchers will find it helpful. I haven't done any statistical analysis yet with complicated formulas, so I'm not sure if I can say I did data analysis. I also collect some data for the last few participants who are still in the study.

But, I'm pretty sure my PI will not publish undergrads, and I only came into the last four months of the two year study, so I'm not sure how big my role is, and the writing of the paper will probably start after I leave which is unfortunate.

 

[remedy23]

Your best bet would be to talk to your PI about whether he/she would consider your contribution to be significant enough to warrant authorship. If he/she says no, ask what you can do to get to that level. It sounds to me like the amount of work you're doing should be enough to get you somewhere on that author list, but it really depends on the PI and the project itself.

Thank you! The only thing is that I'm not sure if what I'm doing is considered data analysis - I'm not using any statistics like paired t-tests, but what the team asked me to do is: basically there's 50 sets of data that was collected before I arrived, that none of the researchers really organized or even touched. So, I was responsible for organizing it, and figuring out which sets of data can be included in the analysis and which ones cannot. And now, I'm responsible for making notes of any interesting patterns that can potentially be discussed. I was told this is sort of like my mini project, I wasn't given much direction on it, so I'm going to do as much as I can with it by reading other papers to figure out what patterns are typically looked for, and hopefully the researchers will find it helpful. I can even try to write a small section of results in the paper. I haven't done any statistical analysis yet with complicated formulas, so I'm not sure if I can say I did data analysis. I also collect some data for the last few participants who are still in the study.
But, I'm pretty sure my PI will not publish undergrads, and I only came into the last four months of the two year study, so I'm not sure how big my role is, and the writing of the paper will probably start after I leave which is unfortunate.

 

[cactus8910]

Thank you! The only thing is that I'm not sure if what I'm doing is considered data analysis - I'm not using any statistics like paired t-tests, but what the team asked me to do is: basically there's 50 sets of data that was collected before I arrived, that none of the researchers really organized or even touched. So, I was responsible for organizing it, and figuring out which sets of data can be included in the analysis and which ones cannot. And now, I'm responsible for making notes of any interesting patterns that can potentially be discussed. I was told this is sort of like my mini project, I wasn't given much direction on it, so I'm going to do as much as I can with it by reading other papers to figure out what patterns are typically looked for, and hopefully the researchers will find it helpful. I can even try to write a small section of results in the paper. I haven't done any statistical analysis yet with complicated formulas, so I'm not sure if I can say I did data analysis. I also collect some data for the last few participants who are still in the study.
But, I'm pretty sure my PI will not publish undergrads, and I only came into the last four months of the two year study, so I'm not sure how big my role is, and the writing of the paper will probably start after I leave which is unfortunate.

I don't think "data analysis" is necessarily limited to statistical analysis. If finding patterns in data isn't analyzing it, I'm not sure what it is. You say you're pretty sure your PI won't publish undergrads, but you can't really know unless you ask. If the PI firmly says that no, you won't be published, then you can accept that. But if you sound enthusiastic and say you'd be willing to write up a part of the results, or do some lit review to contribute to the introduction, they might be willing to reconsider.
Ultimately, you don't *need* to be on a publication, and if it won't be written for a while, it might not help your med school apps anyway. You mentioned getting future research positions as a goal in your original post. Are you thinking of doing research during gap years before med school, or post-med school? I'm doing research gap years now, and didn't have any pubs beforehand, so don't worry about it too much!

 

[Gibbward]

I'm assuming the data set you worked with is a small chunk of the entire project's data? If that's the case, then it wouldn't be surprising that your PI wouldn't put you in a pub. Also, there are some PIs who require a certain amount of intellectual contribution to the project (so a significant amount of statistical analysis and results that strongly support or refute a hypothesis) before you're considered for a pub. Simply organizing a data set and not doing any serious number crunching just doesn't carry enough weight.

Like what others suggested, you might as well just talk to your PI about the situation, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Either way, don't worry too much about!

 

[ridethecliche]

I think the OP is talking about doing literature reviews, not writing review articles. Very different things...

Writing a review article is a big effing deal and usually involves a large meta analysis if it's clinical.

As for the OP's research... seems like they've had a research tech-ish role in a lot of things. If you get made an author, it means that you had significant input into the research and writing. If you did, troubleshot, and worked with a PI to do the experiments, then it's fair to put you in the authors. Where in the author list depends on how much of a hand you had in the research relative to everyone else. If you help write something, you should be on the paper by default.

 

[remedy23]

I don't think "data analysis" is necessarily limited to statistical analysis. If finding patterns in data isn't analyzing it, I'm not sure what it is. You say you're pretty sure your PI won't publish undergrads, but you can't really know unless you ask. If the PI firmly says that no, you won't be published, then you can accept that. But if you sound enthusiastic and say you'd be willing to write up a part of the results, or do some lit review to contribute to the introduction, they might be willing to reconsider.
Ultimately, you don't *need* to be on a publication, and if it won't be written for a while, it might not help your med school apps anyway. You mentioned getting future research positions as a goal in your original post. Are you thinking of doing research during gap years before med school, or post-med school? I'm doing research gap years now, and didn't have any pubs beforehand, so don't worry about it too much!

Thank you! I still don't feel like I did enough to warrant authorship, maybe if I get a small piece to write in the paper, then I can suggest the idea. Maybe even after the placement is done, I can ask him I'd be interested in writing a part of the paper if possible, and can volunteer my time once a week to do that. I want to do research before med school, I'm actually enjoying research, the responsibilities aren't that heavy, and I know I probably won't get much of a chance to do it afterwards.

 

[remedy23]

I'm assuming the data set you worked with is a small chunk of the entire project's data? If that's the case, then it wouldn't be surprising that your PI wouldn't put you in a pub. Also, there are some PIs who require a certain amount of intellectual contribution to the project (so a significant amount of statistical analysis and results that strongly support or refute a hypothesis) before you're considered for a pub. Simply organizing a data set and not doing any serious number crunching just doesn't carry enough weight.

Like what others suggested, you might as well just talk to your PI about the situation, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Either way, don't worry too much about!

Nope, it was actually a lot of the data, but 50% is not usable because there just isn't enough data for the participant. There were a lot of compliance issues. And I'm not doing everything with the data, I'm pretty sure all the writing and statistical analysis of the data will be done by the PhD students. So I wouldn't be surprised either.

But every PI is different, and we'll see what she thinks - sometimes doing 1 major thing is enough to become fifth author so we'll see. Thanks for your response!

 

[remedy23]

I think the OP is talking about doing literature reviews, not writing review articles. Very different things...

Writing a review article is a big effing deal and usually involves a large meta analysis if it's clinical.

As for the OP's research... seems like they've had a research tech-ish role in a lot of things. If you get made an author, it means that you had significant input into the research and writing. If you did, troubleshot, and worked with a PI to do the experiments, then it's fair to put you in the authors. Where in the author list depends on how much of a hand you had in the research relative to everyone else. If you help write something, you should be on the paper by default.

Cool, so my goal will be to get something to write for this paper hopefully haha! The research coordinator kind of told me that the supervisor usually does all the writing for papers though, so it seems unlikely but we will see.