Quickest way to get a publication?

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dk00

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Trying to get some research experience and my name on a publication as quickly as possible, any suggestions where to start?
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Finding a PI who would be open to the possibility of an undergrad being a co-author and putting in the time and effort needed to becoming published would be a good place to start
 
If you get lucky you might get put on a project that's about to publish and you could get tacked on as an author. You will be one of the last authors though, which makes the publication almost useless.

To get a first/second author position, you need to gain the PI's trust to let you run your project independently and you then have to perform the long hours of labor and research. This comes with a lot of time, experience, and hard work. There's no easy way out.
 
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Would you suggest looking for a pi in a university, company, or hospital, or somewhere else? I contacted a lot of the university researchers and most of them were saying under grad research programs rarely will lead to publications, as they are very basic and exist only to gain experience
 
dk00 said:
Trying to get some research experience and my name on a publication as quickly as possible, any suggestions where to start?
Click to expand...

There is no way to get a publication quickly. I am assuming since you are asking this question, you don't really know how a paper becomes published in a reputable journal.

1. Evidence is found (Months)
2. Manuscript is Written (3 months - 12 months)
3. PI actually reads the paper for the first time and requests certain changes (1 month)
4. PI asks other PI's to read it and critique it (1 month)
5. PI then submits the paper to different journals for acceptance (1 week)
6. First journal rejects it (2 weeks)
7. Second journal rejects it (2 weeks)
8. Submit to journal of lower impact factor and is accepted (1 month)
9. Accepted journal requests certain changes to the manuscript to be accepted (1 week)
10. PI and authors must make those changes (2 weeks)
11. Resubmit paper to journal and journal requests a 2nd round of changes (2 weeks)
12. Final submission to journal (2 weeks)
13. Journal accepts paper and publishes on PubMed (1 week)

I won't do the math...but it takes a long time to get a publication.


Your main concern should not be, "How can I get published quickly?". The main concern is, "Who will allow me to be published?"


The university level is the place to find a PI to co-author a paper. Once you find one, then you work your BUTT off for years and if you contribute enough, most likely the graduate student or post-doc you work with will recommend to your PI that you co-author...and if the PI allows, then you will.


There is no way to get published quickly. But there is a way to become published.
 
burbbs said:
There is no way to get a publication quickly. I am assuming since you are asking this question, you don't really know how a paper becomes published in a reputable journal.

1. Evidence is found (Months)
2. Manuscript is Written (3 months - 12 months)
3. PI actually reads the paper for the first time and requests certain changes (1 month)
4. PI asks other PI's to read it and critique it (1 month)
5. PI then submits the paper to different journals for acceptance (1 week)
6. First journal rejects it (2 weeks)
7. Second journal rejects it (2 weeks)
8. Submit to journal of lower impact factor and is accepted (1 month)
9. Accepted journal requests certain changes to the manuscript to be accepted (1 week)
10. PI and authors must make those changes (2 weeks)
11. Resubmit paper to journal and journal requests a 2nd round of changes (2 weeks)
12. Final submission to journal (2 weeks)
13. Journal accepts paper and publishes on PubMed (1 week)

I won't do the math...but it takes a long time to get a publication.


Your main concern should not be, "How can I get published quickly?". The main concern is, "Who will allow me to be published?"


The university level is the place to find a PI to co-author a paper. Once you find one, then you work your BUTT off for years and if you contribute enough, most likely the graduate student or post-doc you work with will recommend to your PI that you co-author...and if the PI allows, then you will.


There is no way to get published quickly. But there is a way to become published.
Click to expand...

Excellent post. Keep in mind that you want to join a lab that publishes frequently and gives you an ample amount of independence. I recently joined a lab and as the token undergrad, I am definitely going to be helping out significantly by analyzing data sets using SPSS, doing comprehensive literature reviews, and collaborating with other departments on campus.
 
burbbs said:
There is no way to get a publication quickly. I am assuming since you are asking this question, you don't really know how a paper becomes published in a reputable journal.

1. Evidence is found (Months)
2. Manuscript is Written (3 months - 12 months)
3. PI actually reads the paper for the first time and requests certain changes (1 month)
4. PI asks other PI's to read it and critique it (1 month)
5. PI then submits the paper to different journals for acceptance (1 week)
6. First journal rejects it (2 weeks)
7. Second journal rejects it (2 weeks)
8. Submit to journal of lower impact factor and is accepted (1 month)
9. Accepted journal requests certain changes to the manuscript to be accepted (1 week)
10. PI and authors must make those changes (2 weeks)
11. Resubmit paper to journal and journal requests a 2nd round of changes (2 weeks)
12. Final submission to journal (2 weeks)
13. Journal accepts paper and publishes on PubMed (1 week)

I won't do the math...but it takes a long time to get a publication.
Click to expand...

12.25-21.25 months.

In all fairness, there are prolific publication-ers that put out tons a year, and if you get with one of those, you could do better than a year, no problem. But everything takes twice as long when you're new to research though.
 
Best way to get a publication is to do public health and clinical research. It moves a lot faster. You can go from idea to paper acceptance in 4 months depending on the project. The downside is that public health publications are not as big as basic science.
 
Basic science research pubs especially in single name journals is prestigious because the work is so tedious. Kudos
 
burbbs said:
There is no way to get a publication quickly. I am assuming since you are asking this question, you don't really know how a paper becomes published in a reputable journal.

1. Evidence is found (Months)
2. Manuscript is Written (3 months - 12 months)
3. PI actually reads the paper for the first time and requests certain changes (1 month)
4. PI asks other PI's to read it and critique it (1 month)
5. PI then submits the paper to different journals for acceptance (1 week)
6. First journal rejects it (2 weeks)
7. Second journal rejects it (2 weeks)
8. Submit to journal of lower impact factor and is accepted (1 month)
9. Accepted journal requests certain changes to the manuscript to be accepted (1 week)
10. PI and authors must make those changes (2 weeks)
11. Resubmit paper to journal and journal requests a 2nd round of changes (2 weeks)
12. Final submission to journal (2 weeks)
13. Journal accepts paper and publishes on PubMed (1 week)

I won't do the math...but it takes a long time to get a publication.


Your main concern should not be, "How can I get published quickly?". The main concern is, "Who will allow me to be published?"


The university level is the place to find a PI to co-author a paper. Once you find one, then you work your BUTT off for years and if you contribute enough, most likely the graduate student or post-doc you work with will recommend to your PI that you co-author...and if the PI allows, then you will.


There is no way to get published quickly. But there is a way to become published.
Click to expand...

Double or triple that time for engineering
 
Espadaleader said:
Best way to get a publication is to do public health and clinical research. It moves a lot faster. You can go from idea to paper acceptance in 4 months depending on the project. The downside is that public health publications are not as big as basic science.
Click to expand...

Yes, but in clinical research there's always 7 billion people involved, so you'll be lucky to be put on the "study team" in one of the appendices. Luckily, after working here for about a year, my PI trusts me enough to do data analysis on one of the smaller projects going on here, so she's going to put me down as an actual author for doing that.

There may be an element of luck involved with publishing, at least in my experience.
 
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jemstone said:
Yes, but in clinical research there's always 7 billion people involved, so you'll be lucky to be put on the "study team" in one of the appendices. Luckily, after working here for about a year, my PI trusts me enough to do data analysis on one of the smaller projects going on here, so she's going to put me down as an actual author for doing that.

There may be an element of luck involved with publishing, at least in my experience.
Click to expand...

There "may" be? There quite certainly is.
 
Research shouldn't be about the quickest way to publish. If you go into it with that attitude, not only will you be very disappointed, but you're going to annoy everyone around you in the lab. That said there are definitely fields that generate data quicker than others. Bioinformatics and biostatistics are probably the quickest means to get from project start to finish, however, these areas are very technical and not something you can just jump into without the proper knowledge or skills. If you are looking for a positive research experience with the possibility of publishing within a year or so, definitely run a PubMed search on the PI. You'd be more likely to be a rider on a publication if the lab publishes often and the papers are collaborative efforts of many people in the lab or multiple labs.
 
Part of the reason applicants almost never have publications is because the process of going from conception of a project to publishing it takes too long for an undergrad to finish it before applying. It takes a lot of work, time, and luck to get a publication in undergrad, or at least a first author publication which is what's really impressive. Typically the applicants with first author publications are the ones who got lucky and got into a very prolific lab that does experiments that can be wrapped up and written up quickly (where "quickly" = "inside of a year"), they worked their butts off (20 hours a week minimum, most likely much more than that), and they took a gap year.

For what it's worth, I submitted three 1st author papers back in December. One of those was in the works for two years and got accepted this month. One was in the works for one year and is going into its second round of revisions. Another has been in the works for five years and is currently in review after having made revisions. So you can see the variability inherent in this process.

burbbs said:
There is no way to get a publication quickly. I am assuming since you are asking this question, you don't really know how a paper becomes published in a reputable journal.

1. Evidence is found (Months)
2. Manuscript is Written (3 months - 12 months)
3. PI actually reads the paper for the first time and requests certain changes (1 month)
4. PI asks other PI's to read it and critique it (1 month)
5. PI then submits the paper to different journals for acceptance (1 week)
6. First journal rejects it (2 weeks)
7. Second journal rejects it (2 weeks)
8. Submit to journal of lower impact factor and is accepted (1 month)
9. Accepted journal requests certain changes to the manuscript to be accepted (1 week)
10. PI and authors must make those changes (2 weeks)
11. Resubmit paper to journal and journal requests a 2nd round of changes (2 weeks)
12. Final submission to journal (2 weeks)
13. Journal accepts paper and publishes on PubMed (1 week)
Click to expand...

My experience has been more like:

1. Evidence is found (years)
2. Manuscript is written (months)
3. PI actually reads the paper and requests certain changes (week or two)
4. PI reads the paper again and requests more changes (week or two)
5. PI reads paper again and requests you make changes to your changes (days)
6. PI reads paper again and requests you change your changes to the previous changes (a day)
7. PI reads paper again and says it's pretty good, but you should really add in this new data/new analysis he just thought of (weeks)
8. PI reads your new additions, requests changes to the whole paper (weeks)
9. Repeat 3-8 until you can make a critical roll on a pair of D20s
10. Be real with yourself and know where you're likely to get published. Submit your paper there (1 day)
11. Paper gets returned with revisions (1 month)
12. Make revisions and resubmit (1 month)
13. Paper gets accepted (2-4 weeks) or returned with even more revisions (repeat 11-13)
14. Paper gets published (if you even care anymore)
 
Doing a NIH ITRA Fellowship is a good bet too. Most PIs will guarantee a first/second author publication.
 
That usually happens because the goal of the program by per it's criteria is to get to you apply to grad or professional school so they really work I get you there
 
This rarely happens...most people I know spent at least a year in a lab before being tacked on as an author. Plus, there's a LOT more you can gain from research besides the publication. But if you insist...

Find a big lab that churns out papers relatively frequently. Get onto a project that's nearing completion, help out with some of the procedures, and then hope you get tacked on.
 
It is very unlikely that someone is just going to throw you on a paper for doing some menial tasks. Academia can be very cutthroat about authorship, and you should really be contributing something intellectual if you're going to be on the publication. Best thing to do if you really want a publication is to find a lab that has gotten undergraduates on papers in the past and work for them for at least a year (typically how long grants run for).
 
From my experience, there are plenty of researchers (primarily physicians) that have completed projects/tons of data that just needs to be analyzed and written up. This is an easy way to get on a paper, especially if you have prior scientific writing experience. But it's also difficult, because you will not know any details about how the study was performed, and your understanding of the subject matter will be (initially) lower since you didn't design the study. But if you network, are ambitious, and know how to write, there is plenty of stuff there for the taking.
 
Someone said bioinformatics/biostatistics are fields that can lead to slightly and relatively faster publication. What about stem cell research?
 
As others alluded to, it is a very tedious process.

Including the word "quick" in the same sentence as "publication process" borders on being an oxymoron.

Just find a strong PI (both in reputation and mentorship) and all will work out.
 
dk00 said:
Trying to get some research experience and my name on a publication as quickly as possible, any suggestions where to start?
Click to expand...

Don't expect to even get published. It's a privilege you have to earn, especially when some full time grad students take a year or two working 60+ hours a week to get published. So most everyone in academic research will take an extreme offense to some undergrad trying to volunteer for a few months just to get their name on the grad student's paper. Be prepared to bust your ass and kiss everyone's ass until your nose is so brown you'd think you'd just gotten back from a vacation in the tropics. You must make yourself their bitch and let them know you will do whatever they need for you to earn that publication. That is how it works. They also have to like you. If they don't like you, they could just screw with you and make you do all that work and still not put you on a paper. People in academia are extremely passive aggressive like that, and there is nothing they resent more than some entitled premed trying to weasel their way into their papers. Just make sure you are stroking the PI's and the grad student's egos and you have to prove you are intellectually on their level before they give you the respect of an authorship. Some labs with really nice PI's put everyone and their mom on the paper, so those are the labs you should be looking for. Just be cautioned though, there really is a serious resentment for premeds in academia, and they will judge you for it. If they don't think you are good enough to be a doctor you will get worked harder until you break or quit. Then they'll leave you off the paper.
 
I agree with every poster here. It really depends on the kind of research you like and the lab you're in. You cannot "fake" your research calling, nor sometimes can you really choose your lab too much.
 
On the other hand, we needed people to help us with data collection and organization and sent open invitations to two local medical school listservs and ended up with 3 med students and 2 undergrads working with us. Between the 5 of them in the last 9 months, they have 12 publications. Certainly not large basic science papers, all of them clinical research and their authorship earned. But, real publications and likely with a larger impact than what most people in undergrad publish. I'm currently working on a database system as well as retooling our data collection protocols. I'm hoping by the time I hit my research years (14 months), I'll have enough crap to do that I can argue for 8-10 people to help me alone.
 
mimelim said:
On the other hand, we needed people to help us with data collection and organization and sent open invitations to two local medical school listservs and ended up with 3 med students and 2 undergrads working with us. Between the 5 of them in the last 9 months, they have 12 publications. Certainly not large basic science papers, all of them clinical research and their authorship earned. But, real publications and likely with a larger impact than what most people in undergrad publish. I'm currently working on a database system as well as retooling our data collection protocols. I'm hoping by the time I hit my research years (14 months), I'll have enough crap to do that I can argue for 8-10 people to help me alone.
Click to expand...

These are the type of labs you need to look for. Find labs that actively put undergrads on papers. Not all the labs are as evil as I made them sound.
 
Arbor Vitae said:
These are the type of labs you need to look for. Find labs that actively put undergrads on papers. Not all the labs are as evil as I made them sound.
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone for this great information! any suggestions on labs that publish frequently in the Chicago area?
 
dk00 said:
Thanks everyone for this great information! any suggestions on labs that publish frequently in the Chicago area?
Click to expand...

I think that's a question you'll have to investigate yourself. Check out areas of research you are interested at your school, or nearby schools. Looks at their publications and the authors on them.
 
burbbs said:
There is no way to get a publication quickly. I am assuming since you are asking this question, you don't really know how a paper becomes published in a reputable journal.

1. Evidence is found (Months)
2. Manuscript is Written (3 months - 12 months)
3. PI actually reads the paper for the first time and requests certain changes (1 month)
4. PI asks other PI's to read it and critique it (1 month)
5. PI then submits the paper to different journals for acceptance (1 week)
6. First journal rejects it (2 weeks)
7. Second journal rejects it (2 weeks)
8. Submit to journal of lower impact factor and is accepted (1 month)
9. Accepted journal requests certain changes to the manuscript to be accepted (1 week)
10. PI and authors must make those changes (2 weeks)
11. Resubmit paper to journal and journal requests a 2nd round of changes (2 weeks)
12. Final submission to journal (2 weeks)
13. Journal accepts paper and publishes on PubMed (1 week)

I won't do the math...but it takes a long time to get a publication.


Your main concern should not be, "How can I get published quickly?". The main concern is, "Who will allow me to be published?"


The university level is the place to find a PI to co-author a paper. Once you find one, then you work your BUTT off for years and if you contribute enough, most likely the graduate student or post-doc you work with will recommend to your PI that you co-author...and if the PI allows, then you will.


There is no way to get published quickly. But there is a way to become published.
Click to expand...
Strongly agree with this. I started research the summer after freshman year and had a publication by the end of the fall semester of senior year.

Although I invested a ton of time and effort into the project it was mostly luck that led to it getting published.
 
I knew someone who got published on their parents paper who
is a PI. Same last names on the paper. Dad was first author, his son was second author. I doubt he deserved it. Wonder how much it helps for med school to be published with someone who is clearly your relative.

I agree though find a nice PI that genuinely likes you A lot of it though seems to be luck unless you do a program like a masters in science or something in which requires to publish to graduate. Or mooch of a PI relative without your last name or a friend PI of your parents if you are that privileged to have such a connection haha.
 
Espadaleader said:
Doing a NIH ITRA Fellowship is a good bet too. Most PIs will guarantee a first/second author publication.
Click to expand...

What kind of experience are you speaking from here? For a post-bac, it's possible but certainly no guarantee.

As for a summer fellowship, absolutely not based on what other fellows I have spoken with have shared regarding their experiences.
If you are lucky and have had significant research background and put in a Herculean amount of work during a summer fellowship, your PI may be generous enough to list you as a co-author.
 
+1 on the clinical research papers. You could probably come up with an idea for a retroactive chart study, do a write up, submit to IRB, and finish the project all in under a year. The hard part is finding the opportunity to do this. My school has a program where you can do this, but I assume they are few and far between. Look into it.
 
summer internships/REUs have a good chance to produce some original research. If not publication, you can personally submit your work to a local academy of science to get your abstract published in their annual publication and also give a presentation.

What state are you in?
 
I published 2 case reports on my own (1st author on both) then did massive amounts of data collection and assisted with the writing on two clinical trials with residents and fellows. I'll be 2nd author on one of them and 3rd on the other. I could never have done this in undergrad simply because of the time requirement of the literature review and the statistical analysis. Even doing it while working full-time was very difficult.
If you just want your name on something, get yourself into a clinic and ask if anyone has an interesting case they want to publish. Offer to write it for them and do the literature review in exchange for first author. Case reports aren't terribly impressive unless they're really interesting but it will get you a publication.
 
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