Research - acknowledgement vs. coauthor

[missmd123]

I'm currently working as a research assistant in a lab on campus and I have 3 figures that are going to be in the next paper. Right now, my name will be in the acknowledgements section. How do MD schools view this? Is it even worth putting on my app since I'm not listed as a coauthor?

Thanks! 🙂

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[GrapesofRath]

That's probably better left to have your PI mention in their rec letter for you than for you to be listing in your resume.

 

[Storph]

That's pretty awful that you are producing three figures and not getting authorship; I guess it is up to the PI though.

 

[Goro]

100% agree. At this point, better to get a good LOR from your PI.

It is not as impressive because you are not listed as an an author. I do not put those papers on my CV.

 

[g gnome]

I'm currently working as a research assistant in a lab on campus and I have 3 figures that are going to be in the next paper. Right now, my name will be in the acknowledgements section. How do MD schools view this? Is it even worth putting on my app since I'm not listed as a coauthor?

Thanks! 🙂

Oh man, as a research assistant this makes me crazy to hear! So sorry you will not be getting the recognition that you most likely deserve. As everybody else has said, have your PI write you a solid letter and ask him to include this in there.

 

[missmd123]

Yeah, honestly the lab I work in has never once published an undergrad even though undergrads have contributed significantly in the past to the papers that have been published. I'm definitely going to bring it up to him, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Thanks for your advice everyone!

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

Yeah, honestly the lab I work in has never once published an undergrad even though undergrads have contributed significantly in the past to the papers that have been published. I'm definitely going to bring it up to him, but I'm not going to get my hopes up. Thanks for your advice everyone!

I got acknowledged for original art work so I put it under posters and presentations. Good news it thAt I am an author on a subsequent manuscript. Hopefully if you stay in the lab and contribute more substantively you too will get an authorship.

 

[Narmerguy]

A lab that I was in (that I never published in), a undergrad doing a summer rotation got authorship because he redid an experiment the postdoc needed for one figure. Sometimes research authorship is really hit-or-miss when you're at the bottom. However, acknowledgements don't really hold any cache so I would not list it. If you plan to stay with this lab, maybe in the future you'll get something? Just make sure if you do stick around that you're getting something out of it--if not pubs/abstracts/posters then learning a lot and getting to do things that are helpful or fun for you.

 

[Petrichor1]

man I feel for your hard-work. A friend of mine literally worked nights somewhere else to support research work during daytime and I can say that the poor chap must not have had enough sleep. Despite that, he was put under the acknowledgment section...sometimes I really wonder why you guys never ask PIs about this but then I come from a similar lab where I never asked.

 

[GrapesofRath]

If you have done enough work in your lab to get 3 figures in a paper and have acknowledgement if you stay and push your PI for more work on your project I can't see how you won't have enough in time to get a publication. As it is I don't know many undergrads who had photos put in papers and didn't get their name as a co-author. If all PIs were under the rule that having 3 photos alone in a paper isn't enough to merit authorship, there would be a WAY fewer med school applicants who could say they co-authored a paper; that's probably one if not the most common way for an undergrad to get in a paper.

 

[VlLLVGE]

A lab that I was in (that I never published in), a undergrad doing a summer rotation got authorship because he redid an experiment the postdoc needed for one figure. Sometimes research authorship is really hit-or-miss when you're at the bottom. However, acknowledgements don't really hold any cache so I would not list it. If you plan to stay with this lab, maybe in the future you'll get something? Just make sure if you do stick around that you're getting something out of it--if not pubs/abstracts/posters then learning a lot and getting to do things that are helpful or fun for you.

This happened to me in undergrad, only I was on the end of the postdoc. New kid to lab was tasked with repeating a couple spectra I had generated, got his name on a paper with about 30 hours of total lab work. Needless to say other newcomers to lab were a little dumbfounded. Things like this happen, I guess.

 

[GrapesofRath]

So that everyone understands what the standards of authorship actually are:

http://www.icmje.org/recommendation...ing-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

Submitting 3 photos that are used in a paper follows these requirements----specifically the 4 listed in it. And if we're being honest a lot of authorship depends on an undergrads relationship with a PI. Certainly not by the rule book but that's reality. There are many many undergrads who arent under the 4 categories listed in your link for authorship(although the OP is) that still get put in papers. I'm probably going to be one of them. There is huge variation amongst PIs of labs in terms of what merits publication and you'll find unfortunately your share like the OPs who won't give appropriate due when warranted

 

[GrapesofRath]

This happened to me in undergrad, only I was on the end of the postdoc. New kid to lab was tasked with repeating a couple spectra I had generated, got his name on a paper with about 30 hours of total lab work. Needless to say other newcomers to lab were a little dumbfounded. Things like this happen, I guess.

30 hours/1 paper sounds like an all time efficiency ratio.

 

[GrapesofRath]

It clearly doesn't.

Now if someone wants to make an argument that it only merits acknowledgement here is what constitutes acknowledgement:
"Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading"

Technical assistance or writing assistance: this is probably where the PI categorized the OP's work as such. And the PI knows the paper and subject way better than anybody here does. But understanding/deciding what images need to be taken and why to satisfy a claim being made in a paper with sufficient paper, being able to take them through what is often complex equipment, coming up with a description of it and its significance to most wouldn't just be constituted as "technical editing" or "writing assistance" to many PI's. I recently graduated college and have only done research for 2 years so I'm hardly some expert and am open to being corrected but we had someone in our lab in this same spot who simply collected a ton of images for a project and had someone of them used and hence got authorship largely because the PI thought there was intellectual contribution being made in understanding what kind of images need to be taken, why they need to be taken and understanding the type of analysis that needs to be done on them and to take them and then drafting a description of them and their importance.

 

[GrapesofRath]

I have personally dealt with a situation involving an individual whose sole contribution to a project was the creation of technical diagrams. Other people and institutions got involved. This does not qualify for authorship. The fact that it sometimes gets people authorship in certain circumstances does not change this.

People need to understand these guidelines because they may someday find themselves in a situation where they are unfairly denied authorship. In such a circumstance, they can utilize the ICMJE standards to argue for authorship, including elevating it to an institutional level.

Are there situations that exist like the one you talked about where authorship isn't justified even though something a person created was used in a paper? Obviously, no one's denying that. The discussion at hand's deeper than simply saying as long as something I made/created was used in a paper, regardless of how inconsequential it is, then I deserve authorship.

Who's idea was it to take that specific image? Why is it important to the paper and who helped decide/uncover its importance? What all is involved in taking the specific image/images? Was it simply taken and put in the paper or were there other forms of analysis done on it(ie analysis of percent of beta cells stained with certain markers in a pancreas as opposed to just taking an image of a pancreas) These are questions that matter.

 

[g gnome]

When OP says I have three figures in the paper, this infers to me that he/she did the experiments behind them, in which case some level of authorship seems appropriate

 

[VlLLVGE]

When OP says I have three figures in the paper, this infers to me that he/she did the experiments behind them, in which case some level of authorship seems appropriate

I was confused about this distinction too.

 

[Redpancreas]

I'm currently working as a research assistant in a lab on campus and I have 3 figures that are going to be in the next paper. Right now, my name will be in the acknowledgements section. How do MD schools view this? Is it even worth putting on my app since I'm not listed as a coauthor?

Thanks! 🙂

Absolutely acknowledge it 😉

Seriously though, definitely bring it up when asked about research experience in the primary/secondaries and definitely the research as an activity and mention your contribution to the paper. IF they specifically ask for publications, don't list it as one but enter it as an acknowledgment. Also, if those are some really neat figures with meaning behind them, keep copies and maybe you can show them off at interviews if asked about the research you've done.

I really think this whole deal with undergraduates expecting publications is strange and just reflects the negative effects of overcompetitiveness. Most of my classmates tell me that on their publications, all they were doing was following protocols and were rewarded for their hard work with a authorship. In medical school, patient chart reviews serve as the predominant form of authorship in my experience and even those aren't too involved. OP, you're ahead of the gaming for what you have. Just list it as it is, and I think it will be viewed favorably. If you're going into the cycle with a top 20 or bust mentality, maybe that's a different story. That being said, one of my good friends currently at a top research school for his MSTP never actually got an authorship out of his main project. It was probably frustrating for him seeing as how he worked so hard, but he still was able to write an exceptional MD/PhD essay. You;ll have a siilar experience if you choose to make this one of your 3 major experiences.

 

[missmd123]

When OP says I have three figures in the paper, this infers to me that he/she did the experiments behind them, in which case some level of authorship seems appropriate

Yes, I personally ran those experiments.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Absolutely acknowledge it 😉

Seriously though, definitely bring it up when asked about research experience in the primary/secondaries and definitely the research as an activity and mention your contribution to the paper. IF they specifically ask for publications, don't list it as one but enter it as an acknowledgment. Also, if those are some really neat figures with meaning behind them, keep copies and maybe you can show them off at interviews if asked about the research you've done.

I really think this whole deal with undergraduates expecting publications is strange and just reflects the negative effects of overcompetitiveness. Most of my classmates tell me that on their publications, all they were doing was following protocols and were rewarded for their hard work with a authorship. In medical school, patient chart reviews serve as the predominant form of authorship in my experience and even those aren't too involved. OP, you're ahead of the gaming for what you have. Just list it as it is, and I think it will be viewed favorably. If you're going into the cycle with a top 20 or bust mentality, maybe that's a different story. That being said, one of my good friends currently at a top research school for his MSTP never actually got an authorship out of his main project. It was probably frustrating for him seeing as how he worked so hard, but he still was able to write an exceptional MD/PhD essay. You;ll have a siilar experience if you choose to make this one of your 3 major experiences.

Ehhh, this is more dependent on school in terms of expecting publications as an undergrad for research. Someone who goes to a liberal arts school with limited research opportunities, even if an exceptional student, probably is asking for a lot to be in a paper as an undergrad. Unless you do a summer research program for multiple years or really get lucky in the one year you're there, from talking to friends it is kind of hard to find research opportunities at small schools and ones in labs that publish alot at that. But if you go to a big state school or a big name school with many research opportunities and with many top notch faculty who publish often, if you spend say a year and a half or more, based on all the people I know at my school and others either a) you got published b) there was a legit reason you didn't published ie the project just had an unlucky break and at least got a good rec letter c) you didn't do a great job in lab. This is a rather big generalization, I'm sure I could find some friends of mine who don't fall under any of these three categories and didn't get published, but most people I know who made a long term commitment ended up with a paper at a lab at the school I went to(big state school) or at least got a good letter and didn't get published due to factors they couldn't control. But at least they spent alot of time on a project and did significant work. The ones who didn't even come close were the ones who didn't do a good job in lab or literally never showed up. Again, whomever wants to go on a big tirade about how this isn't accurate, spare us all this is just a generalization but a one that's true more often than not I've found for my school.

 

[Redpancreas]

Ehhh, this is more dependent on school in terms of expecting publications as an undergrad for research. Someone who goes to a liberal arts school with limited research opportunities, even if an exceptional student, probably is asking for a lot to be in a paper as an undergrad. Unless you do a summer research program for multiple years or really get lucky in the one year you're there, from talking to friends it is kind of hard to find research opportunities at small schools and ones in labs that publish alot at that. But if you go to a big state school or a big name school with many research opportunities and with many top notch faculty who publish often, if you spend say a year and a half or more, based on all the people I know at my school and others either a) you got published b) there was a legit reason you didn't published ie the project just had an unlucky break and at least got a good rec letter c) you didn't do a great job in lab. This is a rather big generalization, I'm sure I could find some friends of mine who don't fall under any of these three categories and didn't get published, but most people I know who made a long term commitment ended up with a paper at a lab at the school I went to(big state school) or at least got a good letter and didn't get published due to factors they couldn't control. But at least they spent alot of time on a project and did significant work. The ones who didn't even come close were the ones who didn't do a good job in lab or literally never showed up. Again, whomever wants to go on a big tirade about how this isn't accurate, spare us all this is just a generalization but a one that's true more often than not I've found for my school.

Fair enough. I'm glad you're acknowledging that it's a generalization. I suppose the letter of recommendation from a PI would serve as an alternative form of validation of one's research and so would the anecdote given by the student if he or she choose research as one of his top 3 experiences. I'll also make a large generalization and say that in my experience, a significant percentage of undergrads who get published get it as a tacit agreement between the PI and the student. (Student labor in exchange for authorship). I'm not saying it's the majority, just that it's a large percentage.

 

[Donald Juan]

Yes, I personally ran those experiments.

If you ran the experiments and put the data together for 3 figures (which in my mind without seeing your paper, is probably a large chunk of the results section), then I think that you should indeed be given the opportunity to take part in revising and finalizing the draft and be given authorship. I guess according to the guidelines, if your PI doesn't send you a draft and say, "hey look over this and see if there's anything that should be corrected or added" then you technically don't meet authorship...but it sounds kind of shady.

 

[Overanxious]

The generation of a figure or more does not constitute authorship. It's more complicated than that though many do garner authorship out of the generosity of the PI. Consider the following...

1. A sample is given to a tech to perform a simple western blot for protein Y and generate a publication quality figure. The PI believes that the amount of protein Y increases following drug X which is known to affect a particular pathway that protein Y is a major component...the requirements for authorship have not been met by the tech (not even close). The tech did not contribute any intellectual insight.

2. On the other hand, during the course of the tech's work they suggest to the PI to pursue protein Y bc they found a paper suggesting drug X affects a particular pathway of which protein Y is a major component. They then treat what system they are working in, isolate the sample for testing and perform a western blot and publication quality figure along with a writeup of the experimental design, a rationale for performing the experiment, and the results of said experiment and what it means in relation to the research being performed in the lab...the requirements for authorship have been met.

In both examples the tech has contributed 1 figure; however, in only one example has the tech contributed intellectually and in such case deserves authorship.

 

[Goro]

I concur with my young colleague here. My rule of thumb for co-authorship is "making an intellectual contribution to the paper." Merely following orders and not understand standing the project, and/or what you're doing and why, doesn't fulfill that criteria for me.

Most of you are too young to remember that before the invention of desktops/laptops and graphics programs, research centers had entire art departments (Medical Illustration) devoted solely to making figures for publication or presentations. Those artists never, ever received authorship for that.

Now, if one actually generated the data, as long as you can explain what you did and why, then that merits an authorship. Anything else nets a "We are grateful to Joe Smith and Jane Doe for their expert technical assistance. Richard Roe is thanked for figure preparation."

I have personally dealt with a situation involving an individual whose sole contribution to a project was the creation of technical diagrams. Other people and institutions got involved. This does not qualify for authorship. The fact that it sometimes gets people authorship in certain circumstances does not change this.

People need to understand these guidelines because they may someday find themselves in a situation where they are unfairly denied authorship. In such a circumstance, they can utilize the ICMJE standards to argue for authorship, including elevating it to an institutional level.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Fair enough. I'm glad you're acknowledging that it's a generalization. I suppose the letter of recommendation from a PI would serve as an alternative form of validation of one's research and so would the anecdote given by the student if he or she choose research as one of his top 3 experiences. I'll also make a large generalization and say that in my experience, a significant percentage of undergrads who get published get it as a tacit agreement between the PI and the student. (Student labor in exchange for authorship). I'm not saying it's the majority, just that it's a large percentage.

No your 100% right the tacit agreement is rampant in research at the undergraduate level. While I believe the OP is deserving of authorship there are many many undergrads who get in papers without following the 4 criteria for authorship linked above and who are in papers solely because the PI wants to acknowledge they worked hard for them for a period of time or because of some promise or because they are just nice people. Thats undergraduate research in a nutshell

 

[Dormouse]

If you've made as much contribution as any of the authors on the paper, you should ask to be included as an author. It costs the lab and the other authors literally nothing to tag you on at the end, so the only reason to not include you is if the main authors purposely want to make the point that your work was not of any significance, in which case you should re-evaluate your role in the lab and whether you should continue working for that particular group.

 

[Dormouse]

The standards for different fields are no doubt very different, but at where I work, all research assistants and technicians are automatically tagged on papers, no matter how small their contribution.

 

[missmd123]

This is so frustrating to hear about all these discrepancies. I go to a UC - a research university! Most of my friends in other labs have gotten published with VERY little contribution, but neither I nor the rest of the undergrads in the lab I'm in have gotten the opportunity to be published even though we have committed a tremendous amount of time and knowledge to the lab. It's ridiculous. I'm a junior right now, so I think in the Fall, since it's my last year, I'm going to transfer to another lab and try to get published.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

Yes, it does seem a bit loosey-goosey on getting your name on a publication.

I know a professor who published papers on a very technical molecular biology topic, and included the chair of his clinical department, his supervisor when he was a junior faculty member. The chair was absolutely clueless on the subject matter, and had the first author talk about it at meetings. It goes to show you, happens at the top as well as the bottom - - Not what you know, but who you know.
'
I also see papers which have 25+ people listed on it. Really, they all made a contribution for one paper?? Seems there are core groups of people who have a quid pro quo with others, you add me to a paper, and I'll add you, usually with just a few chats about the topic.

And don't get me going about chapters in books, that lowly post-docs and graduate students write the chapters, and some big wig professor with a name on the spine collects all the royalties. How is that fair when the post-docs and grad students do the work, and the name prof adds a few edits and his/her name, but no compensation for the sweatshop workers who produce the words??

If anyone really puts a lot of credence in the number of publications, unless you are first author, it is really not a meaningful comparison, IMHO.

Rant for the day.

 

[keep_swimmin]

Funny article on the front page of Nature today:
Fruit-fly paper has 1,000 authors

http://www.nature.com/news/fruit-fly-paper-has-1-000-authors-1.17555

 

[areserine]

Yes, it does seem a bit loosey-goosey on getting your name on a publication.

I know a professor who published papers on a very technical molecular biology topic, and included the chair of his clinical department, his supervisor when he was a junior faculty member. The chair was absolutely clueless on the subject matter, and had the first author talk about it at meetings. It goes to show you, happens at the top as well as the bottom - - Not what you know, but who you know.
'
I also see papers which have 25+ people listed on it. Really, they all made a contribution for one paper?? Seems there are core groups of people who have a quid pro quo with others, you add me to a paper, and I'll add you, usually with just a few chats about the topic.

This probably isn't what you're talking about, but there are some good reasons for having a ton of authors. GWAS papers for example. Each author could have independently recruited, taken samples from, and analyzed DNA, phenotype information, expression information etc from upwards of 100 patients. You get an absurd number of authors but each of them did a lot of work.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

This probably isn't what you're talking about, but there are some good reasons for having a ton of authors. GWAS papers for example. Each author could have independently recruited, taken samples from, and analyzed DNA, phenotype information, expression information etc from upwards of 100 patients. You get an absurd number of authors but each of them did a lot of work.

This probably isn't what you're talking about, but there are some good reasons for having a ton of authors. GWAS papers for example. Each author could have independently recruited, taken samples from, and analyzed DNA, phenotype information, expression information etc from upwards of 100 patients. You get an absurd number of authors but each of them did a lot of work.

Yes, some person did all the work, then their supervisor, chairman, brother-in-law also gets on the paper. Ghost writing at its best. Enough of my rant for today.

 

[Rainbow Zebra]

Funny article on the front page of Nature today:
Fruit-fly paper has 1,000 authors

http://www.nature.com/news/fruit-fly-paper-has-1-000-authors-1.17555

Too funny. And I thought our Nature submission with 16 authors was a bit much, but 4 different Universities contributed to it.