Research Acknowledgment vs. Publication?

[jash0624]

I spent the last year or so working at a lab collecting data and devising and carrying out experiments (very...weird experiments). Over the summer I worked 40+ hours a week, commuting 2 hours each way. My boss, a post-doc, recently gave me a copy of the rough copy of the paper and I got an acknowledgment. I searched through SDN a bit an most people here say that an acknowledgment is barely worth anything...I mean, besides the experience, which was great.

The thing is, though, that I worked really hard and I collected all the data in this project. My boss wasn't involved in the experiments at all. However, I didn't write the manuscript, which is what I assume kicked me out of authorship position.

Part of me feels like I essentially wasted a year of my life including a summer, when I could have taken summer classes to up my GPA or gone to the shore every day. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want to be an a$$hole and overstep my bounds, so what I'm asking I guess is, am I right to feel a little gypped? (jipped? oyy i cant spell at all.) Is there anything I can do? My post-doc will most likely just say no and shoo me away because he's like that, but can I go to someone else? I'm in my junior year now and I really want to do a M.D/Ph.D and I need all the research I can get for my not so very stellar GPA. I just don't know what to do because I feel like I wasted so much time.

Oh yeah, sorry about the large fence of text.

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[MonkeyNuts!]

Yeah that sucks. Some labs will give you at least a minor authorship : / I would ask rather than "can you put me as author" instead ask "is there anything else I can do" and then jump all over it. The more you do for the paper the more they feel like they should share authorship. Of course you run the risk of them not feeling that way and wasting more time, but what else can you do. It also depends what kind of work you were doing exactly. If you just pushed a button and recieved papers and then did some minor calculations whereas the post doc built the machine itself then that's different...

 

[jash0624]

Yeah that sucks. Some labs will give you at least a minor authorship : / I would ask rather than "can you put me as author" instead ask "is there anything else I can do" and then jump all over it. The more you do for the paper the more they feel like they should share authorship. Of course you run the risk of them not feeling that way and wasting more time, but what else can you do. It also depends what kind of work you were doing exactly. If you just pushed a button and recieved papers and then did some minor calculations whereas the post doc built the machine itself then that's different...

Well basically, the research was on biolocomotion--snakes, specifically. I cared for the snakes by myself. I collected data about snakes (measuring and weighing them) from 4-5 zoos from all over. Also, we did friction runs on different materials, which I set up and filmed and analyzed with charts, graphs, etc. I came up with a "jacket" for the snake to neutralize the scales (I'm not a greaaat seamstress so it took me about 6 prototypes to get a good one lol) and filmed and analyzed the motion of the snake in that as well. He was never in the room when I did all this. The thing is, I didn't write the paper. I wasn't told it was being written. He just handed me the rough copy on my last day of work and that was that. If he had asked, I would have written anything he had wanted. I was under the impression I would write it after my last day and email drafts back and forth. I'm just feeling super frustrated now. 😡

 

[bubbachuck]

since you actually developed your own device and performed a lot of individual work, it seems like you should get authorship credit. maybe you could explain to the post-doc your situation: you would like to show med schools some research experience and you could explain how you contributed to the project other than basic data collection.

maybe the PI wrote the paper too? Its possible the PI did not know the extent of your work, so trying asking if the post-doc is negative.

even though you did not get a paper, most people do not get a paper in a summer's worth of time. if you look at some people on mdapplicants or on sdn, they say stuff like "2 years of research but no publications".

what you REALLY want is a good letter of recommendation, so make your post-doc/PI know that's what you are really looking for. my GPA is cruddy but my LORs were great (I was told by an interviewer) and I'm getting a good amount of interviews.

if you communicate your goals with your lab i think you'll be fine.

 

[chaldobruin]

Stop whining! Some people don't even have a research experience 😎

way to empathize and be compassionate bruin boy. You'll make a great doctor one day.

To the OP: you got screwed. You should be getting authorship, but unfortunately your PI is an a-hole. Try to convince him that you should be acknowledged since you have nothing to lose, but try to find another lab if you can.. immediately.

 

[Law2Doc]

I spent the last year or so working at a lab collecting data and devising and carrying out experiments (very...weird experiments). Over the summer I worked 40+ hours a week, commuting 2 hours each way. My boss, a post-doc, recently gave me a copy of the rough copy of the paper and I got an acknowledgment. I searched through SDN a bit an most people here say that an acknowledgment is barely worth anything...I mean, besides the experience, which was great.

The thing is, though, that I worked really hard and I collected all the data in this project. My boss wasn't involved in the experiments at all. However, I didn't write the manuscript, which is what I assume kicked me out of authorship position.

Part of me feels like I essentially wasted a year of my life including a summer, when I could have taken summer classes to up my GPA or gone to the shore every day. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want to be an a$$hole and overstep my bounds, so what I'm asking I guess is, am I right to feel a little gypped? (jipped? oyy i cant spell at all.) Is there anything I can do? My post-doc will most likely just say no and shoo me away because he's like that, but can I go to someone else? I'm in my junior year now and I really want to do a M.D/Ph.D and I need all the research I can get for my not so very stellar GPA. I just don't know what to do because I feel like I wasted so much time.

Oh yeah, sorry about the large fence of text.

You got hosed. Welcome to the wonderful world of research. You can try to talk to your PI, but in all probability all you can do is see if you can get a strong LOR from him (more important than burning bridges over this), chalk it up to experience, and make sure you spell out your publication hopes ahead of time to your next PI at the onset of the research.

 

[dr.z]

I spent the last year or so working at a lab collecting data and devising and carrying out experiments (very...weird experiments). Over the summer I worked 40+ hours a week, commuting 2 hours each way. My boss, a post-doc, recently gave me a copy of the rough copy of the paper and I got an acknowledgment. I searched through SDN a bit an most people here say that an acknowledgment is barely worth anything...I mean, besides the experience, which was great.

The thing is, though, that I worked really hard and I collected all the data in this project. My boss wasn't involved in the experiments at all. However, I didn't write the manuscript, which is what I assume kicked me out of authorship position.

Part of me feels like I essentially wasted a year of my life including a summer, when I could have taken summer classes to up my GPA or gone to the shore every day. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want to be an a$$hole and overstep my bounds, so what I'm asking I guess is, am I right to feel a little gypped? (jipped? oyy i cant spell at all.) Is there anything I can do? My post-doc will most likely just say no and shoo me away because he's like that, but can I go to someone else? I'm in my junior year now and I really want to do a M.D/Ph.D and I need all the research I can get for my not so very stellar GPA. I just don't know what to do because I feel like I wasted so much time.

Oh yeah, sorry about the large fence of text.

Since the study is already published, there isn't much you can do now...

 

[Scottish Chap]

I spent the last year or so working at a lab collecting data and devising and carrying out experiments (very...weird experiments). Over the summer I worked 40+ hours a week, commuting 2 hours each way. My boss, a post-doc, recently gave me a copy of the rough copy of the paper and I got an acknowledgment. I searched through SDN a bit an most people here say that an acknowledgment is barely worth anything...I mean, besides the experience, which was great.

The thing is, though, that I worked really hard and I collected all the data in this project. My boss wasn't involved in the experiments at all. However, I didn't write the manuscript, which is what I assume kicked me out of authorship position.

Part of me feels like I essentially wasted a year of my life including a summer, when I could have taken summer classes to up my GPA or gone to the shore every day. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want to be an a$$hole and overstep my bounds, so what I'm asking I guess is, am I right to feel a little gypped? (jipped? oyy i cant spell at all.) Is there anything I can do? My post-doc will most likely just say no and shoo me away because he's like that, but can I go to someone else? I'm in my junior year now and I really want to do a M.D/Ph.D and I need all the research I can get for my not so very stellar GPA. I just don't know what to do because I feel like I wasted so much time.

Oh yeah, sorry about the large fence of text.

Speak to the P.I. of the lab and ask if your work is worthy of named authorship. Postdocs should not get to decide this (they are not in any position of authority), so don't ask the postdoc. There is a slim chance that the P.I. may not know how much you contributed. In the end, however, it's really up to the P.I. of the lab and cases like this often boil down to a huge lesson in humility. From your description, you gained independent research experience, and that will always stay with you . It will look good on your AMCAS form.

 

[Towelie]

I'm sure if you ask nicely, and tell them that you want to continue to be actively involved in the research, they will put you as a last author. It doesn't do them any damage to add another author, and it will help you out a lot. You just need to be assertive about it.

 

[BozoSparky]

I spent the last year or so working at a lab collecting data and devising and carrying out experiments (very...weird experiments). Over the summer I worked 40+ hours a week, commuting 2 hours each way. My boss, a post-doc, recently gave me a copy of the rough copy of the paper and I got an acknowledgment. I searched through SDN a bit an most people here say that an acknowledgment is barely worth anything...I mean, besides the experience, which was great.

The thing is, though, that I worked really hard and I collected all the data in this project. My boss wasn't involved in the experiments at all. However, I didn't write the manuscript, which is what I assume kicked me out of authorship position.

Part of me feels like I essentially wasted a year of my life including a summer, when I could have taken summer classes to up my GPA or gone to the shore every day. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want to be an a$$hole and overstep my bounds, so what I'm asking I guess is, am I right to feel a little gypped? (jipped? oyy i cant spell at all.) Is there anything I can do? My post-doc will most likely just say no and shoo me away because he's like that, but can I go to someone else? I'm in my junior year now and I really want to do a M.D/Ph.D and I need all the research I can get for my not so very stellar GPA. I just don't know what to do because I feel like I wasted so much time.

Oh yeah, sorry about the large fence of text.

If you really collected all the data that was presented...then definitely have a talk...if what you mean is you were just pressing a button every half hour...well, that's not really research. I'd talk to the PI and the post-doc about it. They should be able to justify how authorship was decided. But be nice...don't blow up.

 

[inside_edition]

If you did all the work and if you did not sign a contract saying that all intellectual property belongs to the lab/school/boss, then your boss could be liable for plagiarism(taking someone's ideas--your experimental design--without citing it properly).

 

[Law2Doc]

If you did all the work and if you did not sign a contract saying that all intellectual property belongs to the lab/school/boss, then your boss could be liable for plagiarism(taking someone's ideas--your experimental design--without citing it properly).

Unless you can document it, whose word do you think they are going to believe. It's really best not to burn bridges this way. That is not the smartest road to med school.

 

[Quix]

I'd just press for a strong LOR and a "Research Experience" entry on your AMCAS profile.

Incidentally, I have to admit, when I read the first line of your post, the first thing that flashed into mind was Patrick Stewart's CIA character from American Dad:

"Wierd stuff. *Butt* stuff..."

 

[t-funk]

I work full-time as a researcher in an academic lab and oftentimes train graduate and undergradauate students. Oftentimes, the undergraduate students have not been involved in the proposal process, obtaining and fulfilling all the criteria to ensure receiving the money for the project, the quality assurance plan, the research updates and communications to the organization who is giving the money, the project design, the previous applicable projects etc., etc, etc. They have merely been a hired hand and oftentimes don't even understand the scope of the project because they haven't read any of the literature. And if they are not completely updated on the literature, how can they even begin to contribute to writing the paper.

Maybe the OP has been involved in all of this, but most often summer students want to get their experience, put it on their resume, and get out of dodge. There are many more tasks to be completed to carry out a research project to completion than collecting data points.

My suggestion is to talk to the PI and see if there are any grants that you can apply for, design a related project to the one you completed this summer, and carry it out next summer to completion. Write most of the publication and then you may get published. Even then, it is not a sure thing.

One more thing, this is exactly the reason why many premeds feel like there is hostility toward them when they are looking for research experience to put on their resume.

 

[jash0624]

Since the study is already published, there isn't much you can do now...

Welll actually, I can hold off the publication as long as I want, since I'm doing the whole "Getting Animal Rights Approval" thing 🙂

 

[dpmd]

If you want, you can approach your boss or the post doc and nicely ask about authorship. You must remember that different journals set different requirements for authoship, and it is likely you didn't fulfill them. You say you did all the data collection, but did were you a major contributor to the study design? Did you do any of the statistical analysis? Is there any chance you will edit the paper providing meaningful changes in content? If not you wouldn't qualify as an author in any of the journals I have checked. This is why it is important to clarify your goals before you start to work on a project. I am sorry you were surprised by this, and its a cruddy situation if it was misrepresented to you.

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

Everyone keeps saying he only did it for the summer... read the post he was there for a year. After doing those experiments over that span of time, COMMUTING 2 HOURS, just to be some lab lackey b*tch. Sorry OP, that's really, really rough.

This makes me thankful that I am in a lab with the coolest PI and post docs.

 

[A Tree]

There are varying opinions out there on what constitutes authorship. In the future ask the PI when you're interviewing--tactfully. Don't act like it's your god given right. You want to demonstrate interest and enthusiasm, not obnoxious entitlement. Unfortunately, the hostility of basic science folks toward premed students does exist.

And.....just because you don't have a paper does not mean it was a "waste" of time.

 

[HristosKaran]

Yeah I feel your pain...I spent my ENTIRE summer in the research lab(as well as the previous semester), and we came out with a small publication. When I got a copy of the publication, a student who only did minimal research a little bit earlier in the semester, but put in far less work was placed higher than me on the author list....kinda sucks but what can you do... You just have to look at the positive, that you are on a publication period, which I'm sure is a great standout!

 

[jash0624]

Everyone keeps saying he only did it for the summer... read the post he was there for a year. After doing those experiments over that span of time, COMMUTING 2 HOURS, just to be some lab lackey b*tch. Sorry OP, that's really, really rough.

This makes me thankful that I am in a lab with the coolest PI and post docs.

thanks but i'm not a "he"🙂

 

[jash0624]

Everyone keeps saying he only did it for the summer... read the post he was there for a year. After doing those experiments over that span of time, COMMUTING 2 HOURS, just to be some lab lackey b*tch. Sorry OP, that's really, really rough.

This makes me thankful that I am in a lab with the coolest PI and post docs.

And, well, the post-doc and I were really close until...his girlfriend dumped him, decided she was bi, and asked for my number. (I didnt go out with her though!)

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

That might have been a smart move. Or it may not have been. Was she hot? I have an ex who turned bi. She is not hot.

 

[MinnyGophers]

And, well, the post-doc and I were really close until...his girlfriend dumped him, decided she was bi, and asked for my number. (I didnt go out with her though!)

wooh awkward...
you think that you not being listed as an author might have something to do with that?

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

wooh awkward...
you think that you not being listed as an author might have something to do with that?

Yeah how serious did the post doc take it? I'd hope he was professional about it.

 

[jash0624]

wooh awkward...
you think that you not being listed as an author might have something to do with that?

Well, what could he do? He laughed it off and asked me to teach him my ways with women 😀 But he stopped coming to lab lunches/dinners when I was around after..or maybe thats just my paranoia.

And she was super cute..but super prissy and plus, I can't deal with other people's girly-parts.🙂

 

[MinnyGophers]

Well, what could he do? He laughed it off and asked me to teach him my ways with women 😀 But he stopped coming to lab lunches/dinners when I was around after..or maybe thats just my paranoia.

And she was super cute..but super prissy and plus, I can't deal with other people's girly-parts.🙂

What could he do?
If he was jealous of you, he could have very well had something to do with you not getting an authorship either by just not mentionning the amount of work you did to the PI or just by being spiteful.
There are so many factors that could have influenced you not getting that authorship, the best you can do is directly going to the PI and discuss your work.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

Yep an acknowledgement is worth absolutely nothing. I would be raising hell if i worked that much and didnt get a 4th author or something.

 

[MinnyGophers]

Yep an acknowledgement is worth absolutely nothing. I would be raising hell if i worked that much and didnt get a 4th author or something.

No joke... I used to work at another lab and got an acknowledgement for doing nothing. Doesn't mean crap.

 

[jash0624]

What could he do?
If he was jealous of you, he could have very well had something to do with you not getting an authorship either by just not mentionning the amount of work you did to the PI or just by being spiteful.
There are so many factors that could have influenced you not getting that authorship, the best you can do is directly going to the PI and discuss your work.

ughh its just hard for me to believe that a Ph.D could be that petty and spiteful towards an 18 year old girl. 😡

 

[MinnyGophers]

ughh its just hard for me to believe that a Ph.D could be that petty and spiteful towards an 18 year old girl. 😡

PhD, MDs, whatever.... human nature is human nature....
I'm NOT saying your post-doc screwed you over, but that's something that could have happened....

 

[jash0624]

PhD, MDs, whatever.... human nature is human nature....
I'm NOT saying your post-doc screwed you over, but that's something that could have happened....

Yeah, I know, it's just disheartening. I suppose the best thing to do is talk to my PI, since I haven't met or stolen his wife yet..

 

[samtheman]

There ctually is something you can do. If you google the journal that published the paper, you can find out what definitions they give for authors. If a person who did the work you did should be credited as an author, then perhaps the journal should know about it.

 

[theothernguyen]

For my lab, they said that if I ever want to get published as an author, I have to: 1) do the majority of the work (which you did), 2) analyze the data and intrepret results, basically you have to do the thinking and reasoning (not sure if you were doing that), 3) come up with the original question/idea/project, 4) help write/contribute to the paper itself

I know it sucks to not get authorship, but basically, you got the bad end of the stick. So I guess it depends, were you basically doing what you were told to do? or did you have to do lots of studying/reading of literature and develop your own methods of doing the experiment based off what data you needed. It bites that you did all the work, but I guess not all is lost. Get the LOR you deserve for all that work and base your personal statements/responses for your application on your research and what you learned.

 

[CD4helpCD8]

Speak to the P.I. of the lab and ask if your work is worthy of named authorship. Postdocs should not get to decide this (they are not in any position of authority), so don't ask the postdoc. There is a slim chance that the P.I. may not know how much you contributed. In the end, however, it's really up to the P.I. of the lab and cases like this often boil down to a huge lesson in humility. From your description, you gained independent research experience, and that will always stay with you . It will look good on your AMCAS form.

Agreed. How come a postdoc become your "boss"? Whom did you talk to when you joined the lab (please don't tell me you never talked to the PI 😱 )? It is the BIG BOSS (PI) who decide the authorship (who is first, who is second, etc.), and he/she is the one who can help you most in application (great LOR, and hopfully, co-author in publications). The truth is that in academia quite often people only care about the first author (usually the postdoc or PhD student who did most of the work) and the last author (the big boss). For those in the middle....well, unless it is Science or Nature or Cell, no one really cares.

In the end, it all depends on each individual PI/lab. Some of them will put everyone (technician, summer student, etc.) who has contributed significantly to the data as a co-author, whereas others may list people who "mentally" participated in the project (experiemtal design, actual writing, etc.). In our institute, PIs do "reward" people's hard work with (co-)authorship, even though they do not necessarily involve in writing. Well, there are also competitions among PIs; the ones treat students like slave labors will earn their reputation and have trouble to recruit people in the future. 😀 However, I do think that it is very important for you to fully understand what the paper/project is about if you become a co-author, because it is likely your interviewer will ask you what you actually did and what you learned - just saying "I did hundreds of plates of ELISA" is not going to help you too much in convincing Adcom that you have great potential in research. 🙂

 

[jash0624]

Agreed. How come a postdoc become your "boss"? Whom did you talk to when you joined the lab (please don't tell me you never talked to the PI 😱 )? It is the BIG BOSS (PI) who decide the authorship (who is first, who is second, etc.), and he/she is the one who can help you most in application (great LOR, and hopfully, co-author in publications). The truth is that in academia quite often people only care about the first author (usually the postdoc or PhD student who did most of the work) and the last author (the big boss). For those in the middle....well, unless it is Science or Nature or Cell, no one really cares.

In the end, it all depends on each individual PI/lab. Some of them will put everyone (technician, summer student, etc.) who has contributed significantly to the data as a co-author, whereas others may list people who "mentally" participated in the project (experiemtal design, actual writing, etc.). In our institute, PIs do "reward" people's hard work with (co-)authorship, even though they do not necessarily involve in writing. Well, there are also competitions among PIs; the ones treat students like slave labors will earn their reputation and have trouble to recruit people in the future. 😀 However, I do think that it is very important for you to fully understand what the paper/project is about if you become a co-author, because it is likely your interviewer will ask you what you actually did and what you learned - just saying "I did hundreds of plates of ELISA" is not going to help you too much in convincing Adcom that you have great potential in research. 🙂

The PI interviewed me and hired me, but 99% of my work was done with the postdoc (basically just reporting my data to him and handing in charts and graphs and summaries of papers I read). He has little to no actual contact with us "little people" though, sadly. What gives me a little hope is that the UGs working under the other post-docs in our lab DID get co-authorship. I'm the only one under my post-doc and I'm the only one who didn't. I did just as much work of the same quality. So..maybe that will be my selling point.

...oh, and, the paper hasn't been published yet, so that means there's still time, right? It hasn't even been submitted because the Animal Rights Approval is in my hands.

 

[Creightonite]

If your name is not first or last author, it is pretty much the same as aknowledgement. At undergraduate level it is very much true. Strictly-speaking most of undergrads doing research should really be only aknowledged since they contribute very little to writting or expriment design. Sometimes a PI can be nice and give you an authorship knowing that you need it for a CV. At this point in your career 2ndary authorship = aknowledgement.

 

[63768]

If your name is not first or last author, it is pretty much the same as aknowledgement. At undergraduate level it is very much true. Strictly-speaking most of undergrads doing research should really be only aknowledged since they contribute very little to writting or expriment design. Sometimes a PI can be nice and give you an authorship knowing that you need it for a CV. At this point in your career 2ndary authorship = aknowledgement.

i don't agree. being a second or third author is way better than being acknowledged. journals have strict regulations on who can and cannot be authors. sure there's no real way for the journal to figure out who was a real author and who was a courtesy author but it's still leaps and bounds over an acknowledgement.

OP, i'm sorry you got screwed by your PI. if the paper has not been submitted/accepted for publication, there's still a chance you can talk to your PI and plead your case. sure, it may be fruitless but you did put lots of work into it, and at this point, you have very little to show for it. unless the LOR is shining and clearly indicates that you did a lot of work, that route won't bring much more to your application to med school.

i'd go talk to the PI and see what can be done. an author does not necessarily mean actual writing of the manuscript. it can also mean work in another part of the study.

 

[jash0624]

I brought it up with my PI and he said he'd talk to my post doc and that he'd make sure the lab "does right by me". 🙂 🙂

Thanks for the help guys!

 

[theothernguyen]

I brought it up with my PI and he said he'd talk to my post doc and that he'd make sure the lab "does right by me". 🙂 🙂

Thanks for the help guys!

That is awesome!!! you got it in the bag now =)

 

[Cmercury1]

So was the PI just ignorant of all the work you'd done or did he change his mind? Good luck!

 

[jash0624]

So was the PI just ignorant of all the work you'd done or did he change his mind? Good luck!

I think he just didn't know. He also told me all about his gold-digger ex-wife.

 

[TNATION]

I thought acknowledgement worked like this...


first author: person who writes the paper
last author: Director of the Lab (PI)
Anyone in between: other people who have contributed to the paper (I am not trying to imply that anyone who contributed to the project deserves to be listed here), but not in any particular order.

I have been told by a few PI's that this is the case, and it was not in regards to my own work or me getting published.

 

[A Tree]

Always talk to the PI about these things. I did a lot of work on a project last spring and my PI had actually forgotten about it. He had originally aked me to do it, but the other project I was doing was much more pressing and I was reporting directly to him about it. WHen he and the postdoc were writing up the first project that I had helped on, and I was writing secondaries and wanted to know what I could present as projected publications, I reminded him. He said, "Oh, I forgot about that...I will add you to the list of authors." The postdoc wasn't going to do it because he has a differnt philosophy about what constitutes authorship and he was already having some drama over whether a collaborator's postdoc would get to "share" first authorship with him.

 

[jash0624]

I thought acknowledgement worked like this...


first author: person who writes the paper
last author: Director of the Lab (PI)
Anyone in between: other people who have contributed to the paper (I am not trying to imply that anyone who contributed to the project deserves to be listed here), but not in any particular order.

I have been told by a few PI's that this is the case, and it was not in regards to my own work or me getting published.

By "acknowledgement", i meant that they put a "thank you to so and so" at the end of the paper. I didn't get authorship at all in the beginning.

 

[Law2Doc]

I thought acknowledgement worked like this...


first author: person who writes the paper
last author: Director of the Lab (PI)
Anyone in between: other people who have contributed to the paper (I am not trying to imply that anyone who contributed to the project deserves to be listed here), but not in any particular order.

I have been told by a few PI's that this is the case, and it was not in regards to my own work or me getting published.

As the above poster indicated, acknowledgement is something different from the list of authorship names. In addition to the ranked authors you have described (although some places consider 2d author still better than the "anyone in between" category), lots of articles have an acknowledgement footnote where they thank additional people.

 

[Jasmine26]

I spent the last year or so working at a lab collecting data and devising and carrying out experiments (very...weird experiments). Over the summer I worked 40+ hours a week, commuting 2 hours each way. My boss, a post-doc, recently gave me a copy of the rough copy of the paper and I got an acknowledgment. I searched through SDN a bit an most people here say that an acknowledgment is barely worth anything...I mean, besides the experience, which was great.

The thing is, though, that I worked really hard and I collected all the data in this project. My boss wasn't involved in the experiments at all. However, I didn't write the manuscript, which is what I assume kicked me out of authorship position.

Part of me feels like I essentially wasted a year of my life including a summer, when I could have taken summer classes to up my GPA or gone to the shore every day. Is there anything I can do at this point? I don't want to be an a$$hole and overstep my bounds, so what I'm asking I guess is, am I right to feel a little gypped? (jipped? oyy i cant spell at all.) Is there anything I can do? My post-doc will most likely just say no and shoo me away because he's like that, but can I go to someone else? I'm in my junior year now and I really want to do a M.D/Ph.D and I need all the research I can get for my not so very stellar GPA. I just don't know what to do because I feel like I wasted so much time.

Oh yeah, sorry about the large fence of text.

hey hate to tell you this but you got SCREWED. I did a research assistantship last summer. I worked 40+ hrs, and did all the work, I work a draft of the paper, but my supervisor helped with the revision. I was first author, and I was only an undergrad. Since you did all the work, man you should be a contributing author. Do you know how easy it is to get an acknowledgement??? Let me tell you this, we were having problems deciding the name of the paper, so my supervisor asked one of his collegues abt suitable names, and then my supervisor gave me an acknowledgement. But at least you got the experience of the lab work, but I think an acknowledgement is useless compared to being a co-author.

My advice, is get a STELLAR reference from him. And dont think of it as wasted time either, it was great experience. Also, I know that if you improve your results or discover something new, you can write another paper with the same idea, but different results, so dont lose hope! But I would definetly try to make use of your old data, and this time write the paper yourself.

 

[Jasmine26]

I thought acknowledgement worked like this...


first author: person who writes the paper
last author: Director of the Lab (PI)
Anyone in between: other people who have contributed to the paper (I am not trying to imply that anyone who contributed to the project deserves to be listed here), but not in any particular order.

I have been told by a few PI's that this is the case, and it was not in regards to my own work or me getting published.

First author is not only the person who writes the paper! I remember this was a huge issue when I wrote my publication. The team was myself (an undergrad), a master student, and two profs. The order of authors is by contribution. The FIRST AUTHOR is the person who has done the most work and contributed the most with ideas/results. Usually the person who has done the most WILL write the paper since they collected/interpreted the data. The next author is the one who contributed the second most, and the last is usually the supervisor or sponsor who is funding the project or overseeing it.

Acknowledgements are thank yous, my project was sponsered/funded by NSERC (National Science and Engineering Reseach Council), so I acknowledged them for the funding. If you look at scientific papers, usually other professors are acknowledged for answering questions the authors may have had, but they DID NOT contribute any results.

 

[Jasmine26]

The PI interviewed me and hired me, but 99% of my work was done with the postdoc (basically just reporting my data to him and handing in charts and graphs and summaries of papers I read). He has little to no actual contact with us "little people" though, sadly. What gives me a little hope is that the UGs working under the other post-docs in our lab DID get co-authorship. I'm the only one under my post-doc and I'm the only one who didn't. I did just as much work of the same quality. So..maybe that will be my selling point.

...oh, and, the paper hasn't been published yet, so that means there's still time, right? It hasn't even been submitted because the Animal Rights Approval is in my hands.

If the paper hasnt been published I would talk to your supervisor. I personally think its unethical that he take credit for your work. Even if you didnt write the paper you should be a co-author. I would speak to him, if he doesnt budge, talk to the department. I dont think you should be a first author since you didnt write the paper, but you should def, be a co-author.

 

[psymedicus]

I thought acknowledgement worked like this...


first author: person who writes the paper
last author: Director of the Lab (PI)
Anyone in between: other people who have contributed to the paper (I am not trying to imply that anyone who contributed to the project deserves to be listed here), but not in any particular order.

I have been told by a few PI's that this is the case, and it was not in regards to my own work or me getting published.

I'm an RA and I've found there's really a lot of politics behind authorship. The ordering can seem unimportant but it's not. Other than the obvious first and last author, the corresponding author is the next most important when it's not either of the above. This happens a lot in collaborations. Then the second last and the one next to the corresponding author are next in line. For the more junior, ie. us, second and third are better because the first 3 names tend to be cited in references. I agree, half the time it seems unfair. We don't include students who put in 3mths of work but include doctors who contributed patient samples but don't even know the paper's being written, let alone what it's about. On the flip side, I have been third author on a project I wasn't involved in for the 2yrs of experiments but just helped in the analysis and editing at the end.

 

[LizzyM]

In May 2000 the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE; also called the Vancouver Group) revised its statement on authorship to read as follows:

Authorship credit should be based only on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Conditions 1, 2, and 3 must all be met. Acquisition of funding, the collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, by themselves, do not justify authorship.


The entire article from which the above statement is taken is worth reading.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/6/716