Second author pub in peer-reviewed journal - does it help?

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Yup definitely helps. Anything that shows you contributed to a peer-reviewed paper that was accepted shows you worked on significant research even if it wasn't your own project.
 
i disagree with the above post, the impact factor of that journal, from a quick search on google, is <0.5...sorry to say, this publication may even hurt you..
 
It might NOT help but don't think it'll "hurt"
 
i disagree with the above post, the impact factor of that journal, from a quick search on google, is <0.5...sorry to say, this publication may even hurt you..

You haven't even started college yet have you?

Come on man, "it might even hurt you.."?

What's that all about? Do you know anything about the research process yet? Seriously.
 
i disagree with the above post, the impact factor of that journal, from a quick search on google, is <0.5...sorry to say, this publication may even hurt you..

ouch, that's kind of harsh...to the OP, it will help, but it's going to be pretty marginal to the adcoms. I've found from my year doing research that the publication process is very political - a lot depends on the 'sellability' of your PI (in my case, I've been lucky that I get to work with two extremely smart and well known people, so the research I conducted will show up in major names, like Annals of IM or Cancer); not that it matters anyway because I was already accepted in med school before I had any publications.

so do write it in your app, but don't bank upon it to sell you to top name schools
 
there's no way in hell it could hurt you. that's a ridiculous statement.
 
there's no way in hell it could hurt you. that's a ridiculous statement.

I agree. I mean there's no way it's a negative...it might not help but it's pretty foolish to say it'll "hurt"

Well atleast it is a start for me...I am still going to list it but since it's second author and low impact journal, it probably WON'T make all that difference. But to say it'll hurt...is ridiculous.
 
You haven't even started college yet have you?

Come on man, "it might even hurt you.."?

What's that all about? Do you know anything about the research process yet? Seriously.

I second this.
 
You haven't even started college yet have you?

Come on man, "it might even hurt you.."?

What's that all about? Do you know anything about the research process yet? Seriously.

LOL! Especially that statement coming from a "rising freshman"
 
i may just be a rising freshman, but i have had extensive research experience..if there's one thing that's worse than not getting a paper, its publishing a paper in a bad journal. Trust me. I would have had many more papers had my PI not taught me this valuable lesson early on. Generally speaking, IF~2 is respectable enough. Bad papers stay with you forever, and they are extremely detrimental for your name.
 
i disagree with the above post, the impact factor of that journal, from a quick search on google, is <0.5...sorry to say, this publication may even hurt you..

Wrong. Most undergraduates never publish. It doesn't matter what impact factor the journal is. The mere fact that as an undergraduate you published, is something that will help you. It definitely will not hurt you.
 
Wrong. Most undergraduates never publish. It doesn't matter what impact factor the journal is. The mere fact that as an undergraduate you published, is something that will help you. It definitely will not hurt you.

I second this, and I have researched well over 5 years and published a few articles myself. And to the kid that said to trust him cuz he knows so much about research, you already have too much arrogance in you at your very young age. Learn humility, become humble, and make bold statements like that when you have accomplished something.

To the OP, absolutely add it to your AMCAS. There is no need to mention the IF (obviously). You put in your time, earned authorship, and that is perfectly credible and respectable.
 
Just curious, what's a decent/good impact factor?

At the undergraduate level, there is no decent/good impact factor. Any publication is good. An IF of 1 or higher is good for a start though, in terms of publications actually carrying some weight. People are impressed from like 4.0+. And the"good" journals range from 10-20 (things like JCI, PNAS). The "best" journals are 20+ (science, nature, cell, etc).
 
Does it significantly help ECs? Or only first author publications help?

Just having a publication is pretty impressive as there are many premeds who've never had even one publication after years of research experience. Adcoms will be impressed but it won't make or break you the way your MCAT, GPA, and overall application will.
 
What a tool. How the hell would you have tons of a pubs if you are a rising freshmen?? That doesn't even make sense. you will fast learn that clinical experience matters more then rsearch unless your goal is to be an academic physician. You will fast learn that it doesn't matter what kinda pubs you have if you don't have personality, don't have a GPA/MCAT that matters, don't have things to distinguish you beyond cookie cutter things.

Yeah, so in other words, just stop posting garbage. Thanks.
 
there's no way in hell it could hurt you. that's a ridiculous statement.

Agreed. Seriously. That actually may be one of the more ridiculous statements I've read on SDN, and the bar is set pretty high.

I... I don't even have anything else to say. It's pretty much been covered, I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon. "Might even hurt you":laugh: Better watch out guys, wouldn't want to hurt your chances by publishing in a no name!!!
 
I have tons of clincal exp which I am more excited about listing than this publication. I mean I understand this publication won't make or break my chances but atleast it sort of puts my research experience as legit (even though it's in low impact journal). I look at it as a good start!
 
i disagree with the above post, the impact factor of that journal, from a quick search on google, is <0.5...sorry to say, this publication may even hurt you..

How many Nature/Cell publications do you have?
 
Seriously, you're not applying for a residency🙄. You do NOT need a Science, Cell, or even a PNAS paper to get into med school. Any kind of publication during undergraduate years is worth mentioning. Show if off on your app and don't think about the so-called impact factor!
 
Absolutely! If you are planning on pursuing a relatively competitive residency or fellowship, then having this type of publishing experience is invaluable.
 
i disagree with the above post, the impact factor of that journal, from a quick search on google, is <0.5...sorry to say, this publication may even hurt you..

:laugh: hope it was sarcasm, otherwise a *****ic statement.

A peer-reviewed pub is helpful in that it gives you something to talk about during interviews. Interviewer will say, "tell me about your research." you explain the project, and humbly state it was published (you will stand out!). Most applicants would drool at the opportunity to say that. The Impact Factor at this point is irrelevant. It's a stepping stone to hopefully better journals in the future.

having a pub as an undergrad. is like sweet icing on the cake.
 
Absolutely! If you are planning on pursuing a relatively competitive residency or fellowship, then having this type of publishing experience is invaluable.
Yay for advisors who chime in! Publications will follow you through your career and that's a rare and helpful thing. You're right, OP! A good start indeed!
 
i may just be a rising freshman, but i have had extensive research experience..if there's one thing that's worse than not getting a paper, its publishing a paper in a bad journal. Trust me. I would have had many more papers had my PI not taught me this valuable lesson early on. Generally speaking, IF~2 is respectable enough. Bad papers stay with you forever, and they are extremely detrimental for your name.

a) the OP isn't trying to make a name for himself; he's just trying to get into med school. so publishing in a no name is enough

b) you've published in top journals? I'd like to see a high-schooler who has even the remotest knowledge base to participate in a competitive lab. if you've published in such journals, I'm sure you're probably faaar away from first-author. when you apply to any med school, adcoms are gonna see what year you published and just assume that the only reason your name is on the paper is because you probably retrieved the cap of some expensive buffer that fell under the lab bench. no one else could get it, but you were small enough to crawl underneath and grab it for them. congrats!

c) you don't seem to be the brightest crayon in the box, and I'm sure this will reflect on your app, so any major pubs will be disregarded for you because no one will believe that you legitimately did anything


sorry to bust your bubble, but while you may have extensive research experience, I'm currently applying to med school, which means I know everything and anything about med school admissions. so trust me.
 
the hostility on these forums boggles me...how can none of you understand what the point of peer review is? its to maintain research quality/integrity...and sadly these days, some journals don't even try to uphold any type of standard. This is why impact factor is so important: it is directly related to number of citations. People only cite from journals where they know the research is A) interesting and more importantly B) is LEGIT.

I could make a journal right now and claim that i am the editor. I would be unique, right? Yeah, that's an extreme case..but the same basic principle applies. In these lower journals, i would wager that half the papers are complete BS; and this is evident by the complete lack of care in the "peer-reviewers". How do i know this? My mentor was a peer reviewer for many years for a lower-tier journal; guess how much time he spent on his reviews? ~2 mins per paper, because he simply didn't care.

Im sorry that you think im a "troll", but I guess saying anything against the grain here is to be condemned.

to respond briefly to LAman: i am first author of a paper currently that i plan to submit to nature: chemistry. I guess i must have picked up a lot of materials off the ground or something.
 
the hostility on these forums boggles me...how can none of you understand what the point of peer review is? its to maintain research quality/integrity...and sadly these days, some journals don't even try to uphold any type of standard. This is why impact factor is so important: it is directly related to number of citations. People only cite from journals where they know the research is A) interesting and more importantly B) is LEGIT.

I could make a journal right now and claim that i am the editor. I would be unique, right? Yeah, that's an extreme case..but the same basic principle applies. In these lower journals, i would wager that half the papers are complete BS; and this is evident by the complete lack of care in the "peer-reviewers". How do i know this? My mentor was a peer reviewer for many years for a lower-tier journal; guess how much time he spent on his reviews? ~2 mins per paper, because he simply didn't care.

Im sorry that you think im a "troll", but I guess saying anything against the grain here is to be condemned.

to respond briefly to LAman: i am first author of a paper currently that i plan to submit to nature: chemistry. I guess i must have picked up a lot of materials off the ground or something.

so basically what you are saying is...if an applicant doesn't have published paper, then their research experience listed on their AMCAS is NOT LEGIT? There are many many applicants who have great research experiences who DO NOT have a paper published. You DO NOT need a Nature, Cell or Science paper or any 1000000 impact journal for that matter to make your research experience "legit".
 
We are talking about undergraduate student publishing. Not a MD, a PhD, or even a medical student. Undergraduate student.
 
We are talking about undergraduate student publishing. Not a MD, a PhD, or even a medical student. Undergraduate student.

...and we are talking about a high schooler publishing in nature, not MD, a PhD, a medical student, or even an undergraduate student!
 
the hostility on these forums boggles me...how can none of you understand what the point of peer review is? its to maintain research quality/integrity...and sadly these days, some journals don't even try to uphold any type of standard. This is why impact factor is so important: it is directly related to number of citations. People only cite from journals where they know the research is A) interesting and more importantly B) is LEGIT.

I could make a journal right now and claim that i am the editor. I would be unique, right? Yeah, that's an extreme case..but the same basic principle applies. In these lower journals, i would wager that half the papers are complete BS; and this is evident by the complete lack of care in the "peer-reviewers". How do i know this? My mentor was a peer reviewer for many years for a lower-tier journal; guess how much time he spent on his reviews? ~2 mins per paper, because he simply didn't care.

Im sorry that you think im a "troll", but I guess saying anything against the grain here is to be condemned.

to respond briefly to LAman: i am first author of a paper currently that i plan to submit to nature: chemistry. I guess i must have picked up a lot of materials off the ground or something.

unitofpain, congrats on your Nature Chemistry submission. At such an early age you will have a good research career in the future. However, the OP here is simply applying for MD programs where any research will help him get in.

To the others, unitofpain is absolutely right about impact factor. Anyone and I mean ANYONE can "PUBLISH." Of course, what is implied in those quotes is that unlike men, all publications are not created equal, hence impact factors.

OP, if you did this just to get into med school, GREAT. DEFINITELY LIST IT. But I would not try to play it off as a huge part of your application, which you have not suggested and probably will not do so anyways.

As a side note to unitofpain, does your PI not think it will hurt your chances of getting accepted with you, someone without a college degree, as first author? The reason for this is before peer-review for Nature you have to get past the people who actually send your paper to review or decide to reject it outright. They will do background checks on you and find out you do not have a degree beyond high school. What impact do you think this will have on your chances at publication?
 
The point is, a publication in a peer-reviewed journal as an undergrad is a definite plus. Even if you don't have it, it's no big deal.
 
We are talking about undergraduate student publishing. Not a MD, a PhD, or even a medical student. Undergraduate student.

Yes, BlueElmo brings up another good point. Oftentimes, we, as anal overachievers, tend to compare ourselves to graduate students, people levels above us, or other unusually accomplished students of our age. This tends to make us devalue our accomplishments.

This is the wrong mentality and will shortchange you in the application process. OP, you did research that your PI thought was good enough to submit to a journal. Honestly, if my PI thought my research was crap she would not tag her name onto it and be dragged down by my filth. That is another barrier to "just publishing" so OP, congrats on that at least, you made a contribution to science and this publication recognizes it. Milk it for what its worth, but not a drop more.
 
unitofpain, congrats on your Nature Chemistry submission. At such an early age you will have a good research career in the future. However, the OP here is simply applying for MD programs where any research will help him get in.

To the others, unitofpain is absolutely right about impact factor. Anyone and I mean ANYONE can "PUBLISH." Of course, what is implied in those quotes is that unlike men, all publications are not created equal, hence impact factors.

OP, if you did this just to get into med school, GREAT. DEFINITELY LIST IT. But I would not try to play it off as a huge part of your application, which you have not suggested and probably will not do so anyways.

As a side note to unitofpain, does your PI not think it will hurt your chances of getting accepted with you, someone without a college degree, as first author? The reason for this is before peer-review for Nature you have to get past the people who actually send your paper to review or decide to reject it outright. They will do background checks on you and find out you do not have a degree beyond high school. What impact do you think this will have on your chances at publication?

Nobody is arguing against the impact factor of journals as suggested by unitofpain. But, to say that having a publication in a low impact journal will hurt....is ridiculous.
 
Nobody is arguing against the impact factor of journals as suggested by unitofpain. But, to say that having a publication in a low impact journal will hurt....is ridiculous.

Yes, I agree with this which is why I've suggested the OP list it just like the other 20 posts before me. 🙂
 
Getting published can and will only help you in your application to medical school. I would speculate that it may not help you as much as it would for medical school if you were applying for a Phd program. It would still help you significantly, however. The only time I believe it would hurt you is if you worked under someone like Hwang Woo-Suk.

Good luck.
 
Impact factor of 0.5 or below! I didn't even know these existed.
 
Again, no one is arguing that IF means nothing. Of course IF defines the value of a journal, that's obviously why the IF is calculated and presented.

But note the context of the situation. A student trying to get into medical school does not need to have a publication in a high IF journal. How do I know this? Because thousands of students are accepted to medical school each year without even having a publication. Hell, kids get in even with little to no research.

I can't speak for others, but the reason I took a shot at you (or as you would say, condemned) was because of your attitude. The more humble you present yourself (and I see an improvement with your latest post, good job :clap:), the more normalcy you'll find in other SDN responses.

Good luck with your Nature publication - it won't be easy to first author without at least a college degree. But in the event you are successful, congratulations.

And to whoever said they are a student applying to medical school so they know anything and everything about the process - hilarious :laugh:


the hostility on these forums boggles me...how can none of you understand what the point of peer review is? its to maintain research quality/integrity...and sadly these days, some journals don't even try to uphold any type of standard. This is why impact factor is so important: it is directly related to number of citations. People only cite from journals where they know the research is A) interesting and more importantly B) is LEGIT.

I could make a journal right now and claim that i am the editor. I would be unique, right? Yeah, that's an extreme case..but the same basic principle applies. In these lower journals, i would wager that half the papers are complete BS; and this is evident by the complete lack of care in the "peer-reviewers". How do i know this? My mentor was a peer reviewer for many years for a lower-tier journal; guess how much time he spent on his reviews? ~2 mins per paper, because he simply didn't care.

Im sorry that you think im a "troll", but I guess saying anything against the grain here is to be condemned.

to respond briefly to LAman: i am first author of a paper currently that i plan to submit to nature: chemistry. I guess i must have picked up a lot of materials off the ground or something.
 
Again, no one is arguing that IF means nothing. Of course IF defines the value of a journal, that's obviously why the IF is calculated and presented.

But note the context of the situation. A student trying to get into medical school does not need to have a publication in a high IF journal. How do I know this? Because thousands of students are accepted to medical school each year without even having a publication. Hell, kids get in even with little to no research.

I can't speak for others, but the reason I took a shot at you (or as you would say, condemned) was because of your attitude. The more humble you present yourself (and I see an improvement with your latest post, good job :clap:), the more normalcy you'll find in other SDN responses.

Good luck with your Nature publication - it won't be easy to first author without at least a college degree. But in the event you are successful, congratulations.

And to whoever said they are a student applying to medical school so they know anything and everything about the process - hilarious :laugh:

Yeah, exactly...many applicants get admitted to medical school WITHOUT any publications. So how can this publication for the OP hurt him/her? It could only help, probably not by much but just a little bit atleast.

Everyone starts somewhere. You start at the bottom and work your way up. Congrats to the OP! Atleast, you got your foot in the door.
 
the hostility on these forums boggles me...how can none of you understand what the point of peer review is? its to maintain research quality/integrity...and sadly these days, some journals don't even try to uphold any type of standard. This is why impact factor is so important: it is directly related to number of citations. People only cite from journals where they know the research is A) interesting and more importantly B) is LEGIT.
.

You are mostly wrong about this. Most journals have a particular focus/scope, and they are tiered accordingly. Nature/Cell/Science and other "top" journals will publish most anything cutting edge. Circ research, on the other hand, is a top journal, but they have a narrower scope for what they accept, so as a consequence their impact factor is lower. Impact factors have flaws, and the more specialized the journal, obviously the lower its IF will be. That doesn't mean it is bad quality though.

In my experiences in research, most journals take the peer-review process seriously, and it's not uncommon to be rejected outright by a low IF journal. Are there a lot of politics involved? Yes. Is there some BS research out there? Yeah. But don't think an unethical person who is desperate to publish in Nature won't fabricate the raw data to his/her benefit just so Nature will accept the work. The real embarassment is when the result is not reproducible.

And to the OP, great job with the publication.
 
You are mostly wrong about this. Most journals have a particular focus/scope, and they are tiered accordingly. Nature/Cell/Science and other "top" journals will publish most anything cutting edge. Circ research, on the other hand, is a top journal, but they have a narrower scope for what they accept, so as a consequence their impact factor is lower. Impact factors have flaws, and the more specialized the journal, obviously the lower its IF will be. That doesn't mean it is bad quality though.

In my experiences in research, most journals take the peer-review process seriously, and it's not uncommon to be rejected outright by a low IF journal. Are there a lot of politics involved? Yes. Is there some BS research out there? Yeah. But don't think an unethical person who is desperate to publish in Nature won't fabricate the raw data to his/her benefit just so Nature will accept the work. The real embarassment is when the result is not reproducible.

And to the OP, great job with the publication.

You make some great points. Awesome post. 👍

When I published my article in a "low" impact journal...the peer-reviewed process was no joke. They asked us to revise it two times and both times...I read the reviewer comments, they were pretty extensive and thorough.

Even before the article was published in the journal, my P.I submitted the manuscript to a different journal. Our manuscript was rejected outright due to it being "out of topic" and not specialized enough for that particular journal. and then we submitted it to another journal which accepted it after two revisions.
 
Most people who are admitted to medical school (and residency for that matter) do not have publications. If you have research experience, then you are generally better off than those with no experience. If you have a publication you are better off than those who have need published. But the way this is most helpful to you is when you demonstrate a true understanding of the scientific process. When you can speak eloquently and in specifics about your role in the project. When you show that the scientific question you chose to study was appropriate and answerable in the time that you had. This will blow the admissions committee away.

But on the otherhand, if you "did research" for the sake of your CV and you can't answer even basic questions about the project, you will look silly. The best feature you can demonstrate is a genuine thrill for investigation combined with the ability to get projects completed.
 
to respond briefly to LAman: i am first author of a paper currently that i plan to submit to nature: chemistry. I guess i must have picked up a lot of materials off the ground or something.


:laugh: This is priceless. You have no publications, and you plan on submitting something for publication?

I'm not sure if you're aware, but plenty that submit to Nature are rejected. You should post your high and mightiness when you have actually had an article published.


OP, I think it is well established by this point that a publication will help. I don't think there is any other way to look at it. It shows your dedicated involvement in the research process. Congrats on the pub!
 
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