Should I list presentations that I did not present?

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I'm second author on a poster that has been presented multiple times by its first author. Should I list it on my CV and application? Or is it poor taste? I'm not familiar with the intricacies of research authorships, presentations and such, so if anyone has experience in this area, I would appreciate any insight.

Sorry if this question has been asked before. Would appreciate thread links.

EDIT: For anyone wondering how I resolved this situation, I listed myself accordingly as 2nd author on poster witht he experience under Research/Lab, and wrote a note that it's been presented at XYZ by First Author [name].

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Of course you should. "pubs" and "presentations" refers to you being any authorship on a paper/presentation. Not just first. Those are extra special (but almost impossible to get as an undergrad), but this is great to have.
 
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Of course you should. "pubs" and "presentations" refers to you being any authorship on a paper/presentation. Not just first. Those are extra special (but almost impossible to get as an undergrad), but this is great to have.
That's good to hear. Thank you :)
 
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Of course you should. "pubs" and "presentations" refers to you being any authorship on a paper/presentation. Not just first. Those are extra special (but almost impossible to get as an undergrad), but this is great to have.
I'm going to disagree. When my PI presents a poster or oral presentation, and I am first author on said poster or presentation, I don't list it. It might be my data, but it would be disingenuous for me to list a poster/talk which I didn't give.
 
I'm going to disagree. When my PI presents a poster or oral presentation, and I am first author on said poster or presentation, I don't list it. It might be my data, but it would be disingenuous for me to list a poster/talk which I didn't give.

That's surprising. I mean if your work was significant enough to have your name on it, the presentation's still yours even if you didn't present it.
 
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That's surprising. I mean if your work was significant enough to have your name on it, the presentation's still yours even if you didn't present it.
Maybe it's all in the wording. Check the presentations box on AMCAS and if you say "my data was used to generate this poster which a colleague presented at conference X"... That's truthful.
Unfortunately, it is very common for authorship to not be reflective of effort. Students come and go, and the people with the longevity and perhaps pure luck to generate the manuscript or presentation are who is credited officially.
 
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This will only matter for a few years because after that posters don't mean anything and if you turn into an academic scientist then you won't even bother tracking them. But if you didn't write the abstract, didn't make the poster, didn't travel to the conference, and didn't stand there and present the results, then it's not your poster. Packaging of results into an attractive and digestible format is part of the skill-set of the researcher, and while you might have done a lot of work that led to the results, that doesn't mean you can claim the last 10% as your own. You're second author already. If you really want to, then go ahead and list it somewhere but you must be very clear that you didn't present it. It would be misrepresentation to say that you did. You can also be a bit sneakier and claim second authorship on the abstract, which was "presented at the 10th annual badgers and marmots consortium meeting in Krakow, Poland". Yeah, you were second author, and yeah, it got presented to the badgers and marmots, so you're being truthful.

Being 5th author out of 10 doesn't give you rights to claim a presentation as your own any more than being 2nd, no matter how much of the work you did to generate the results. This is part of why posters and oral presentations don't mean much if you aren't an invited speaker or if the results don't ultimately lead to publication. As a PI with a full lab, if I followed the convention that others are suggesting then I would have literally hundreds of posters and oral presentations to my name, which would be silly and ultimately meaningless.
 
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This will only matter for a few years because after that posters don't mean anything and if you turn into an academic scientist then you won't even bother tracking them. But if you didn't write the abstract, didn't make the poster, didn't travel to the conference, and didn't stand there and present the results, then it's not your poster. Packaging of results into an attractive and digestible format is part of the skill-set of the researcher, and while you might have done a lot of work that led to the results, that doesn't mean you can claim the last 10% as your own. You're second author already. If you really want to, then go ahead and list it somewhere but you must be very clear that you didn't present it. It would be misrepresentation to say that you did. You can also be a bit sneakier and claim second authorship on the abstract, which was "presented at the 10th annual badgers and marmots consortium meeting in Krakow, Poland". Yeah, you were second author, and yeah, it got presented to the badgers and marmots, so you're being truthful.

Being 5th author out of 10 doesn't give you rights to claim a presentation as your own any more than being 2nd, no matter how much of the work you did to generate the results. This is part of why posters and oral presentations don't mean much if you aren't an invited speaker or if the results don't ultimately lead to publication. As a PI with a full lab, if I followed the convention that others are suggesting then I would have literally hundreds of posters and oral presentations to my name, which would be silly and ultimately meaningless.

There appears to be a split consensus and I can understand where both sides are coming from.

I forgot to clarify that if I did list any presentations I would specify who it was presented by. I want to pay credit where it's due. I also wouldn't try to list any and all projects under the sun that I was involved in unless my contributions were significant, which in this case they were. I was responsible for the project's conception, its design, execution, and data collection. I just wasn't around to package it all into a neat poster and present it (though it was my intention once I returned).
 
Honestly if there is a section for abstracts, put the citation there. If there is a means by which to enter a poster presentation with an asterisk and explanation, go with that. Second author on an abstract is good!

Finally, talk to your PI (and not the post-doc). Given that it sounds like you served this project up to your replacement on a silver platter, maybe you can present it yourself somewhere else. Most PIs aren't looking for ways to cheat young scientists out of credit for their work.
 
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I'm going to disagree. When my PI presents a poster or oral presentation, and I am first author on said poster or presentation, I don't list it. It might be my data, but it would be disingenuous for me to list a poster/talk which I didn't give.
I think you might have misunderstood how people classify these things. At conferences, all of the authors are acknowledged. By listing this as a resume citation, you aren't saying "yeah I went to the conference," but rather "our lab's work, with my authorship, was accepted." There's a difference.
 
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I think you might have misunderstood how people classify these things. At conferences, all of the authors are acknowledged. By listing this as a resume citation, you aren't saying "yeah I went to the conference," but rather "our lab's work, with my authorship, was accepted." There's a difference.

You would not list it as your poster or presentation if it was not your poster and you did not present it.

You can write in your description of the research activity that your research was presented at X conference by X author and list the citation for the conference.
 
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Had the opposite happen to me....was 3rd author (data compilation and crunching) but ended up presenting because 1st author couldn't show up to do it that day.

Researched everything thoroughly and was ready for any questions they asked to the tee. Was slightly sad the judges themselves were non-science department. Couldn't go into depth as much as I wanted to and was told explicitly to "dumb it down".

What would I list on mine? Technically I did present, did all the background research to be ready, and was told specifically I would present in 1st author's place before the week of. Just wasn't 1st author.
 
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How can you say you did a poster presentation without presenting the poster? What kind of logic is that?
 
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Had the opposite happen to me....was 3rd author (data compilation and crunching) but ended up presenting because 1st author couldn't show up to do it that day.

Researched everything thoroughly and was ready for any questions they asked to the tee. Was slightly sad the judges themselves were non-science department. Couldn't go into depth as much as I wanted to and was told explicitly to "dumb it down".

What would I list on mine? Technically I did present, did all the background research to be ready, and was told specifically I would present in 1st author's place before the week of. Just wasn't 1st author.

You list it as a poster presentation. You did the presentation. You don't have to be first author to present something.
 
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There's nothing wrong with listing this information on your CV. My PI did a presentation using some of my data (I had co-authorship of the presentation) at a closed conference, so I simply listed the citation on my CV. However, on my AMCAS application, I only listed the presentations that I actually presented under the presentations section. I think I did mention that my PI presented my work under a separate listing on the work/activities section within the space allocated for the description.

Just be honest about what you presented and what you did not present. However, even if you didn't present a poster/oral presentation that you were given credit for, it is still noteworthy to include on something like a CV.
 
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Basically for this exact reason I separate things out. I would put posters/abstracts presented by others (or coauthored), and a separate category where I list the ones I presented

As others have pointed out, as you become more senior in the research world, you stop listing the others for the most part, unless it's a comprehensive cv (you should always keep track of these things somewhere).
 
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Had the opposite happen to me....was 3rd author (data compilation and crunching) but ended up presenting because 1st author couldn't show up to do it that day.

Researched everything thoroughly and was ready for any questions they asked to the tee. Was slightly sad the judges themselves were non-science department. Couldn't go into depth as much as I wanted to and was told explicitly to "dumb it down".

What would I list on mine? Technically I did present, did all the background research to be ready, and was told specifically I would present in 1st author's place before the week of. Just wasn't 1st author.

I think this is becoming overly complicated. In your case, you list the poster presentation with the original author order as stated on the physical poster. You presented the poster. No questions asked.

I won't share my CV because privacy. However, I structure it with a section for talks (each one with title, location, and type... Invited, whatever). There is no author list to these entries although I have seen it with one. It is implicit that you gave the talk. Why would I list a talk that my PI or another member of lab gave? If you start listing everything that you might have contributed to in some way, but that someone else presented, you are going to have a lonngggg list.

Then I have a section for posters, contributed abstracts, etc. I only list presentations that I physically gave myself. If I was first author on a poster that was given by another, it makes no sense to list this. (Unless you specify that someone else made the presentation if you insist... Personally I find that to be reaching but OK...) If I was third author on a poster which I presented, I list it.

A related aside... If you want tangible credit for your work consider making a poster for presentation at a conference (even a small local one) or better yet turn it into a draft manuscript. So many students collect tons of data, but don't do the final work of putting it into a coherent written or visual form. Then when the next student comes and does this final work, the original student gets less or no credit for it compared to what they deserve. Do yourself a favor and generate usable summaries and figures as you go. It will take you far in research.
 
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I think you might have misunderstood how people classify these things. At conferences, all of the authors are acknowledged. By listing this as a resume citation, you aren't saying "yeah I went to the conference," but rather "our lab's work, with my authorship, was accepted." There's a difference.

Maybe this varies by discipline. In my discipline, unless otherwise stated, one is implying presentation of said poster, etc by listing it outright.
 
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I think this is becoming overly complicated. In your case, you list the poster presentation with the original author order as stated on the physical poster. You presented the poster. No questions asked.

I won't share my CV because privacy. However, I structure it with a section for talks (each one with title, location, and type... Invited, whatever). There is no author list to these entries although I have seen it with one. It is implicit that you gave the talk. Why would I list a talk that my PI or another member of lab gave? If you start listing everything that you might have contributed to in some way, but that someone else presented, you are going to have a lonngggg list.

Then I have a section for posters, contributed abstracts, etc. I only list presentations that I physically gave myself. If I was first author on a poster that was given by another, it makes no sense to list this. (Unless you specify that someone else made the presentation if you insist... Personally I find that to be reaching but OK...) If I was third author on a poster which I presented, I list it.

A related aside... If you want tangible credit for your work consider making a poster for presentation at a conference (even a small local one) or better yet turn it into a draft manuscript. So many students collect tons of data, but don't do the final work of putting it into a coherent written or visual form. Then when the next student comes and does this final work, the original student gets less or no credit for it compared to what they deserve. Do yourself a favor and generate usable summaries and figures as you go. It will take you far in research.

Thank you. This definitely helped.

For the poster in question, I compiled all data for the presentation and interpreted as well as typed up the descriptions on the poster itself. Formatting and editing was done with the merciful help of the PI/head honcho higher upper.

I gave full credit to the original student as they had been working on the data years before I came. The presentation was even under their name when judges came around and were a bit perplexed as to why I was giving it.
 
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This is just plain silly to me. I didnt know this existed before you people replied to this thread.

You guys actually try and list poster presentations which you didn't present? What does it matter who collected the data? If you didnt present the poster then you didnt do a poster presentation.

Seems really suspect to me.
 
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Thank you. This definitely helped.

For the poster in question, I compiled all data for the presentation and interpreted as well as typed up the descriptions on the poster itself. Formatting and editing was done with the merciful help of the PI/head honcho higher upper.

I gave full credit to the original student as they had been working on the data years before I came. The presentation was even under their name when judges came around and were a bit perplexed as to why I was giving it.
Sometimes it is useful to underline the presenting author's name on the poster. Some large conferences require this format anyway. That way they aren't contemplating (the whole time you are talking) how it is that a southern drawly white girl such as myself managed to be named Geraldo. (True story)
 
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How can you say you did a poster presentation without presenting the poster? What kind of logic is that?
I know at face value it sounds silly. But hey no such thing as a dumb question? :p The different responses proves it to be a judgement call of sorts. I personally got a lot of great information from this thread.
 
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Thank you everyone who responded! This has been really helpful!
 
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Ask your PI if they're cool with it. Most likely, they're more than happy to help your chances for admission (assuming you have a nice PI).
 
It certainly seems like there are some grey areas - I have a question regarding what may potentially happen with me and how/if I should list it.

I am first author on a publication, which I made into a poster, have presented the poster at a particular location, and have another scheduled. I may not be able to make this other scheduled one though, however the second author will surely be there to present with or without me. Since I am first author, made the poster that is being presented WITH the co-authors, and have presented this exact poster already, is this additional poster presentation something that I could list I am am unable to make the presentation since it is based on the paper of which I am first author, and since I literally made the poster with my co-authors?
 
If my name is on it, then it is on my CV. For posters/oral presentations that I co-authored but did not present myself, I have them listed separately under "Contributed Presentations" which helps clear up any confusion if I get asked about a conference that I did not personally attend.
 
In a research team, you will generate tons of data. If your team gets an abstract/poster, and your name is on it, absolutely take credit for your work in that research. Do NOT lie and say you presented it. Everyone knows people work on projects and only one person is first author or presenter. Take credit for your work but do not lie

If my name is on it, then it is on my CV. For posters/oral presentations that I co-authored but did not present myself, I have them listed separately under "Contributed Presentations" which helps clear up any confusion if I get asked about a conference that I did not personally attend.
 
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As a graduate student in the sciences, I would say that this is okay for medical school purposes but is looked down upon in academia. It's seen as a way to inflate your CV and any good PI can see right through it. Usually the person who did the most work gets first authorship and it tends to be that person presenting it anyway because otherwise, other authors would end up presenting a lot of work that wasn't theirs to begin with. The problem with that is, as any PI could tell you, the other author would not be able to answer questions related to that work as well as the author who contributed most. I have seen this happening at several conferences and it reflects poorly on the PI. So most PIs won't let that happen.

But for medical school applications, I'm sure it's fine (I have no experience here so now it's just my opinion) because research isn't necessarily first priority as it is for graduate school and academia.
 
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This is just plain silly to me. I didnt know this existed before you people replied to this thread.

You guys actually try and list poster presentations which you didn't present? What does it matter who collected the data? If you didnt present the poster then you didnt do a poster presentation.

Seems really suspect to me.
I appreciate that people are asking for clarification. Had no idea that this was an issue so maybe I'll mention it to future students.
It certainly seems like there are some grey areas - I have a question regarding what may potentially happen with me and how/if I should list it.

I am first author on a publication, which I made into a poster, have presented the poster at a particular location, and have another scheduled. I may not be able to make this other scheduled one though, however the second author will surely be there to present with or without me. Since I am first author, made the poster that is being presented WITH the co-authors, and have presented this exact poster already, is this additional poster presentation something that I could list I am am unable to make the presentation since it is based on the paper of which I am first author, and since I literally made the poster with my co-authors?
No. List the poster that you presented only.
 
Simple, if you did not physically present the poster do not list it as a presentation.

If your name was on it and you did not present it, feel free to list the poster as an accepted abstract for the particular conference.
 
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I feel there is a confusion in terminology involved here so let's clarify.

1. Abstracts are basically posters/talks etc. submitted for a conference. The people who contributed to the abstract (i.e. the authors/co-authors) get the credit.

2. However, when the abstract gets accepted and results in a presentation, the author who gives the presentation will claim the presentation as their own. So only the presenter gets the credit.

The best solution for new researchers is to list all the abstracts that have been accepted and underline the authors who gave the presentation. Now when the researcher goes further in research, only the abstracts where they gave the presentation matter to avoid inflating the CV. But i still think the first few abstracts are worth listing even if you're a coauthor and didn't give the presentation.

Is the above correct? @typhoonegator @crunchywhit @aldol16 @JustAPhD et al.?
 
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This is exactly right. Absolutely claim credit for being on an abstract/poster. Do not claim the presentation as your own if you did not present.

I feel there is a confusion in terminology involved here so let's clarify.

1. Abstracts are basically posters/talks etc. submitted for a conference. The people who contributed to the abstract (i.e. the authors/co-authors) get the credit.

2. However, when the abstract gets accepted and results in a presentation, the author who gives the presentation will claim the presentation as their own. So only the presenter gets the credit.

The best solution for new researchers is to list all the abstracts that have been accepted and underline the authors who gave the presentation. Now when the researcher goes further in research, only the abstracts where they gave the presentation matter to avoid inflating the CV. But i still think the first few abstracts are worth listing even if you're a coauthor and didn't give the presentation.

Is the above correct? @typhoonegator @crunchywhit @aldol16 @JustAPhD et al.?
 
This is exactly right. Absolutely claim credit for being on an abstract/poster. Do not claim the presentation as your own if you did not present.

Ok thanks. So does that mean in AMCAS Works and Activities Section, the Presentations category refers to the posters/abstracts that you have presented? So i guess that Conferences Attended refers to any abstract that has been accepted?

@Catalystik could you also kindly add some input since you are active in the W&A thread?
 
I feel there is a confusion in terminology involved here so let's clarify.

1. Abstracts are basically posters/talks etc. submitted for a conference. The people who contributed to the abstract (i.e. the authors/co-authors) get the credit.

2. However, when the abstract gets accepted and results in a presentation, the author who gives the presentation will claim the presentation as their own. So only the presenter gets the credit.

The best solution for new researchers is to list all the abstracts that have been accepted and underline the authors who gave the presentation. Now when the researcher goes further in research, only the abstracts where they gave the presentation matter to avoid inflating the CV. But i still think the first few abstracts are worth listing even if you're a coauthor and didn't give the presentation.

Basically! Abstracts are generally submitted to be included in the publication/booklet that is published from the conference. You will usually see it published as a "proceedings" of the conference.

In academia, you don't want to inflate your CV even at the beginning because that reflects poorly on you and you don't want future PIs thinking that - especially since it's so easy to tell. So what I would recommend is that when you have an abstract that is part of a publication, list only the publication. If your publication is under review or in press, it's okay to list it as a publication "under review" or "in press." If your abstract was not/has not been published, list it as an abstract. List presentations if you have presented. Try to avoid duplications in the abstracts and publications because that's an easy way to spot CV padders.
 
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I think that this thread got into a bit TMI, since in academia and on CVs the expectations are definitely different than what is expected on the AMCAS.

In terms of strictly the AMCAS, you would list abstracts/posters that were accepted but you did not present under "Research/Lab" where you could spend the time talking about how you learned a lot in the research process and how "this experience culminated in an abstract that was accepted/presented/whatever at XYZ conference." I wouldn't bother putting an abstract/poster in the "Publications" section, though by definition you can say that abstracts/posters were publications in conference booklets and such. I'd save the "Publications" sections only for papers that were published. I'd save the "conferences attended" section for only those which you were physically present at a conference.
 
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I think that this thread got into bit TMI, since in academia and on CVs the expectations are definitely different than what is expected on the AMCAS.

In terms of strictly the AMCAS, you would list abstracts/posters that were accepted but you did not present under "Research/Lab" where you could spend the time talking about how you learned a lot in the research process and how "this experience culminated in an abstract that was accepted/presented/whatever at XYZ conference." I wouldn't bother putting an abstract/poster in the "Publications" section, though by definition you can say that abstracts/posters were publications in conference booklets and such. I'd save the "Publications" sections only for papers that were published. I'd save the "conferences attended" section for only those which you were physically present at a conference.

This is exactly what I did and what should be done. I was listed as 2nd/3rd author on a few abstracts that my PI presented, and I just briefly cited them in the description of the entry where I talked about the research. For the posters I made and presented at conferences, that was a separate "Poster/Presentation" entry.
 
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