Most Productive Undergrad Research Technique

[Bede]

AshPreMed,

 

Forgive my bluntness but that sort of attitude is a contributor to the proliferation of crap research that is being published these days which we have to sort through when we do literature searches.

 

Publishing anything decent is long tedious work. From finishing experiments to publication is usually at least a year from my experience. The peer review process is brutal: you work your tail off to produce what you believe is a decent piece of scholarship just to have it ripped to shreds by the reviewers. (No harm done-I've done this myself to papers that I have been asked to review).

 

As others have said, instead of focusing on something that will yield a decent number of publications, focus on something that will answer a contemporary question being raised in the field. Also, assisting with lab work does not warrant authorship. Designing experiments, conducting the experiments yourself, writing the paper, etc. is what authors do.