Getting publications as a grad student

[cw2lu4]

Hi all,

I started my 2-year research based M.Sc in September. As of right now, I have 0 publications. My prof expects me to have a 1st author publication by the end of my degree and is also expecting me to finish in June of next year, which according to her is very do-able. I'm sitting around right now with absolutely nothing to do because I need to attend workshops regarding animal training before I can do any of my experiments. The workshops are not until later in the term. In the mean time, I was hoping that I could pair up with another grad student in my lab so that I could get a 2nd author publication to boost my CV for scholarship (CGS-M) and med applications. Does anyone have experience with this? How much work is a 2nd author expected to put in?

 

[ExercMed]

This is a fairly standard dilemma. Workshops and trainings can slow things down. It's always good to help out your lab members with their projects because it only adds to the productivity of the lab and they will help you in return. It entirely depends on what is going into the paper. If it is a large project you need to put in a fair amount of work (i.e. doing one or two small experiments is not going to cut it for 2nd). I would let your intentions be known to the other grad students and especially to your supervisor (as they usually have final say on author order). If you aren't doing anything now then you can't go wrong with dedicating yourself to helping the other people in the lab with whatever they need done. 

Do you know what your project is/what techniques you will be using? Another option to do in the meantime is to practice any techniques you are unfamiliar with. This will greatly boost your productivity when the time comes to get started since you wont have that awkward trial and error period most people go through. 

[cw2lu4]

25 minutes ago, ExercMed said:

This is a fairly standard dilemma. Workshops and trainings can slow things down. It's always good to help out your lab members with their projects because it only adds to the productivity of the lab and they will help you in return. It entirely depends on what is going into the paper. If it is a large project you need to put in a fair amount of work (i.e. doing one or two small experiments is not going to cut it for 2nd). I would let your intentions be known to the other grad students and especially to your supervisor (as they usually have final say on author order). If you aren't doing anything now then you can't go wrong with dedicating yourself to helping the other people in the lab with whatever they need done. 

Do you know what your project is/what techniques you will be using? Another option to do in the meantime is to practice any techniques you are unfamiliar with. This will greatly boost your productivity when the time comes to get started since you wont have that awkward trial and error period most people go through. 

My techniques (not including the animal dissection stuff) include Western blot, filter plate assays, and qRT-PCR. I've done Western blots before in the past but not filter plate assays or PCR. One of my lab mates is focused greatly on qRT-PCR so maybe I could contribute to his project. 

Thanks for the wonderful suggestion!

[adhominem]

CGS-M are due Dec 1st, so I don't think it is reasonable to think you would be able to add to another students project and have a contributing authorship by then. Even if they submitted a manuscript today, chances are it wouldn't be nearly done review by Dec 1st (assuming it doesn't bounce around to other journals multiple times). To be fair though, it is very doable to get a CGS-M if you don't have a publication (although it would help).

In general, the amount of work any contributing author puts into a paper is wildly variable. Sometimes it will be a years worth of work and other times it will be weeks or just days. It all depends on the nature of the project and how much the first author does. On my papers one of my second authors was a post-doc who ran an experiment for me (took about 2hrs per rat x 16 rats) and that's all. On another paper my second author worked on the project for 2 months full-time. 

 

[cw2lu4]

3 hours ago, adhominem said:

CGS-M are due Dec 1st, so I don't think it is reasonable to think you would be able to add to another students project and have a contributing authorship by then. Even if they submitted a manuscript today, chances are it wouldn't be nearly done review by Dec 1st (assuming it doesn't bounce around to other journals multiple times). To be fair though, it is very doable to get a CGS-M if you don't have a publication (although it would help).

In general, the amount of work any contributing author puts into a paper is wildly variable. Sometimes it will be a years worth of work and other times it will be weeks or just days. It all depends on the nature of the project and how much the first author does. On my papers one of my second authors was a post-doc who ran an experiment for me (took about 2hrs per rat x 16 rats) and that's all. On another paper my second author worked on the project for 2 months full-time. 

 

I know . I got waitlisted for CIHR last year at Queen's and I want to come to peace with it by actually winning it this year. My grades are good but it's my CV that suffers due to my poor time management skills in undergrad leading to me spending most of my time "studying". Also I spoke to my supervisor and she's not down for me to be a 2nd author on someone else's paper as she wants me to focus on my own project.

 

Thanks guys!

[Bede]

Good question.

I would approach this by asking other students if they need help. Often, you can do some routine data analysis or check on the samples or something. Ask if you can do a literature search for the introduction, or write the methods section. 

If you're motivated and are willing to take the bull by the horns, it's easy to get a fair amount of publications.

First author is different though. You really need to put in a lot of time and have a project that is conducive to being published. For MSc students, I usually suggest that the project is relatively easy with a high probability of success. It's not going into any high impact journal, but it's still publishable. When I did my MSc, my first paper wasn't actually published until 6 months after my thesis was submitted. There's a big difference in quality between an MSc thesis and a published article.