My professor just presented her(? my?) research at ACS national meeting.
She said she is publishing this and I would really want this to happen since it would higher my chances of getting into top 15 grad school ( I won’t be applying until 2017) and I was wondering how the authorship works in terms of my name and his name.
My professor did say that she will put my name in it, but I wonder if that means I will be listed as at least a secondary author.
I know she only put her name at ACS meeting when she was presenting, but I did all the work(she made the powerpoint, but I did all data collection, data organization etc), so I am wondering how that shows on the published article.
You should be talking to your professor about this because she’s the one that gets to decide what order the names are in.
@baktrax Hi, Thanks for the answer. I am not really worried about the order. I am wondering if my name would be at all on the paper 
. The thing is that she had previous students taking data, but she did not use any of their data, but told me to duplicate all of their data and used all my data.
I am just worried after all that work I will be briefly mentioned at acknowledge section lol. I did learn a lot from this research, but also I really need publication to compensate my low GPA :’(
When you say “she will put your name in it,” did she say you would be listed as an author? It’s not unreasonable for you to ask if you will be listed as an author, and if she says no, then advocate for yourself as to why you think you should be listed as an author. You still need to talk to your professor about it.
A publication is not going to really compensate for a low GPA. Having talked to professors about the way they weight things when they’re looking at admissions, publications are not the biggest factor in the decision. Because when they see a student’s name on the paper, that really doesn’t give them any indication of what the student did or contributed. They look at letters of recommendation more strongly than authorship on a paper. Yes, getting your name on a paper is a plus, and talk to the professor about this. But don’t think that it’ll make up for other deficiencies in your application.
Thanks all, I think talking to my professor would be the best.
The author is the person who had the idea for the study, designed the study, and who wrote it up. If you both were involved in the idea for and design of the study and writing it up, then you both should be listed as authors. If one of you made a greater contribution to this, then that person would be listed as the first author. This consideration applies even when only one of the authors is presenting the study at a conference.
If your contribution primarily consisted of making powerpoints and collecting data at the very least might get an acknowledgement, and maybe, a co-authorship if the author is being generous.
If you had the idea for and designed the study and wrote it up, but you had significant and/or ongoing consultation from your professor, you are the primary author, but as a student, you probably would list the professor as a co-author. If the professor’s input was relatively minor, then you might only give an acknowledgement, though it might not be politic if you didn’t give her at least a junior authorship.
At least that’s the way it was done when I was in grad school.
Since your professor only listed her name as the author when she presented the study at a conference, this suggests either that she did not consider you a co-author, or, perhaps she is not being entirely honest about it. If your contribution primarily consisted of the scut work of making powerpoints and collecting data, she may or may not acknowledge your contribution when presenting at a conference.