Research paper authorship as an undergraduate: how does it happen?

[cicero_oratore]

<p>I know that a big part of undergraduate programs now is research, which is now something that graduate schools expect to see that you have done. Now, I have seen more and more that many undergrads are authors of certain research papers. How do undergraduates get published? Do they just do work in the lab and get put down as like...5th author? Or do they contribute to the actual paper and get like....2nd or 3rd author? I just don't how it works.</p>

[Star_1]

<p>It depends. Many students at MIT do research as undergrads. Some don’t end up getting published at all, but others choose a lab during their freshman or sophomore year, find a project that really interests them, and stick with it for a couple of years. Those people are often the ones that find themselves getting published by the time they’re seniors. Some can even get 3rd or 2nd authorship, if they’ve contributed a lot to the project.</p>

[PiperXP]

<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about actually publishing as an undergrad. Find something that interests you (it’s ok to bounce around labs - it’s ok to find a place you love the first time, too) and work hard in it. “Publish or perish” doesn’t really apply at the undergrad level, though publishing would be an extra bonus to all the interesting things you’ll do/learn.</p>

[molliebatmit]

<p>Hey, you still have to contribute significantly to the paper to be 5th author! Authorship isn’t just this honorary thing you get after working in a lab for a certain amount of time – honorary authorship is considered highly unethical.</p>

<p>I was published as an undergrad, so I can tell you how it worked for me. (Well, technically, the paper didn’t get published until I was a second-year graduate student, but the paper was submitted when I was a junior.) When I was a sophomore, I started working in a lab, and there was a certain part of a project that was basically mine. I did the work, and got the results, and my postdoc and I analyzed it together. When the paper was submitted, my work was a central cornerstone of the results, so I was an author on the paper.</p>

[LauraN]

<p>I ended up as third author on a paper based on the work I did on my MISTI internship, believe it or not. This came as a total surprise to me six months later when I got an email from my supervisor about how the paper was being published, when I had no interest in getting published at all. Not that it’s not cool, obviously, just that I’m not interested in grad school, or research, or things which generally require being published, so I wasn’t aiming for it or anything. It came as just a complete surprise side effect of my internship. =)</p>

[kryptonsa36]

<p>

@molliebatmit

When I was a sophomore, I started working in a lab, and there was a certain part of a project that was basically mine. I did the work, and got the results, and my postdoc and I analyzed it together. When the paper was submitted, my work was a central cornerstone of the results, so I was an author on the paper.

Why were you only fifth author? Unless you had many, many collaborators (who also contributed important cornerstones), that sounds like something that would result in second authorship.</p>

[molliebatmit]

<p>^Yup, it was a project with a lot of different facets. Without looking at the author list, I think first was my postdoc, second was a grad student in the lab who had done electrophysiology with third, who was a postdoc in another lab. Fourth was a tech who did much of the molecular work, and I did the behavior work. Sixth was a postdoc who had finished the elecrophysiology after third left the country, seventh was third’s PI, and eighth was my PI.</p>

<p>It was a project that had spanned about five or six years before it was finally published, and I’d only come in for the last year.</p>

[Vivi]

<p>I’m currently UROPing in the Media Lab (rising sophomore), and I might be able to get authorship on a paper that I’m doing with my Ph.D student (he pretty much said, “It would be your name and mine on the paper”). He and I planned the entire project from scratch (as in, I said, “I want to do research on such-and-such” and he said, “Sure, how about we make a research project for that?”). I find it’ll be easier to get your name on a paper if you’re working on a paper with only one or two other people. Try finding a Ph.D student who doesn’t currently have anyone else working for them (this might mean veering from the main UROP listings and making personal connections in person).</p>

[oasis]

<p>True story from a MIT alum '76:</p>

<p>

I worked in the same bio lab during my entire undergrad career. Back then, research papers were actually submitted via typewriters, since that’s really all we had at the time. My PI was this pretty old professor who did great research, but had a tough time typing. I was working late in the lab one night my sophomore year, when my PI signaled me over. “I just can’t type fast enough and we’ll have to mail this out early tomorrow morning. Do you mind typing out the rest of the paper?” Naturally, I obliged.</p>

<p>I finished around dawn the next day, the entire paper proofed and ready to go. As I was scanning the paper through for the final read, my PI (who stayed up with me) gestured at the author line. </p>

<p>“Put your name there.”</p>

<p>“What?”</p>

<p>“Type your name there.”</p>

<p>“Okay.”</p>

<p>With that, I became the contributing author of a research paper. My lab would go on to publish more papers, many of them typewritten by me. Granted, towards the end, I actually contributed significantly to the research conducted, but I counted that I was the co-author of seven research papers by the time I left MIT.

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