Getting a publication as an undergrad

[mrund3rd09]

How much of a publication is based on luck? What details/advice should one be aware of when pursuing a publication? (read a lot of already published papers? spend a lot of time in the lab? etc.)

What differentiates the first author from everyone else who made a contribution?

What exactly does a publication show in a grad school application?

Lastly, what makes a professor good to work with? the ones who are well known, or the ones who have time for you?

 

[hadsed]

As an undergrad, you can never really be sure of these things. What you really need to do is know enough about the subject matter and start early enough so that you can actually do something meaningful in a field. This is difficult in a field that involves quantum mechanics, particle, nuclear, or condensed matter theory because you need to learn a lot of advanced things. Not to say it can't be done, but it's harder to do than say astrophysics or fluid dynamics, where you can learn a lot of the stuff because it's mostly classical physics and numerical simulation (which you need to know a lot of programming for).

Basically, it really comes down to the professor. If he's got a good track record for consistent publications, that's a good sign I suppose. The earlier you start the better. Sometimes it's not that publications are a bust, but the ideas themselves are a bust and sometimes that happens. Hopefully you'll find a professor that cares about your future career and helps you to do this. Just keep in mind that very very few undergraduates publish at all before they get to graduate school.

 

[Mapes]

How much of a publication is based on luck? What details/advice should one be aware of when pursuing a publication? (read a lot of already published papers? spend a lot of time in the lab? etc.)

There's certainly a component of luck. A journal article should report new findings, the result of an exploration into the unknown. Sometimes research yields nothing useful, even with considerable hard work. Additionally, the referee selection will be random to some extent, and this randomness can mean the difference between your submission being accepted or rejected.

Certainly you must read many other papers both to understand how to write one effectively and to maintain familiarity with the field.

What differentiates the first author from everyone else who made a contribution?

Usually this person took the lead role in writing the content because they did much of the technical work. Of course, there are always exceptions.

What exactly does a publication show in a grad school application?

It shows that applicant has done some publishable research, which is strong evidence that the applicant will be able to be productive in grad school and provide a research group and an academic department what they need---papers (to show that they are producing).

Lastly, what makes a professor good to work with? the ones who are well known, or the ones who have time for you?

This is absolutely different for everyone. The best professor is one that gives you what you need: maybe clout, maybe energy and attention, maybe a kick in the rear, maybe brilliant conversation.

 

[twofish-quant]

How much of a publication is based on luck?

It really depends on the field. In astronomy and astrophysics has a policy of "light peer review" which is to say that if you have results and you aren't totally kooky, then eventually you will get it published. I think the stats are that 70% of the papers that get submitted to Ap.J. eventually get published.

In economics and the social sciences, getting published in the "top journals" is an altogether different process, since only something like 10% of the papers get published.

One thing that makes astro different is that the bottleneck are grant applications and proposals for computer/telescope time.

What details/advice should one be aware of when pursuing a publication? (read a lot of already published papers? spend a lot of time in the lab? etc.)

In astronomy/astrophysics there really isn't anything magic. Start up your telescope, look at something, write down what you see.

What differentiates the first author from everyone else who made a contribution?

Field dependent. In astronomy, it's assumed that when you have a senior scientist and a graduate student, that the graduate student did the grunt work whereas the senior scientist provide insight and mentoring. The order of names in astronomy isn't hugely important, because people will assume that this was the distribution of duties regardless of the order.

What exactly does a publication show in a grad school application?

Not very much, by itself. The trouble is that it could very will be that the undergraduate washed test tubes, and his name was just tacked on the paper. Or maybe not.

By itself the publication doesn't mean very much. Now if in the recommendation letter, you can have the other people in the paper say wonderful things about you (i.e. that the paper was really your idea, and you did much more than the typical undergraduate) then that makes a big difference.

Lastly, what makes a professor good to work with? the ones who are well known, or the ones who have time for you?

Someone that you can be locked in the same room for several hours at a time, and years on end without either of you driving the other nuts. The graduate adviser is your foster father/mother, and in looking for a graduate adviser, it's almost like looking for a spouse or roommate.

 

[mrund3rd09]

someone above said that sometimes, the ideas themselves are bust. What does that mean, that you have to choose the right research projects?

Someone that you can be locked in the same room for several hours at a time, and years on end without either of you driving the other nuts. The graduate adviser is your foster father/mother, and in looking for a graduate adviser, it's almost like looking for a spouse or roommate.

This is absolutely different for everyone. The best professor is one that gives you what you need: maybe clout, maybe energy and attention, maybe a kick in the rear, maybe brilliant conversation.

It sounds like you really needs to get to know the professor before you decide to ask to be part of his/her research group. I'm still a bit confused as to where I should start looking.

The professor I have now, we don't communicate very much. Actually, I work with a scientist, who works for the professor. which is why I'm going to leave this professor by the end of this semester and get into 2 other research groups in the next two years. I just don't think my current position will get me anywhere. I'm not learning much at the moment.

-----

by the way, I'm in chemical engineering.

 

[hadsed]

That's just simply the nature of research, that projects don't always work out the way you plan. It's a tiresome phrase, but people always say that if you knew what you were doing (or what was going to happen) it wouldn't be research.

Just pick something you like, with a professor that doesn't jerk you around and cares about undergraduates, work hard at it and show him that you've tried really hard to do something meaningful. The worst you can get out of that situation is a really good recommendation, and at best you get that plus a paper, maybe more.

(two-fish check your PM-box)

 

[twofish-quant]

That's just simply the nature of research, that projects don't always work out the way you plan.

Projects never work out in the way that you plan.

Also "failure is sometimes success." For example, if someone does research in string theory, and then comes up with a very tight mathematical reason why string theory *can't* work, then that person is going to get some major prizes. It's not up to you to decide success or failure, but you can set things up so that if you fail, you fail in interesting ways.

Learning how to fail productively is part of research.

 

[mrund3rd09]

I kind of know what you're talking about when you say something like fail to succeed. Not just with research, but with also other things.

But since we're talking about research, my experience with failure has been not being able to produce any practical and relevant results. I'm suppose to make polymeric gels of a certain density such that nanoparticles of 200 um (or was it 200 nm) could pass through it when it's swollen. In the very beginning, I was making strides, and I came up with very reasonable results. I've been trying to work off those results for more or less 2 semesters now, and I'm still trying to figure out how to get the precise ratios of the ingredients I need, which happens to be in extremely small amounts...

I guess this kind of fail is the bad kind, because I feel like people are looking at me to produce useful results, but so far, I'm just coming up short.

 

[f95toli]

Also "failure is sometimes success." For example, if someone does research in string theory, and then comes up with a very tight mathematical reason why string theory *can't* work, then that person is going to get some major prizes. It's not up to you to decide success or failure, but you can set things up so that if you fail, you fail in interesting ways.

Example: When I was a PhD student I sometimes worked with another student who was mainly doing theory (he designed circuits that other people then fabricated and he was then suppose to measure). He did some good work and managed to get his name on a few papers.
However, he never made much progress on his main project, after about 3 years he managed to prove that the (complicated) circuit he had been asked to design could in fact never work: the signal-to-noise ratio would always be smaller than one, and not because of "normal" noise sources but because the required measurement would actually have to be in violation of the HUP...
So his project was a failure, but of course he still managed to publish a good paper with this (important) result.