Publishing possibilities

[BeingThere]

My school is not a PhD-granting campus.  We grant master's degrees, but not in psychology.  So my professor has not dealt with working on a paper to submit for publication with an undergrad student before.  He is unsure about how journals view undergraduate first authors.  He is completely supportive of getting this current paper published with me and just happened to mention this in passing. 

 

So, I am wondering if others have been published as first authors while still undergraduates?  I realize I will not be aiming for top-tier journals, but are there professional journals out there that do publish undergrad first authors?  My field is I/O and applied, but my study is on personality and motivation.

 

Thanks for any experience or input you can give!

[EastCoasting]

try the Psi Chi Journal of Research

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

as long as the research is good, an editor shouldn't care about who wrote it.

[lewin]

If the research is good then it (in theory) shouldn't matter that you're an undergraduate. Send it to the best journal you can! If you're really concerned most places let you request double-blind review. The reason there aren't a lot of undergraduates with publications is because (1) the review/revision process takes a long time and (2) frankly, a lot undergraduate research is unpublishable, done more for the learning experience than the findings.

 

(My undergrad thesis was published with me as first author, but I was a grad student when we submitted it.)

[Guest joshw4288]

I published my undergraduate research, however, it wasn't published until I was already in graduate school due to timing. Really, no one cares if the first author is a PhD or not, although generally undergraduate research will not be publishable in top journals. It's a quality issue (not of the writing per se but rather the actual project)and a novelty issue. Does the research really provide something novel and beneficial to the field? For this reason there are many student journals that publish graduate and undergraduate research. Many schools have them. UC-Berkley has one that I know of off the top of my head. Either way the paper goes through review, and perhaps revision. This is a great experience. 

[panzertorte]

i published my senior thesis as a first author in a top-tier journal in the years between undergrad and grad school. Like others have said, just send it out to the best journals out there and hope for the best! good luck!