Publishing papers as an undergrad, first author vs. contributing author

[hkcool]

This coming semester, I'll be continuing research as an undergrad and my professor said that there's a very good chance my work could be published in a well-known journal in my field. She's published before with an undergrad where he was the principal author. That would more or less be the case with me as well.

 

Anyway, I'm just wondering re: grad school admissions. Does this look more favorable than just being an undergrad contributing author with a professor and his/her grad students? Or do admissions not really care either way?

[fuzzylogician]

Being first author is better than being further down the author list. If you can get that position, do it. It'll look better on your CV and everyone reading it (adcoms, but also others down the line) will appreciate it more.

[Abc_adams]

Given how competitive grad school admissions are, you need to take any chance you get, no matter how incremental it might be, to make your CV look better.

 

So well, do try for first name over contributing author.

[TakeruK]

The difference between first author and contributing author varies between (sub-)fields, but in general, the higher up on the author list, the more prestigious, and also more responsibility/work. It's almost always worth it to put in the extra work though, and normally you would be expected to be lead author in several papers during your time as a grad student. 

[Guest |||]

Having a published paper while an undergrad is quite rare, and would reflect greatly for applications

 

Being a first author is unheard of to me, but it would likely reflect very nicely

[child of 2]

I think a good question is how much weight a first author carries as opposed to second. (I'm guessing this is what the OP was asking).... I got a couple of 2nd authorships for putting in a lot of hours, and producing good results. I wrote part of the experimental section, which has been drastically revised since then. And I didn't do any of the background research required for the intro, and I didn't do any data analysis required for the results/discussion. That's a lot of work right there... So to be a first author would be pretty impressive, depending on the project.

 

On a side note, I hope I'm still 2nd author. Those papers were supposed to have been published in like Febuary. But I think they're still dealing with the patents right now. I just hope they'll hurry the f* up, so I can get my name on a high IF journal before this December.

Edited May 23, 2013 by child of 2

[Monochrome Spring]

I think authorship at all is still going to look great to graduate schools. First author will look better, but you won't be expected to have this.

 

If you think that you may be a higher author on a paper that hasn't been submitted yet, you can always mention this in your C.V. as "in prep" or "in review" or "in revision" and then mention authorship in an interview.

[Eigen]

So for my field, the first author is considered to have done ~60-80% of the work, both experimental and writing. 

 

Second authorships, while "nice", really are much lower than a first author. 

 

A lot of this is going to be field specific, though.