Publishing Papers in Grad School

[Deliberate]

How much does this help for placement?  I've been surprised to see tenure track professors at top schools having very few publications when they were PhD students (one or two).  Without any information, I would have thought that you needed many more than to get a good job, but I must be wrong.  

 

Is having a high number of publications a fool's goal in grad school?  Is there an upper bound for how many to go for (as in , will people just take you less seriously if all you did was try to crank out 20 publications in your PhD program)? Is it publicly annoying, or are there unwritten rules against people going for more than a few by the time they finish?

Edited March 6, 2014 by Deliberate

[Establishment]

Largely only students at top-10 programs can get away without publishing. There's divided advice for everyone else. On the one hand, you want to publish in order to increase your chances at a job. On the other hand, you potentially run the risk of running out of ideas, and thus harming yourself when you later have to publish for tenure.

 

There's no rule against publishing too many times or anything like that.

[PhD applicant]

Largely only students at top-10 programs can get away without publishing. There's divided advice for everyone else. On the one hand, you want to publish in order to increase your chances at a job. On the other hand, you potentially run the risk of running out of ideas, and thus harming yourself when you later have to publish for tenure.

 

There's no rule against publishing too many times or anything like that.

Bold type: is that normal? Does this happen to a lot of people? I'm just curious how common that is, if anyone has any information about that. Please comment.

[Philhopeful]

Largely only students at top-10 programs can get away without publishing. There's divided advice for everyone else. On the one hand, you want to publish in order to increase your chances at a job. On the other hand, you potentially run the risk of running out of ideas, and thus harming yourself when you later have to publish.

 

I have never heard this before. I generally just don't hear about a lack of ideas being a problem though. Most people I know though have huge plates of undeveloped ideas they never get to. 

 

As for publishing. I have heard that it is tremendously important for top jobs. However, what's important isn't how many articles, but how good of a journal you get into. Of course, many articles in top journals is best.

[PhiPhiPhi]

Do not expect a (decent) job if you come out of a non-top 15 program without any publications. Getting one is the threshold that makes you competitive, whereas any more will just make it more likely for you to land a good job. However the publication needs to be in a good journal, say the LeiterReports Top20 general journals, or one of the 4 or so best journals in your sub area.

[Establishment]

I have never heard this before. I generally just don't hear about a lack of ideas being a problem though. Most people I know though have huge plates of undeveloped ideas they never get to. 

 

As for publishing. I have heard that it is tremendously important for top jobs. However, what's important isn't how many articles, but how good of a journal you get into. Of course, many articles in top journals is best.

 

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/advice_to_philo.html

 

"First, graduate students should be aware that, in making tenure decisions, many institutions discount publications that occurred before the candidate was hired. Publishing chapters of your dissertation before you're hired may therefore have the result of excluding your best work from your tenure case. This is a very significant cost. Most people are tenured largely on the basis of the dissertation chapters that they published in their early years as assistant professors. "

 

"David Velleman's comments sum up my attitude towards publishing in graduate school. If you're at a leading graduate institution, you shouldn't try to publish, unless you've already gone on the market one year with no success. If you're not at a prestige department, you will probably have to publish. "

 

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/05/grad-students-questions-about-publishing.html

 

"Also if memory serves, most candidates from places like NYU, Princeton, Berkeley, Arizona, and UNC, who have advanced far in recent searches at Duke had no publications (unless they held post-docs in which case, we expected it.)"

 

"My sense of things is that if you come from a place like NYU, Princeton, Berkeley, Arizona, or UNC, and aspire to land a job at a place of the same or similar stripe, then Owen Flanagan's advice is the advice to take. But for those of us whose pedigree is a bit more pedestrian, I think it is essential to have a publication or two when you go on the market - even in a good-but-not-amazing venue. "

 

"I think Owen Flanagan's advice is correct for top students from top programs but Fritz and Doug are on the money for most everyone else. Some graduates from my program (Arizona) have gotten jobs at top R1 institutions on the basis of great dissertations and no publications."

 

EDIT: Woops, forgot to say I wasn't sure which point you meant. I'm going to try to find some sources about the point about running out of ideas, although my first quote slightly points towards that idea.

 

"

Gualtiero’s advice here seems right on the money to me. I’d add that, as a general rule, where and how much you publish signals where you belong in the food chain. (As does the crowd you associate with. Sorry–welcome back to high school.) Depending on where you realistically expect to end up, different strategies make sense, as Gualtiero points out.

 

If, eg, you finish quickly and have stellar letters from a top program, you may even benefit from not publishing at all–it can say “I’m so freakin fab I don’t need no stinkin publications. You want to read my work, get on my mailing list.” In some circles, publishing fewer (but good) papers is a point of prestige. A long list of publications, even in decent places, is no guarantee of a good research job, though it can certainly help.

 

I agree that for most students, who won’t end up a top depts, that is terrible advice. I wouldn’t dream of advising my own students that way.

But I do suspect that a (perhaps weaker) form of that dictum applies to someone from a top 5 program with a realistic shot at a similarly Leiterrific dept. Not that ignoring it kills your chances–surely not–just that it could well be a minus."

Edited March 6, 2014 by Establishment