Feeling depressed about publications

[eron]

So... I'm a couple years into my PhD program and have no first-author paper publications. This is while I'm looking at other people (some who entered the same year) and whom are already getting first-author pubs. Even other people in my lab. This is feels massively disappointing. I hate feeling like I'm behind others, or I'm somehow inferior.

 

Does anyone else have experience with this? I want to submit papers to some places, but the deadlines are not in the near future. Moreover, my goals feel distant and maybe not even accomplishable. There is so much sweat, creativity and suffering that needs to occur before those even become remotely possible. I just feel incredibly down when I compare myself to other students. I feel like I should be working as hard as them, but that simply isn't how I work.

 

Any suggestions? Yes, I'm ready to work. But at the same time I get deflated everytime I think of where I'm at.

[geographyrocks]

The best advice that I've read is your dissertation should be made up of at least 3 publishable papers. Why aren't you publishing? Do you have things ready to be published? Can you get things ready to be published?

[GeoDUDE!]

Sometimes novel work takes longer to resolve: In my 2 years masters thesis I didn't have novel results until March, 1 month before I was supposed to defend, and while it took me even longer to defend that I wanted (june), we are submitting the paper to the highest impact journal.  

 

You should talk to your advisor, does he/she know that you desire to publish the work you already have? I'm sure your advisor wants to publish when you can, but perhaps there is a non discussed plan. Sometimes if your goals are lofty, say Nature or Science, it might take longer to prepare your argument.

 

All researchers publish differently, just because a few of your peers are publishing now does not mean that you should be. Research isn't like class, where there are grades. There are interesting results, and there aren't, and a good deal of luck comes into interesting results. Like I said before, we were expecting ok-modest results when I started my thesis but were presently surprised at the very very end. Whose to say this isn't the path you are on?

 

Graduate school is as an emotional test as an intellectual one: the rigors of research is filled with failure, even for brilliant ones.  This is often hard for graduate students because in general they have succeeded where others havent for so long. 

Edited July 15, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[TakeruK]

This is my 4th year of grad school (2 years of MSc and then now 2nd year of my PhD) and I have no first author publications. So you are not alone! One of my drafts will be submitted soon though, but I will still be the last one in my cohort to have a first author paper. Do you have any work that is approaching publication level? 

 

As GeoDUDE! said, grad school is an emotional test and I try my best to not compare myself to others in my school. I know that it's pretty normal for a PhD student in my field to not publish a first author paper until their 3rd or 4th year, so I'm basically on track with the nation, even though I might be "behind" my classmates. Oh well. Don't let it get to you! In the end, most PhDs publish 3 ish papers by the time they graduate and I don't think it really matters much when you do it, as long as you get a few in by the time you're done!

[eron]

Thanks a lot you guys. I know intuitively it's terrible to compare yourself to others, I just really can't help it sometimes. It's good to know that I'm not completely alone. I'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself and start working. I know it's what I have to do.

[Eigen]

I'm just wrapping up my 5th year, and have only two. Both of which are reviews- peer reviewed, but still.

But looking at my field, it's a slow start and ramps up fast. I've hopefully got two I can try to push out this Fall, and a bunch of second authors.

Try hard not to compare yourself. Are you doing good work? Progressing?

Some projects just throw you roadblock after roadblock.

[fuzzylogician]

This is highly field-dependent. In my field, most students graduate with 0-1 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and a few conference proceedings papers. Things just take longer than in some of the natural science fields. The goal is usually to have publications out of one's dissertation (but those only come out after the dissertation is done and defended, not as a precondition to graduating). 

 

That said, comparing yourself to others is dangerous and usually highly counter-productive. I know it's tempting, but it's an activity you just can't win at. There is always (and I do mean ALWAYS) someone faster than you, better than you, with more publications than you, who presents are more conferences than you, gets a better job than you, has better teaching evaluations than you, seems to have all of the above, etc. This never ends. I've learned to stop comparing myself to others except to make sure that I am doing roughly what I am supposed to be doing at this stage in my career, which btw involves looking not only at the fastest rising superstar in my field but at more "average" people who are doing well. I try and consult with my mentors on a regular basis, and if I think there is something that I should be doing that I'm not, I just ask about it. I am the one person who cares about my own self-interests more than anyone else in my life, however well-meaning they may be. So if there is something I think is wrong or missing, I ask about it and try and fix the problem.

 

So, OP, have you tried to bring this up with your advisor? Are there things that could be ready for submission soon? Often, your advisor will be busy and juggling lots of balls in the air. If something is going to happen, it's up to the student to be the main person responsible for pushing things along. Is there any project that you can take the initiative on and try to get into a publishable mode? Coordinate with your advisor before taking too many steps, but I think it's totally fair to say you think project X is advanced enough (or soon will be) to get a paper out of it, and come up with a plan for writing that paper or doing whatever remaining experiments need to happen first. To repeat my point one last time, things will happen faster--and more of them will happen--if you take the initiative and push things along. Getting a publication is a slow process and you will need to stay determined and be the one who is on top of things. If you do that, you'll get more out of your education than if you wait for your advisor to come to you and suggest you write a paper together. 

[Tall Chai Latte]

I also think it's highly field dependent. In my department, students usually lay dormant in the publication front until right before they defend, then all of a sudden they have 2-3 first author publications to be wrapped up. Along the way, some would occasionally have some middle author papers, but if there's none that's common too. Don't compare yourself to others! I know it sounds cliche and hard to avoid, but you gotta keep yourself happy!

Im starting my fifth year in September, and I have zero first author pub as of now too. See, you are not the only one!

[St Andrews Lynx]

As well as being field dependent, time to 1st first author publication is also sub-field and (most importantly) project dependent. If you're continuing on from (successful) preliminary work that another student started, it will be quicker to publish than starting a project from scratch (when your PI only has a hunch it will work). 

 

Getting published can often hinge more on your relationship with the PI than the quality of your work. There are a lot of academics out there who are perfectionists or procrastinators - manuscript drafts tend to sit on a pile at their desk for months or years - and egging your PI into submitting your paper is 80% of the battle. 

 

If your goals seem to long-term and far away to inspire you, consider coming up with some smaller, quicker ones. Perhaps a chunk of your preliminary results could be presented at a conference soon? Maybe if you wrote up a project summary report you'd see that actually you have done more work than you thought you had. 

[jlr1228]

I agree with the general theme that it is field dependent. And as hard as it is to not compare yourself to others in your department, it never really does much good in the long run. I'm not sure if you have an advisor or mentor that you work closely with (also program dependent) but if you do, talk to him or her about your concerns and set some tangible goals to get those pubs out. I have also heard from a lot of people about keeping a "writing diary" so you can actually see how much writing you are accomplishing each day. Also find the time of day that you are most productive for writing and block that time out!