C.V. Question - Non-academic Publications

[Dr. Old Bill]

So I'm updating my woefully outdated C.V., and I'm starting to wonder about whether I should continue to include my non-academic publications. In my pre-academic life, I was very involved in poetry, and ended up with scores of poems in various journals...many of which are highly regarded journals run by universities or academics etc. Still, as my academic focus has drifted away from poetry, is the inclusion of a section of poetry publications a bit irrelevant at this point, or does it demonstrate that I have at least been active in publication cycles etc.? In other words, what does the inclusion of a bunch of poetry publications on an academic C.V. say to an admissions committee?

On a slightly unrelated note, I would love to get a sense of what Ph.D. applicants generally put on their C.V.s. There are many examples available through basic Googling, but the more input, the better. For instance, I was on the organizing committee for the yearly English conference, was appointed to the dean's advisory board etc., but I'm not sure how to list things like that without it looking very junior high...

Edited July 20, 2016 by Wyatt's Terps

[kurayamino]

Hey WT,

So, I can't speak to the non-academic publications, but I did have some poetry prizes from undergrad that I included in my "Awards/Honors/Grants" section. My advisors suggested I leave them in because it indicated that I was committed to different areas of the humanities, was able to have academic and other achievements simultaneously, and only took up two lines of space.

As for the serving on the advisory board, etc.. I ended up leaving stuff like that off my CV because it didn't add much to my CV and I needed to keep it to one page. In the end I treated my CV as a bullet list of things I didn't want to cover in my SOP, but felt like would round out my abilities as a potential PhD candidate. Since you're getting your MA now and stuff like organizing and advising are service oriented, I think your teaching skills would be more useful in that space.

Hope that helps a little! I'm sure there are people on here who will have more to add about non-academic publishing.

[Warelin]

2 hours ago, kurayamino said:

As for the serving on the advisory board, etc.. I ended up leaving stuff like that off my CV because it didn't add much to my CV and I needed to keep it to one page. In the end I treated my CV as a bullet list of things I didn't want to cover in my SOP, but felt like would round out my abilities as a potential PhD candidate. Since you're getting your MA now and stuff like organizing and advising are service oriented, I think your teaching skills would be more useful in that space.

 

Is it recommended that the CV be kept to one page or can it be longer?

[rising_star]

The CV will definitely be longer than one page as your academic career builds. Take a look at the CVs of current grad students and junior faculty online and you'll see that many are two or more pages.

[kurayamino]

9 hours ago, rising_star said:

The CV will definitely be longer than one page as your academic career builds. Take a look at the CVs of current grad students and junior faculty online and you'll see that many are two or more pages.

Oh yeah, definitely! I came straight out of a BA though and it was thought that since I only had about 1 page and 1/4 of material to use that it would look better if it were 1 page.

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, kurayamino said:

Oh yeah, definitely! I came straight out of a BA though and it was thought that since I only had about 1 page and 1/4 of material to use that it would look better if it were 1 page.

You may choose to format it to fit on one page for aesthetic and similar reasons, but in general there is no rule that the CV has to be just one or two pages. Many will be much longer, especially as you gain more experience. So the goal is not to "pad" it to look longer or more substantial than it is (that is easily detectable and very much not appreciated), but if you do have content that exceeds one page (or two pages, or any other fixed number), that is not a problem. You should make choices that maximize the utility of the CV for the relevant current purpose (e.g. content A maybe be more relevant for purpose X than purpose Y, so you may move it to the end of the CV or leave it out altogether; you might combine "presentations" and "publications" early on if you don't have enough entries in each category separately for them to look substantial; you may not separate peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed publications early on; or you may not separate posters from talks; it really depends, and unless there is a set and agreed upon way of doing things in your field, likely many choices will be acceptable, as long as you are not trying to deceive anyone and are clear about the content).

[Dr. Old Bill]

While I can definitely appreciate the importance of the page-length discussion, does anyone have any more input or insight on my original question? 

[jrockford27]

WT: I have no non-academic publications so I've never been in this situation, but thinking about basic CV logic I have some thoughts.  Our DGS tells us to use common sense but err on the side of overreporting.  I don't think it can hurt you as long as the usual stuff is at the top where it belongs.  I have some unusual non-academic professional experience and I continue to include it in my CV, albeit at the bottom, because I think it fleshes out my background a bit.  Ultimately, do you think that in some way these publications are important to your identity, either as a scholar or a person?

Edited July 21, 2016 by jrockford27

[Dr. Old Bill]

6 minutes ago, jrockford27 said:

WT: I have no non-academic publications so I've never been in this situation, but thinking about basic CV logic I have some thoughts.  Our DGS tells us to use common sense but err on the side of overreporting.  I don't think it can hurt you as long as the usual stuff is at the top where it belongs.  I have some unusual non-academic professional experience and I continue to include it in my CV, albeit at the bottom, because I think it fleshes out my background a bit.  Ultimately, do you think that in some way these publications are important to your identity, either as a scholar or a person?

Thanks!

Yes, while I don't dabble much in writing poetry anymore, I think that having the publications on there does a few things: it shows that I was active in writing-related activities prior to entering academia, it shows that I am familiar with the publication process (and the inherent rejection), and it shows that many people -- scholars included -- have found my work worth publishing. There's not a heck of a lot of overlap between creative writing and academic writing, but to me I think having it on my C.V. highlights a part of me. Of course, that's the problem -- I'm thinking from my perspective, and I don't really know whether my perspective is correct or not. I suspect a case can be made for keeping my creative writing publications on OR off the C.V...

[erosanddust]

Perhaps one way to strike a middle path would be to reference those publications without listing each each one. For instance, I've seen people cite their academic publications bibliographically, and then include a note saying something like "Multiple poetry publications in journals such as Awesome Journal X, Awesome Journal Y, and Awesome Journal Z." 

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on the inclusion of things like committee memberships on the CV. I've gotten involved in a lot of different groups and leadership roles in my Department, but I don't want to look like I'm just using them as padding.

[WildeThing]

If it's not academic in scope, I would generally say that it shouldn't be in the academic CV. However, creative writing for an English student is relevant, I think. so I would include at the end under 'miscellaneous' or something. I have seen several PhD students display their creative writing publications on their pages.

I think working on organizing committees is important and I've seen it on plenty of CVs. Definitely in, I would say.

[Tybalt]

My suggestion would be to just divide the publications by type.  Add a sub-heading to your publications section for "Literary publications" and list them there.  Programs that don't care will likely skip right over it, but some programs (and by programs, I mean "random professor on the search committee") could view that favorably.  In other words, I can't see many situations where it would hurt you, and there might be a case or three where it will help you stand out.

[WildeThing]

If I may tack on my own doubt about CV:

When I finished my MA I was asked by the program directors to give a short speech at the graduation ceremony (along with another student). I'm not sure how graduation ceremonies work in the US but is this something that is considered an accomplishment? If so, is it something you would list on your CV, and how?