When is too soon to list a potential publication on CV?

[Triangular]

Hi all,

The title pretty much sums it up, when do you think is too early to list a potential publication on a CV? I am in the very beginning stages of working with a former professor on an article and we do plan to get it published. However, this is a continuation of research I have been working on for over a year and have already put a great deal of work into, so I want the effort toward publication to be noticed by the admin committee. Does that sound too much like cv padding? I do mention it in my SOP, but it is difficult to resist the temptation to have a bit longer of a CV as a pre-PhD academia hopeful, I'm sure many out there can relate.

 

Thanks for your help!

[TakeruK]

Get advice from people in your field, but this is definitely something you should not add to your CV if you were in my field. For me, I would say the minimum status to list on a CV for an application would be only after you have submitted the paper for peer-review. Preferably, I'd wait until the paper is at least accepted. I think it would be very obviously CV padding to list this as a publication.

I understand that you want to make sure the efforts of the past year are still recognized though. The CV's publications section is just not the right place to do this. Discuss it in  your SOP, that's a good idea. Also, be sure to get a LOR from this former professor and ask him/her/them to write about your efforts in their letter (they should already know to do this though). Having this effort discussed in the LOR is the best way for the committee to learn about your work in the last year.

[fuzzylogician]

Yep, it's too early. In some fields you can list a submitted manuscript and even one that you just have but aren't doing anything with (e.g theses and the like) but you can't list papers you haven't even finished writing a first draft of yet.