Jean -

I haven't had a problem with this at all. In the last 3 years, I've had 6 undergraduates publish first-author papers with me in refereed, non-undergrad journals, including Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Sex Roles (twice), Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, and Journal of Sport Behavior. In my experience, the process works the way it should, with editors and reviewers focusing on the quality of the work and not the authors. Indeed, I suspect that the editors and reviewers never knew (or cared) that the first-authors were undergraduates. I simply sent the cover letter on my university's letterhead and listed myself as the contact person for correspondence. I would hate to think that other Tipsters would deprive their students of this wonderful experience for fear of their paper being rejected, especially if the student is truly deserving of the first authorship. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
Traci


A possible issue in taking the second authorship and
not the first is the likelihood of getting published.
It is very difficult to publish when one has no
credentials. Sometimes, in order to get a paper in a
journal, the instructor may need to become first
author to give the chance to the student to be
published. And really, its not taking away from the
student. The perk is that he or she will be published!

Cheers!

JM


 Do take the second authorship.  Otherwise the
 presentation is not authentic
 as to how it came to be.  The reader would be
 mislead.

 The student is certainly correct that an authored
 paper is the highest
 ranked advantage (after grades and GRE scores)
 according to a couple of
 studies (one of them being mine).  However, it is
 very unusual for an
 undergraduate to be the sole author, so unusual that
 some evaluators are
 suspicious.  It's not that undergrads are not smart
 enough.  They just don't
 have those years of experience of reading scholarly
 articles to get the hang
 of how to write them, let alone the experience of
 designing and conducting
 research.

 In fact, of course, you would deserve the senior
 authorship if  strict
 criteria were being applied.  Yet many undergraduate
 and graduate professors
 give of themselves in this way to enhance their
 students' professional
 development.

 My only (minor) concern is that the student does not
 have the basics of
 research design and analysis behind her, but she can
 learn if you are
 willing to teach her.  This will add to your role.

 Patricia Keith-Spiegel
 Children's Hospital
 Harvard Medical School



 on 1/17/03 11:48 AM, Hetzel, Rod at
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 > TIPSters:
 >
 > I have a question about authorship on papers.  One
 of my students has
 > elected to do a research study for her project in
 my Abnormal Psychology
 > class.  She wants to go on to graduate school in
 psychology and is
 > interested in research, but has never had any
 research experience or
 > even a research methods class (she will take that
 course in the fall).
 > I agreed to help her conduct an independent
 research project because she
 > is a very hard-worker and has tremendous
 potential.  She has selected a
 > general area that is of interest to her, but my
 role will be to mentor
 > her through the process of narrowing down her
 ideas, developing
 > hypotheses, planning methodology, analyzing and
 interpreting data, and
 > writing up the results.  She will take the lead
 role on all of these
 > steps, but I will be there to help provide
 guidance and direction.  My
 > goal in working with her is to provide mentorship
 so that she can learn
 > how to conduct research from the beginning to the
 end.  In this type of
 > situation, should I take second-authorship?  Or
 should the student
 > assume sole authorship?  The APA Ethics Code
 suggests that intellectual
 > > contribution should be the criterion one considers
when making this type
> of decision. I certainly will make an
intellectual contribution, but I
> want this to be her research and not my research.
In some ways, taking
> second authorship helps to teach her about how
authorship decisions are
> made (which is a very important part of graduate
education in research),
> but I also want to be sensitive to the power
differential that exists
> and not abuse my position as her instructor. I
would welcome your
> thoughts as I think through this issue.
>
> Rod > ______________________________________________
> Roderick D. Hetzel, Ph.D.
> Department of Psychology
> LeTourneau University
> Post Office Box 7001
> 2100 South Mobberly Avenue
> Longview, Texas 75607-7001
>
> Office: Education Center 218
> Phone: 903-233-3893
> Fax: 903-233-3851
> Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Homepage: http://www.letu.edu/people/rodhetzel
>
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=====
Jean-Marc Perreault
Arts & Sciences
Yukon College
Whitehorse, Yukon
867-668-8867

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               ( o o )
-------------o00-(_)-00o------------------

Traci A. Giuliano
Associate Professor of Psychology
Southwestern University
Georgetown, TX  78627
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(512) 863-1596;fax (512) 863-1846
 http://www.southwestern.edu/~giuliant

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