Guiding Undergraduates Through the Process of First Authorship

Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs: Research and Publishing From the Undergraduate Perspective

“…Our research lab consisted of five undergraduate research assistants working with one faculty research advisor. For best practices on engaging undergraduates in publishable research from her perspective as an instructor, see Giuliano (2019a,b). Research assistants were invited by our advisor to collaborate in her lab based on our performance in previous classes (e.g., a year-long research methods course that required complete APA paper write-ups on four projects: one experimental replication plus original observational, correlational, and 2 × 2 experimental projects).…”

“…By doing so, we were able to strengthen our own papers by incorporating what other group members had explained more clearly and effectively. On a more general note, our lab instructor stressed meticulousness and diligence in our writing (see Giuliano, 2019a,b). Thus, we always allotted more time to work on our paper than we thought was necessary to allow sufficient time for careful writing, rewriting, and proofreading of our papers.…”

The “Writing Spiral”: A Practical Tool for Teaching Undergraduates to Write Publication-Quality Manuscripts

“…Although some might think my approach is too heavy-handed (certainly reasonable people can disagree about the best strategy for teaching writing), my experience has shown that the use of the writing spiral dramatically increases students' writing skills and has led to many co-authored ( n = 30 papers involving a total of 73 undergraduates)—and especially first-authored ( n = 25)—student publications (see Giuliano, 2019). Consistent with Fallahi et al (2006), who concluded that student-friendly models of teaching basic writing skills are well-worth the time and effort, students report that the writing spiral is a convenient tool that helps them become stronger writers overall (in both psychology and non-psychology courses, and even in graduate school and beyond).…”

“…One of the perceived barriers to publishing with undergraduates (especially with undergraduates as first author; see Giuliano, 2019) is the concern that students lack the requisite writing skills to make a significant contribution. For example, several authors in a recent special issue devoted to publishing with undergraduates (see “Engaging Undergraduates in Publishable Research: Best Practices,” Frontiers in Psychology ) discuss this challenge (e.g., McKelvie and Standing, 2018; Detweiler-Bedell and Detweiler-Bedell, 2019; Reavis and Thomas, 2019; Scisco et al, 2019).…”

High impact: Examining predictors of faculty-undergraduate coauthored publication and presentation in psychology

“…Unfortunately, despite extensive documentation of the benefits of faculty-undergraduate research collaboration [ 10 , Chapter 3], and some studies examining predictors of mentoring undergraduates in research [ 6 , 10 ], relatively little is known about the outcomes of such collaborations nor the factors that facilitate successful outcomes. Due to the increasing interest and enthusiasm for publishing with undergraduates in psychology (e.g., [ 11 ]), and because the few empirical studies of undergraduate publication have thus far only focused on biomedical sciences [ 12 – 14 ], we sought to examine the frequency and predictors of two research outcomes in psychology: faculty-undergraduate coauthored publication in peer-reviewed journals and faculty-undergraduate coauthored conference presentations.…”