CV

[LostGrad]

Hi,

My question is on etiquette regarding listing presentations on the CV. Do you only list the presentations you have personally made of your work? Or do you also list presentations made by co-authors about your shared work (but mark who gave the actual talk)? For example, I have submitted multiple co-authored papers to ASA but in several of those cases I have not presented them. Do I leave those off my CV?

Thanks!

[go for it]

I think the spirit of presentation is that you personally gave them. But I have known others to do this, so it might not be as negatively regarded as I do.

[list all]

I list all presentations on my CV, even those given by a co-author. This is my logic: We submit the paper together and prepare the presentation together. The delivery of the actual talk is the least difficult part -- both of us should get credit.

[Padding]

It's called CV padding and most SCs will frown upon this sort of thing.

[disagree]

I don't think so. My advisor also lists all talks. If your name is on the program of the conference, it is your talk regardless of who delivers it.

[SC member]

I don't think I've ever seen a CV where the applicant listed "only" those talks he/she presented- that would be like only listing presentations where you were the first author.

As long as your name is on the program, you should list the presentation on the CV.

[SC member]

Sorry, my above post was supposed to read "that would be like only listing publications where you were the first author."

[LostGrad]

Thanks so much for your responses! It seems like there is variation in opinions, so either way would be okay...

[Been around]

If somebody in your group of authors presented the paper at the conference, put it on your CV. I might be stating the obvious, but the real advice is to get papers published. Prenting at conferences is not nearly as impressive as some pubs in strong peer-reviewed journals.

[Deleted]

If you are applying to grad school then note that you presented the paper. If you are a grad student then just list the presentations and the co-authors. I recommend the same for faculty and only note where you have grad/undergad students present, as this is recognition of working with students and socializing them into the scientific community.

To be honest, as a faculty/search committee member I wouldn’t even notice whether you have given a conference presentation(s) or not in a tenure-track job application. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to present your work and be involved in the larger scientific community but I put no weight into your listed presentations. As the previous poster notes, I’m interested in whether you have published (among other things of course). I might consider paper presentations if you were applying to a graduate program (as one indicator of professional experience and socialization) but not for a tt-job.

For what it’s worth, for those who pad their pub/grant info, as well as mask the authorship order, I toss your application;)

[True]

I agree about the padding from "doh" in his or her last comment. I was on a search committee last year and we tossed someone who was highly qualified for the position for claiming first authorship on a JHSB paper where they were actually listed as the second author. The actual paper gave no indication of equal authorship or corrections about authorship order. Listing presentations of your work that you yourself did not present is one thing (I personally don't do it), but misrepresenting authorship, grants, or other such things is bad. Sociology may feel like a big discipline, but you never know who knows each other and how these things can come back to bite you.

[quick indicators for authors?]

hello!
what are the easiest ways to indicate order of authorship? I've seen asteriks but is there a universally agreed upon symbol use for first, second, etc.)? What if a paper is co-constructed and there is no first author? Footnote it or no note? What have you all done in the past to quickly signal authorship and order?

Oh - and one more question in this same thought process, if you have co-authored a jointly collaborated paper and notice that your co-author did not recognize that there was no first or second author would you say something to them?

[Do not understand]

I don't know if I follow your question. Usually the first author comes first. Then the second author comes second. You only use asterisks (or some other symbol) for equal co-authorship because you can't actually have two people in exactly the same spot on a list. Or were you asking something else?

[quick indicators v.2]

Sorry, that was indeed a very confusing question. So you tend to put authors in order of contribution? That makes the most sense to me.
- But in the case of equal authorship you would place the asterisk where?
- And, if you have equal authorship and notice that your co-author did not recognize that fact, would you say something to them or what would you do?

[well...]

I'm wondering if "quick indicators" is not in Sociology. In other disciplines, people are not always listed in order of contribution. Lead author/head of the lab being listed last for instance in at least some physical sciences as far as I am aware. 

If that is the case, best to ask a mentor in your field. 

As for equal authorship, I don't think there is any universal way of indicating that. I would just add a parenthetical comment after the paper stating: (authorship shared equally).

Or something like that.  

Presumably your co-author is not highlighting equal authorship because they were listed first, alphabetically, or whatever? What to do would depend on the situation. If it is a friend, advisor, more distant collaborator you just met at a conference. You could just let it go. Of course, when you publish an equally authored paper you would say that in the acknowledgments or somewhere whatever the format of the journal allows. What matters most is that you can legitimately communicate to those evaluating you for job, T&P, whatever, that your contribution was significant. You certainly want to make sure issues of author order are hashed clearly communicated between one another before publication. If someone is then not highlighting that on their CV, it's not nice, but shouldn't affect you that much.