How to get first authorships?

norcalguy
Fri, 17 Aug 2007 23:23:07 +0000

Look, you’re not going to be designing the experiments. You may add little nuances or slight changes but the basic experiment will be designed by your PI. He is the one to secure the funding and he is the one to dictate how that money will be spent. No student does “independent” research in biology. This isn’t the high school science fair where all the materials you’ll need can be found in the kitchen. This is real research and real research cost money.

“Your own project” means that you do ALL the work from start to finish. In my lab, everyone has their own projects and while we try to help each other out (the other post-bac may let me borrow her gel or something and we take turns making common solutions), we are not obligated to.

The PI will get his name on any paper we publish but it’s not ambiguous who’ll be first author.