Research paper authorship as an undergraduate: how does it happen?

cicero_oratore
Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:43:58 +0000

I know that a big part of undergraduate programs now is research, which is now something that graduate schools expect to see that you have done. Now, I have seen more and more that many undergrads are authors of certain research papers. How do undergraduates get published? Do they just do work in the lab and get put down as like…5th author? Or do they contribute to the actual paper and get like…2nd or 3rd author? I just don’t how it works.