Successful publications bring attention to scholars and their sponsoring institutions, which can facilitate continued funding and an individual's progress through a chosen field. "Frequent publication is one of the few methods at scholars' disposal to demonstrate academic talent. Publish or perish" is a phrase coined to describe the pressure in academia in the United States to rapidly and continually publish academic work to sustain or further one's career. The phrase caught on and appeared often afterwards in publications associated with academics. It is situation dependent, and it certainly does not apply for all cases.Publish or Perish was a phrase first coined in a book called Archibald Cary Coolidge: Life and Letters, by Harold Jefferson Coolidge, in 1932. Even then, having a big paper doesn’t mean everything will be rosy after that, it does mean there needs to be some momentum and continuity to showcase your ability to still publish like that.Īll things considered, I disagree with the whole ‘Publish or perish’ statement. Publishing well is a “subjective” measure. Current PhD graduates seem to want to join labs that publish well. Funding comes in, students get attracted, you have more people to select from as staffs as more people apply. Publishing in high impact factor journals may be fruitful as it gives you the fame and fortune. So, it’s probably publish and perish in some cases. Some places in the world require students to have a paper prior to graduation. In other cases, publishing for a PhD student is mandatory. I also know people who work for years, see the end of their PhD with a publication, still hated it and left science, perishing on their own accord. During that time, I had heaps of laboratory administrative work, I had to teach undergraduates, I was in the midst of revisions, I lost time for exercise and gained like 5 kg (I was appalled). After my 1st first author publication, I was wrecked. ![]() On the way to a publication, I’d say it’s also about how you get there. Ironically, I know many academic positions in the world that can be quite realistic, and getting a publication certainly makes you a strong candidate, but I will tell you, I got rejected for 2 research assistant jobs despite having 3 first-author publications. Your aim after your PhD is to find a job and get employed, so start talking to people and find out what you need to get a job. Write a good dissertation and get a good recommendation. I know one person who got 12 awards, attended 6 overseas conferences in a year, didn’t get any papers out. Find ways to boost your CV by attending conferences and aim for awards and prizes. Demonstrate your ability to at least work with others by getting your name on someone else’s paper for example. Yes, aim for a publication best you can, but rest assured you will not perish. I can tell you that publishing is not everything. Now I can’t quite comment on other career stages except for a PhD student. Publish when everyone else has already scooped you, well, you might not perish but you’d suffer some painful hits. Publish something that no one cares about, sadly you might still perish. Aim for low tier journals, you’re still likely to perish in some places. Where you publish, what you publish and when you publish is becoming more important now. A publication does not guarantee your survival, so don’t hang onto it so tightly, it’s not the only thing that matters. An academic transcript is like a publication, and you will hear big companies like Deloitte and PwC saying they look at people beyond their grades. Imagine graduating with a degree in your undergraduate and you go out to the world. A publication says nothing about your personality, how you operate in research and what your passion is about. And this is where you can publish, yet still perish. Here is what a publication cannot tell you. You hang on to that project until the moment you find yourself having that eureka moment when you can Google yourself, now isn’t that great? Papers are hard evidence you can do work, you can produce data, you are able to work independently. So the concept of publish or perish is in a way similar. ![]() Western blots and microscopy are all about bit depths and dynamic range. ![]() But, science and life aren’t quite like that. I like black and white things, clear and simple, definitive, all or nothing. And I’m still figuring out what this means. When I first heard ‘Publish or perish’ I thought that was pretty harsh.
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