Paper or Proceeding?

June 27, 2009 9:44 AM

Academic Resumefilter: The proceedings of a conference I presented a paper to were published in a special issue of a journal (and the papers under went an additional refereeing process). Should I include these under "journal articles" or must these be listed as "conference proceedings"?
posted by pseudonick to education (14 comments total)

If, and only if, it was peer reviewed, then in Journal Articles.
posted by fatllama at 9:52 AM on June 27

I'd say "journal articles."

Whatever you do, proofread your resume.

For instance, underwent is one word, and active tense makes your meaning clearer (here) or when space is limited (resume). Read twice to figure out exactly what the problem was.

Anyway, I'm just one voice. See what others say here.
posted by vincele at 9:53 AM on June 27

Meaning, "I read twice." ha.
posted by vincele at 9:54 AM on June 27

This might be a bit field-dependent, but in the physical sciences the separation point is 'peer-reviewed' vs 'non-peer-reviewed'. I've had conference proceedings published in books and journals that went either way (I suspect in some cases it depends on how active the issue editor is).

The point is that the peer-reviewed stuff has some quality control, so it counts more as an indication that you're a productive scientist, and that your work meets a standard of some kind.

As your paper went through peer review, I'd list it as a publication. Congrats!
posted by overhauser at 9:56 AM on June 27

This is in the physical sciences. The papers were reviewed by the conference's scientific committee on a yes/no basis. The special issue is composed solely of papers from the conference that passed this review but looks normal citation wise (i.e. Vol 84 no 5).

Quoting from an email I got:

"The rule was that the papers should be in their final ready to print form and that the answer would be yes or no without explanations. It is unfortunately impossible to have an other procedure with such a large number of papers. I am sorry for those who were rejected and I remind them that their work is not lost and that they they can still send them to a scientific journal to enter a usual submitting process"
posted by pseudonick at 10:13 AM on June 27

For me, if it's a full length paper, and it gets peer reviewed, even by the scientific committee of the conference, then it goes in "Journal Articles".

If it's an abstract (and for a couple of the conferences I attend that can be up to approx 1000 words) it goes in "Presentations", but I append the citation in my resume, as "Indexed in...."
posted by roofus at 10:18 AM on June 27

I come from the social sciences, but I would say you hit the daily double here. That is, the paper counts both as a publication (by virtue of appearing in a peer-reviewed journal) and also of course as a conference presentation.

Further, this is not especially unusual. It happens often when someone presents a paper at a conference then submits it for publication, or someone is able to publish a paper based on his/her dissertation.
posted by DrGail at 10:48 AM on June 27

Hmm...this is definitely a journal article, but given what you say in your update, it was not exactly peer reviewed in the way that normal publications in that journal presumably would be. I think maybe you should email the journal's editor (not the volume's editor) and ask exactly what the reviewing process constituted and whether it involved the same standards as their regular peer reviewing process. For instance, was there any content to the reviews that you _didn't_ see? Did the journal's editor have any oversight (i.e. make a judgment based on the reviews)? In contrast, the journal that occasionally does this in my field puts such papers through the normal review process with normal editorial oversight.
posted by advil at 10:53 AM on June 27

Also, assuming you are still a student (or even if not), ask your advisor what they think.
posted by advil at 10:54 AM on June 27

Whatever you do, proofread your resume.

For instance, underwent is one word, and active tense makes your meaning clearer (here) or when space is limited (resume). Read twice to figure out exactly what the problem was.

Just to say, academic vitae aren't like business resumes and generally feature no verbs at all except those that appear in the titles of papers and books.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:56 AM on June 27

I would say conference proceedings, personally. It isn't peer-reviewed which I think "journal article" implies in the physical sciences.
posted by kms at 12:47 PM on June 27

I'm a social scientist, not a physical scientist, but isn't the distinction 'blind peer review' versus not? I would say this goes under the heading "other publications" like most book chapters, somewhere in limbo between fully peer reviewed and not.
posted by B-squared at 1:45 PM on June 27

As a biologist, I would put it as a journal article. The only exception would be if somehow the paper had not actually been reviewed in its final form, but it looks like it was.
posted by grouse at 3:27 PM on June 27

Thanks everyone, the consensus seems to lean toward journal article. I'm currently looking for ways to divide the publications section of my resume, but I think this will go in journal articles.

Right now I'm dividing publications up like so:

Publications
- Journal Articles

- Reports

- Conferences
posted by pseudonick at 11:10 AM on June 28