Getting Published in a Science Journal

[Anonymous]

Are you local? The NIH has a summer internship program for students 17 and up. Too late for this summer, but she could apply for next year.

https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/sip

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs to be working on the sort of research (with the right sort of mentor in academic science) that could possibly lead to her becoming a Regeneron finalist. Those are the kids who publish in scientific journals before graduating from high school. Some high schools specialize in preparing students for this and have formal programs to help them find mentors, etc.

I also know some students who "published" in academic journals before graduating from high school because they have parents or other relatives who research and publish regularly, and they added their kid as an "author". One would hope that college admissions officers could see right through, say, the dermatologist's child publishing an article in a dermatology journal. But unfortunately, the last kid I know who did this got into Harvard.

Parents teach their children all manner of skills. The goals should not be to not have kids learning about science form their scientist parents - it should be to increase research programming curriculum so that students without PHD relatives, can also learn these skills if thy are interested.

[Anonymous]

She could try submitting articles to those magazines you get your kids.

[Anonymous]

There are pay-to-publish factories in N VA. While I think these are unethical, they do exist.

Basically you pay someone big $$ for a software program and a research idea, and work under their supervision to run the program to generate data. Then you write a paper with the supervisor, and then send it to publish in a for-profit journal, often an e-journal.

Recently many for-profit journals have popped up. These are peer-reviewed, and charge a big fee to publish your results. Very few submissions are rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are pay-to-publish factories in N VA. While I think these are unethical, they do exist.

Basically you pay someone big $$ for a software program and a research idea, and work under their supervision to run the program to generate data. Then you write a paper with the supervisor, and then send it to publish in a for-profit journal, often an e-journal.

Recently many for-profit journals have popped up. These are peer-reviewed, and charge a big fee to publish your results. Very few submissions are rejected.

Not only unethical, but a joke. No one takes any of these pubs seriously, and thinks less of people who do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, chances are she's been reading on line that this is the only way she can get into her dream school. It just isn't true. It's a nice goal to have, but super rare and probably not realistic.

+1. This is likely the core issue. There are all sorts of myths floating out there among teenagers about high school students doing research, publishing, internships, starting a business, etc., and they're way off the mark. They're uncommon and unnecessary for selective college admission, period.

[Anonymous]

The follow-up question here (now that you known it’s unrealistic and not necessary at this stage) is why does she want to do this/what appeals to her about this and then what can she do now to satisfy whatever urge is motivating her or to put her on/help her move forward along the path she wants to be on.

She could be writing, developing coding skills, reading articles, investigating fieldwork or lab experiences for next year, etc.

Channel that energy — don’t just deflate her trial balloon!

[Anonymous]

She should focus on doing research with a professor in a university and work hard. If she produces good results, the work will be published. The goal should not be to publish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She should focus on doing research with a professor in a university and work hard. If she produces good results, the work will be published. The goal should not be to publish.

I hate to say this, but (a) that’s not true for scientists generally and (b) it’s a really counter-productive approach for academics regardless of field.
“Learn how to do research first — and work hard to get good at it.” is age- and stage-appropriate advice that doesn’t give her misinformation she’ll have to unlearn later is she wants to be successful as a scientist or an academic.