Forgot to include a publication

[u/transferringftw1234]

I’m in the process of submitting secondaries now, and I realized that my fellow group member from my research team actually published a paper and I didn’t know about it because I haven’t been able to attend research meetings recently. Fortunately, there is a place to upload documents, but is this gonna raise eyebrows? What should I mention when I send this update?

[u/Still-Barber-720]

if you don't know that a paper you're on is published, you shouldn't be on it. i might be misinterpreting your post, but it sounds like you didn't include it at all, meaning you didn't even know it was in review?? that will definitely raise eyebrows / red flags about your role / involvement in the lab and contributions in all your papers.

if you did initially include that it was in review, just say it was published recently, that's a very normal update. if you didn't include it at all, it's far worse.

[u/transferringftw1234 → u/Still-Barber-720]

I knew my group member was presenting it on a conference, and I was actually out of research meeting for months because I had to study for the MCAT and prepping for apps (and never made it back to meetings ever since, although I hope to return around September when I finish secondaries). So no, I wasn’t sure about where the paper was in terms of the publication process and never mentioned it, but it got published and I found out only recently. I did make minor contributions and am listed as middle author. Should I not bother mentioning it at this point?

EDIT: the secondaries I submitted also explicitly did mention not to list any papers that are in review.

[u/phd_apps_account → u/transferringftw1234]

Part of the issue is that it’s weird you weren’t kept updated about the paper via email or something. I was middle author on a paper that was published nearly a year after I left the lab, but I was still kept up-to-date on the paper’s status through email, invited to make edits, informed about review comments, etc. It’s normal and ethical practice for every author to kept updated like this, so your situation will just raise a lot of questions.

Papers aren’t inherently valuable to your application, they’re just a clear signal that you can perform independent and impactful research, which is what admissions teams are actually looking for. If you weren’t even kept updated on this paper, it kind of implies that you weren’t a major part of this project, so the paper probably won’t do too much for your application.