Tips from the Writing Center: Multiple authors

In the NEOMED Writing Center, as well as in the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Graduate Studies, the question is asked frequently about oral and poster presentations in relation to the curriculum vitae (CV), especially when there are many authors on a single study.

Think about it this way: oral and poster presentations are peer-reviewed scholarly activities. To be accepted to present at a conference or other academic forum, one must create an abstract or presentation proposal to a group of peers to be reviewed. For many national conferences, the acceptance rate can be less than 25%. For the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), that rate is closer to 14%. For every 1,000 abstracts submitted, 140 are accepted. This is an important part of academic scholarship.

What tends to happen is there are more authors on a project than actual presenters. In the case of a poster presentation, there may be seven authors, but only one presenter due to conference limitations, funding or travel. Therefore, one presenter can place on their CV that they did a poster presentation at AAMC, but what about the other six authors whose labor was peer-reviewed and accepted to the conference?

This is where a section on the CV can be found titled Abstracts. Abstracts are often oral or poster proposals for an academic or professional conference that are peer-reviewed and accepted, but someone else went to the conference, got dressed in their finest professional attire, and stood in a room of peers and preceptors presenting the group’s research and discussions. Only one person can list this as a presentation, but the other six can list it as an accepted abstract/proposal.