Wiff with With
I've just finished doing my annual "how to put your CV together" workshop and I decided to take a more firm stand against something that I absolutely hate on CVs. After receiving yet another with this mistake on it today, I've decided to go public with my objection: Please do not use the "with" publication listing. What I mean is instead of this:
McVeigh, Rory, Daniel J. Myers, and David Sikkink. 2004. "Corn, Klansmen, and Coolidge: Structure and Framing in Social Movements." Social Forces 83(2): 653-690.Some people (in this case, the hypothetical me) are tempted to write something like this:
2004. "Corn, Klansmen, and Coolidge: Structure and Framing in Social Movements." Social Forces 83(2): 653-690. (with Rory McVeigh and David Sikkink).This, in my humble opinion,* is a huge mistake. First of all, I cannot fathom the reason for doing it in the first place. The best answer I've received when I ask people who have done it is some kind of misguided sense of humility: "Writing your own name over and over again? Isn't that a little ego maniacal?" Well, think I, no! This is YOUR CV after all.
Even more, there are good reason to not do it. The biggest is that by doing so, one obscures the order of the authors! In the second example above, you cannot tell whether I was first, second, or third author on that paper. This is important information, because in our field, the person listed first is thought to be the primary driver behind the project and is supposed to have done the most work on it. (Some other fields reverse the order, but the ordering is still meaningful and important information.) If one obscures the author order, one or two things typically happen.
First, the reader of the CV has to make some kind of judgment about author order, and believe me, when you are sitting there with a stack of 200+ files to read through, you aren't likely to run to your computer to re-do someones CV the way they should have done it in the first place. So, instead, the reader has to make a conservative assumption and assume that you were the LAST author on every single piece! Unless you ARE last on everything, that is probably not an assumption you want your potential employer to make!
But even if you WERE last on everything, you still wouldn't want to do this. Why? Because the reader would jump to the idea that you are trying to cover up the author order. The last thing anyone wants to do with their CV is make the reader think the writer is trying to pull the wool over the reader's eyes. If the reader starts thinking that about one thing, then everything on the CV becomes suspect, and the candidacy, fellowship, grant, whatever, is doomed.
Stick with the unvarnished truth--just the facts, ma'am. You'll be a lot better off in the end.
___________
* And by "humble opinion," I mean the opinion of someone who has served on more search, grant selection, and leave review committees than you can shake a stick at.** In fact I've probably review several thousand CVs in my time on this planet, which is, some of the time, an actually humbling experience.
** What in the blue blazes*** does that saying mean?
*** What in Sam Hill**** is the origin of that one?
**** etc.
Categories:
Academic Life,
Language
5 comments:
i always thought the 'with' way was odd too, especially if it's a published or near published article. but what about work in progress where you haven't decided who's the primary author yet. i tend to think that it's okay to list is as a "with". what's your opinion?
It's less consequential in that situation, but the same problems are there, even if smaller in degree. And you are violating another of my pro-sem rules--figure out authorship order early! If you don't, confusion, anger, and exploitation are going to b common outcomes. You can always change it later, but having at least a tentative deal protects everyone and allows one to point out when the deal has been violated and therefore a change in the order is required.
As someone who has reviewed about a zillion applications--this is also one of my pet peeves. I think Dan is being generous when talking about motive. I don't think I have ever seen someone use this "with" approach if he/she is, in fact, the first author. The truth will eventually come out. For example, if you get an interview it will be embarrassing when faculty members start taking a closer look at your actual record.
When you write "Jones, Bob with Simon Smurf"---it does imply that Simon "provided assistance" or played a secondary role.
Rory
As someone in an APA-style field, I have never seen anyone use a style other than the one decreed by the style handbook. Perhaps we are just better disciplined?
And I am with Dan on figuring out authorship early! It is hard work!
Conversely, in the humanities there is almost no concern about/awareness of author order, because 99% of publications are single-authored. So on the rare occasions that there is another author, I do use "with," because if it's the only co-authored thing in the list, the repetition of my name does look really awful, and redundant, because duh, it's my c.v., of COURSE the stuff is by me!
One of the only times I need to use the "with" thing is to indicate people I've organized conference sessions with, and order doesn't matter here, either. (And I put "with" first, so an entry would be "(with Eminent Scholar) 'Session Title,' Big Medieval Conference, Exciting Midwestern City, date.")
Of course, in fields where authorship order matters, you're absolutely right, "with" is a problem.
Post a Comment