In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a PhD candidate writes:
I am going on the job market this year, and recently had a paper accepted at a conference that, in practice, publishes all its proceedings in a journal. However, the paper is not yet officially accepted in the journal since it must first go through another round of review, and I doubt the review process will finish before I have to submit my materials. Does anyone know how I should put this on my CV?
I'm glad this reader asked this question, as in my experience these are very important things to get right, but also things that a fairly substantial proportion of job-candidates get wrong. Indeed, based on my own experience and past discussions, it can really irritate (or even offend) people if you list things on your CV incorrectly, particularly if the error makes you look as having a tangible accomplishment that you don't yet have. Errors like these can come across as positively deceptive, which is the last way you want to look to a hiring committee. How then should one list different kinds of things on your CV?
Let's begin with the present case. One reader submitted the following response to the OP:
Do not list it unless it is officially accepted. There is a reason it has go through peer review. But such things do fall through sometimes.
This is exactly right. You should only list a work as 'forthcoming' in a CV when it has passed every round of peer review and has been formally accepted. So, in the OP's case, even if the peer-review process after the conference is mostly pro-forma, they should at most list the paper as 'under review.' The same goes for book manuscripts. I've seen first-time book authors list books as 'forthcoming' merely as a result of having the manuscript under contract. This is misleading, however. Even if a book manuscript is under contract, there is virtually always a 'clearance review' of the final manuscript where the manuscript is sent out for review to a referee or two to make sure that the final manuscript is publishable. As with articles, you should only list a book as 'forthcoming' once it has passed every round of review and you have been informed by the editor that the book has been accepted and will head into production. If you have a book under contract that hasn't been formally accepted, the proper thing to do is to list it as 'under contract.' Finally, there are similar issues with book chapters. Don't list a book chapter as 'forthcoming' simply because an editor of the volume has commissioned you to write something. At that point, you should list the chapter as 'commissioned', and only list it as 'forthcoming' once it has passed every round of peer-review and has been officially accepted.
What other kinds of errors do candidates make on CVs? I'm really curious to hear from readers here, as I expect some examples are slipping my mind. But here's one case: listing articles that are merely under review under the heading 'publications.' My sense is that even if you list the piece as 'under review', this may be a real faux pas. A paper that is merely under review doesn't belong under your 'publications' heading, as that just makes it look like you are trying to pad your CV to give the reader the visual impression that you are more published than you really are. Similarly, here's here's a more borderline case that I think is probably important to avoid: listing book reviews alongside journal articles under 'publications' (especially if you don't clearly indicate which things are reviews and which things aren't). In my view, book reviews really don't belong under the same heading as journal articles. They should be under a distinct heading, 'Book Reviews', so that (again) you don't look like you are trying to pad your publications list. Further, some journals give book reviews titles that make them not look like book reviews. You want to look honest to readers of your CV, and the easiest way to do this is to list articles and reviews under separate headings. Finally, similar considerations go for blog posts and popular articles (i.e. in non-academic magazines, etc.). Don't list them all under 'Publications.' Instead, have separate entries for 'Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications', 'Publications in Popular Press', and so on. In brief, my sense is that honesty looks far better than coming across like you are trying to artificially pad your CV or somehow fool your reader. If you don't have many peer-reviewed journal articles, you need to roll with that and hope the quality of your work and rest of you dossier make you look like a candidate to interview and hire.
But these are just my thoughts. What are yours?
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