Rising expectations: Natural resources graduate student authorship of publications

Publication patterns of natural resources graduate students from nine U.S. universities were compared across seven decades in an effort to assist graduate students and faculty members in setting realistic expectations for publication. Graduate students steadily increased their level of publication in peer‐reviewed journals across the study period. In the 1950s, 0% of doctoral students published their research and by the 2000s, 73% of doctoral students published their research. There was also an increasing temporal trend in the number of co‐authors on graduate student publications. In the 1960s, 50% of graduate student publications had two co‐authors and in the 2000s, 28% of graduate‐student publications had two authors; 29% had three authors; 21% had four authors; 13% had five authors; and 10% had six or more authors. Publications authored by doctoral students received significantly more citations (average of 23.2 citations per publication) than those publications authored by master's students (average of 17.1 citations per publication). As expectations for graduate student publication and ability to work on larger research teams rise, it is important that universities and faculty advisors provide resources and training to allow graduate students to successfully reach these new expectations.