Succeeding Honestly

When people talk about academic dishonesty they are usually referring to people plagiarizing or falsifying data, or other such horrible practices. Everyone agrees that those things are horrible and unethical. But somehow more minor forms of dishonesty seem to be acceptable to a lot of otherwise ethical people. What am I talking about here? Being "creative" with one's CV.

Example #1: You have drafted a manuscript and sent it to your co-author for their comments. It will probably be submitted in a few weeks, but your scholarship application is due tomorrow. You decide to list the manuscript as submitted since you're sure it will be submitted by the time your application is evaluated. 

Example #2: You have resubmitted a manuscript that only required minor revisions and it is very likely that the paper will be accepted. You still haven't heard back from the editor and your grant application is due, so you decide to list it on your CV as 'in press' since you're sure it will be accepted soon. 

Example #3: Your supervisor was awarded a grant that would provide them with money to pay postdoctoral researchers (like this NRSA-Institutional, for example).  They hire you and use that funding to pay your salary. You decide to list it on your CV under your 'Awards' section to give the impression that you have be successful at getting grants even though the money wasn't actually awarded to you.  

Example #4: You have been unsuccessful on the job market the past 3 years and you really need to get a faculty position, so you decide to jazz up your applications. Some people in your department are performing really cutting-edge research that you think would make you more competitive for jobs, so you spend one afternoon observing them while they work. You then claim to have expertise in this new technique in your job applications. 

Example #5: You have very little teaching experience, having only worked as a teaching assistant a few times as a grad student. You decide to be very vague about the title of your position on your CV so that it could be construed as if you were the instructor rather than the TA. 

I have many more examples that I could cite, and these are just the ones I know about. When you don't know someone it's very difficult to judge how honest they are being with their CVs. Coupled with the rampant CV padding that goes on (see my previous rant about this here), CVs are becoming a decreasingly useful way of assessing an academic's quality. 

I think the most depressing statement I have ever heard was to the effect of, "Everyone else is tweaking their CVs like this, so if you want to be competitive you need to do the same thing." NO. THAT IS STUPID. This isn't the cold war, we're not in an arms race for academic superiority. Perhaps I am too much of an idealist, but I insist upon succeeding honestly and will demand that my students do as well. And how great will it feel to beat out all those other people for a job, funding, etc. knowing that you really earned it? Pretty f---ing great.