A complete academic CV, properly ordered
An academic CV documents an entire scholarly record — degrees, appointments, publications, funding, teaching, and service — in strict reverse-chronological order. Assembling and formatting all of that by hand is tedious, so this builder turns structured inputs into a clean, consistent text CV ready to refine.
How an academic CV differs from a resume
An academic CV is not a shorter version of a resume with the same information — it is a different document with different conventions and a different audience. While a resume is typically one to two pages and ruthlessly selective, a CV is comprehensive: every peer-reviewed paper, every grant attempted and awarded, every course taught, and every committee served on belongs there, regardless of how long it runs. A senior researcher’s CV may legitimately be 15 or 20 pages.
The audience matters too. Search committees, tenure review boards, grant panels, and invited lecture organizers all read CVs looking for specific signals: the trajectory of your funding record, the quality of your publication venues, the breadth of your teaching portfolio, and the depth of your field service. A resume omits most of this context; a CV makes it central.
How it works
Each section maps to a labelled block with an underlined heading. Education and positions are entered as degree/role, institution, and year, and rendered newest-first with the year leading each line. Publications are pasted one per line, oldest-first, and the tool numbers them in descending order so your latest paper carries the highest index — the running-total convention common on research CVs. Grants combine a title, funder or amount, and year on a single line. Awards, teaching, and service are free-text lists, each item rendered as a bullet. Empty sections are omitted so the output stays tight.
Section-by-section guidance
Education — List degrees in reverse order. Include the degree type (PhD, MSc, BSc), field, institution, and year of conferral. Dissertation title and supervisor are optional but useful for early-career researchers where the thesis topic signals your expertise.
Positions — Use “Postdoctoral Researcher,” “Assistant Professor,” or equivalent, not vague titles. Year ranges matter here: gaps or overlaps tell a story, so be precise. Current positions use “Present” as the end date.
Publications — Consistency within the list is more important than which citation style you choose. Pick one (APA, MLA, Chicago, or field-specific like ACS) and apply it uniformly. Number items with the highest number on the most recent paper. Separate peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, and preprints into sub-sections if the list is long.
Grants and funding — Include the official grant title, the awarding body, your role (PI, Co-I, Collaborator), the award amount if known, and the period. Panels weight your grant record heavily — even unsuccessful applications for competitive awards can show relevant experience and are sometimes listed with a note like “shortlisted.”
Teaching — List courses by level (undergraduate/postgraduate), institution, and year. Note whether you were the primary instructor or a teaching assistant. Supervisory roles (honours, PhD students) belong in a separate sub-section.
Service — Peer review for journals and conferences, committee membership, editorial boards, and outreach all belong here. Even a substantial review load is worth noting, as it signals your standing in the field.
Tips for the ORCID field
Include your ORCID iD in the header alongside your institutional email. ORCID provides a persistent identifier for your publication and funding record, making it easier for committees to verify your work regardless of name changes or institutional moves. If you do not yet have one, registering is free at orcid.org.
Formatting tip
The output is plain text that pastes cleanly into Word or LaTeX. Use it as an accurate, well-ordered foundation, then apply your department’s or target institution’s preferred template. Always review the publication numbering and year ranges before submitting — dates are the detail search committees check most carefully.