If you are writing a PhD thesis, you may be thinking about how to get your work published when you’re done. One option is to convert your thesis – or part of your thesis – into an academic journal article.
And if you want to do this, you’ll need to:
Let’s look at each of these steps in more detail to see how the process works.
To maximise your chances of publication, pick a suitable journal. The journal’s scope – i.e. the kind of work it publishes – is the most important factor here.
Specialist journals with a narrower scope may be more open to submissions from early career academics than larger, multidisciplinary journals (simply because there is more competition for Nature than, say, the American Journal of Potato Research). But the most important thing is that your work fits the research interests and approaches of the publishing journal.
Other things to consider when choosing a journal include:
For more advice, check out the Think. Check. Submit. campaign.
A PhD thesis is, typically, a long, detailed account of your research. By comparison, a journal article will usually be more focused.
As such, part of turning your thesis into a journal article involves deciding what you will include. This could be a case of setting out your overall argument in clear, concise terms. Or it could be looking for parts of your PhD research that you could use for standalone articles.
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When planning your article, you will therefore need to:
The first step, then, is creating a paper outline with the factors above in mind.
If anyone else made a significant contribution to your research, such as your PhD supervisor, you may want to ask them about co-authoring your article. As well as ensuring academic fairness – i.e. crediting them for the contribution they made – this has a couple of distinct advantages:
Remember, though, anyone credited as an author on an article must have made a significant contribution. If they have not, you may want to mention them in a footnote or an ‘Acknowledgements’ section instead.
Before writing your article, check the journal publisher’s website for author instructions. These should tell you all you need to know about:
Make sure to follow these guidelines when preparing your journal article.
Finally, once you have drafted an article, have someone check it.
Asking a colleague is a good first step, as they may have feedback on content. But you’ll also want to ask a professional proofreader to review your document before submission, thus ensuring it is typo free.
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