thesis by monograph

PhD thesis types: Monograph and collection of articles

Starting PhD students often face a difficult choice. They have to decide whether they want to write their dissertation in the form of a monograph, or as a collection of journal articles. Some universities have strict requirements, not leaving a choice. But most offer both options. The decision is left to students and their supervisors and requires careful consideration.

Advantages of writing a monograph

Disadvantages of writing a monograph, advantages of a cumulative dissertation, disadvantages of a cumulative dissertation, checklist before deciding on a monograph or an article-based phd, writing a thesis as a monograph.

A monograph is a detailed study in one piece. Think of a book.

A monograph resembles an academic book. It typically has an introductory chapter, a methodology chapter, and a literature review chapter. Then, the empirical results of the PhD study are presented in several chapters of analysis. The final discussion and conclusion chapter wraps up the study.

A monograph is generally the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about a PhD thesis.

In some countries, monographs are still the norm. In others, theses based on academic articles are becoming increasingly popular.

• Writing a coherent thesis is easier: You can edit all chapters of your thesis until your submission deadline.
• You can write very detailed empirical analyses. In contrast, many journals have word limits for their articles.
• You gain valuable skills in writing and editing long (academic) texts. When you finish your PhD, you can even try to publish your monograph as a book.
• You are never done. If you change something in Chapter 5, you might have to adjust Chapter 2 as well.
• A PhD as a monograph does not automatically lead to journal publications. Journal publications are key indicators for academic careers.
• Writing good, publishable articles for high-ranking academic journals is a skill. You are not developing these skills as part of your thesis writing process.

Writing a thesis as a collection of articles (cumulative dissertation)

A thesis based on a collection of articles is based on individual journal publications. Universities tend to require 3-5 academic articles, published or submitted to academic journals.

The specific regulations differ from university to university, so make sure that you check what applies to you!

Combined, the individual articles form the body of the thesis. Nonetheless, a PhD thesis in the form of articles begins with an introduction. Some also have an extra chapter here and there, which is not published as a journal article.

Then, the journal articles are packed together, and followed by a general conclusion that rounds up the thesis.

• The overwhelming task of writing a PhD is divided into concrete parts. Many PhD students write one article every 9 to 12 months.
• Once an article is published, you cannot edit it anymore. This saves you from obsessive perfectionism, editing your work over and over again.
• You will have a head start in terms of publications. Publishing is a lengthy process. 3-5 completed articles at the end of your PhD is a big advantage.
• Cumulative PhD theses are often less coherent than monographs. It is difficult to integrate independent journal articles into a coherent whole.
• For each journal article, you need to develop a distinct theoretical framework. If the theory is not your forte, you might struggle with this.
• In some countries, PhD theses based on articles are considered worth less than monographs, and are looked down upon.

There is no right or wrong. Both monographs and theses based on a collection of articles have advantages and disadvantages.

One is also not easier than the other. But one might be more suited to your specific situation.

When making a decision, ask yourself the following questions:

• What are your university’s regulations when it comes to thesis types?
• What is the reputation of both thesis types in your (national) context? And in the context in which you aspire to work in?
• What is your strength? (conducting detailed empirical analyses vs abstract theoretical thinking)
• What is your end goal? (a non-academic career vs. an academic career requiring high numbers of journal publications)
• Which thesis type fits best with your research topic?

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Preparing a monograph (traditional) thesis

In addition to the wider requirements set out for all theses, there are further elements to consider when preparing a monograph-style thesis. 

You must adhere to the thesis word count set by your school, department or centre. For more information, please see your departmental PGR handbook .

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Sequence of material

The following drop-down box contains the recommended sequence of material within a monograph thesis. Requirements may vary slightly between departments, centres or schools, but starred (*) items must appear in every thesis. 

Title and subtitle* 

Abstract* , list of contents*:.

• List of Contents
• List of Tables (if any)
• List of Figures (if any)
• List of Illustrations (if any)
• List of Accompanying Material (if any)
• Preface (if any)
• Acknowledgements (if any)
• Declaration
• all relevant sub-divisions of the thesis, including the titles of chapters, sections and subsections;
• Appendices (if any)
• Abbreviations and/or Glossary (if any)
• Reference List and/or Bibliography
• Index (if any) If a thesis consists of more than one volume, the contents of the whole thesis should be shown in the first volume and the contents of subsequent volumes in a separate contents list in the following volumes.

List of tables, list of figures, list of illustrations, etc

List of accompanying material  , acknowledgements, author's declaration*, glossary and/or abbreviations, reference list and/or bibliography*, page headers.

Page headers may be used but, for ease of reading, it is recommended that the font used is smaller than the main body of the text and that no underline is used. Headers should not include personal information, such as your name or student number.

Headings should be used to indicate the hierarchical structure of the text. There should normally be not more than four levels, including the chapter headings as the first level. It is recommended that each level is distinguished from the others by position or typography, or both, and that the space that precedes and follows a heading is not less than the space between paragraphs. Headings should not normally be centred (except, possibly, for chapter and part headings).

When using numbers in your thesis, the following format is recommended. 

• Arabic numerals should normally be used for numbering all sequences within a thesis.
• For ease of reading, it is recommended that page numbers are visibly clear of the text. 
• The pages of the thesis should be numbered in a single sequence. The title page of the thesis should be page 1, but the numbering should be hidden. The abstract should be page 2 and so on sequentially throughout the thesis, including pages that carry tables, illustrations, appendices, etc.
• For theses comprising more than one volume, the numbering should be continuous across all volumes (again, the title page of the second volume should be counted but hidden).
• The use of blank pages should be avoided, if possible. 
• Chapters should be numbered from the start to the finish of the thesis, continuing across volumes if necessary. Appendices should be numbered in a separate sequence from that used for chapters.
• Illustrations should be numbered consecutively in a single sequence, generally without distinguishing between different kinds of illustration. 
• Tables or figures within the text should be numbered consecutively in a single sequence, each separate from illustrations.

Illustrations

An illustration should normally appear near the first reference made to it in the text. The desirability of grouping illustrations at the back of a volume or in a separate volume should be considered if they:

• need to be compared with one another
• are referred to frequently in the text
• need to be separate because of their nature, eg their size or method of production.

Illustrations should be of a technical quality that reproduces well.

Every illustration, including appendices, should be included in the list of illustrations with page numbers or other identification. It is recommended that any label within an illustration is positioned so that the part it applies to cannot be confused with any other, or linked to the part by a thin line; the lettering should be large and clear enough to be legible if reproduced. A short legend should appear beneath each illustration.

Monograph components

Key components to writing your monograph thesis.

Every thesis must have a title page. Include on the title page the:

• title of the thesis
• author of the thesis
• academic unit (or department, faculty, etc.) of the University
• “University of Ottawa” (or “Saint Paul University”)
• phrase “A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of ...”
• degree sought, and
• Template - Cover page (.doc)

Table of Contents

The Table of Contents should be detailed and include:

• everything that comes after, including the Abstract and Acknowledgements, and;
• not just chapter titles but various levels of headings within chapters and sections.

Take a look at various tables of contents to become familiar with what’s expected in your program.

List of Tables

Provide a separate page with a list of tables used in the text. Include the:

• table number
• full title of the table, and
• page number where the table appears in the text.
• tables in the text must be numbered in order of appearance.

List of Figures

Provide a separate list of figures. The same conventions that apply to the list of tables apply to the list of figures.

Formatting and placement requirements for tables, figures, and other graphics vary by department and discipline. Check your academic unit’s specific requirements.

List and explain all acronyms or symbols used frequently in your text.

A thesis is preceded by an abstract or summary which may include the following:

• a statement of the problem or a thesis statement
• a summary of the methodology: a description of the approach taken in the thesis, the research, and/or the methods of investigation
• the main points made in the thesis or a summary of the main findings, and
• general conclusions.

Abstracts should be provided both in English and in French (except for thesis in English Literature and Lettres françaises). They should be:

• 150 words for a master’s thesis, or
• 300 words for a doctoral thesis.

The Acknowledgements or Preface

The two terms “acknowledgements” and “preface” are used interchangeably. In an acknowledgements section or incorporated into a preface or foreword, you may want to mention who helped you intellectually.

Who funded your research? Who directly helped you along the way? You might have had assistance with your research, or some experiments or data analysis. All these contributions must be fully acknowledged.

A preface or a similar statement of the contributions of co-contributors must be included in a thesis where ethics approval was required, where any material used in the thesis was the result of a collaboration with co-authors, and/or where the thesis includes any material previously published. 

In a thesis that is an article or a series of articles, the student is obliged to describe his or her own contribution to any articles that have been co-authored. In considerable detail, with references to page numbers and chapters, the preface must clearly describe, summarize and distinguish the contributions of the student from those of all other collaborators or co-authors. All these other contributors must be clearly identified.

As well as being summarized in the acknowledgements or preface, this same information should, of course, also be stated plainly in footnotes/endnotes in the text.

Many students include acknowledgements of help of a personal nature in this section, something that is entirely at their discretion, as distinct from the obligatory acknowledgements mentioned above.

Copyrighted Contents

If published material—your own or that of other authors—has been used, you must obtain written permissions to use these materials. This written permission usually comes from the publisher.

Introduction

Introductions can take many forms, but in general the introduction presents the hypothesis or thesis statement and a brief overview of the thesis.

Body of the Thesis

The main part of the thesis usually consists of chapters and sections within these chapters.

The conclusion sums up the content and findings of the thesis and ideally goes a step further, suggesting areas for further research and investigation.

Materials considered useful but not central to the argument of the thesis are best placed in appendices. In addition, the actual documents confirming ethical approvals, are often placed here rather than in the body of the thesis.

Footnotes/Endnotes

These must be prepared using the appropriate scholarly conventions of your academic unit and your discipline. Find out what the proper conventions are for your discipline and follow them right from the first draft. Ask your supervisor to recommend a style guide, and refer to it often.

Bibliography

Bibliographic entries must also be prepared using the appropriate scholarly conventions of your academic unit and discipline. Refer to your style guide.

The University has licensed access to citation and bibliography tools such as RefWorks. Free courses on using RefWorks are offered at the Morisset Library. For more information, consult the  Morisset Library Web site .

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Tress Academic

#6: Dissertation dilemma? Hand in a monograph or papers?

April 8, 2019 by Tress Academic

Having doubts about the type of PhD dissertation you’ll hand in at the end of your studies? Getting all sorts of confusing advice, and not knowing how to move on? Let us help you out of the dilemma! 

Are you pondering one of the following issues:

• Not exactly sure what the differences are between a monograph or a paper-based dissertation? 
• Not quite sure what the university requirements are?
• Uncertain if you’ve got a choice at all, and what would be the best option in your case?
• What you need to be aware of in order to have a smooth process?

In this blog post we’ll explain the key-features of a monograph or paper-based PhD dissertation and the main points to be aware of. We’ve also compiled a super helpful fact sheet “What type of dissertation do I hand in & what to consider?” with the key points you need to know about your dissertation of choice! 

The two main types of PhD dissertations

There are two main types of dissertations. One is the monograph, and the other is the paper-based dissertation: 

1) The monograph is what one always wrote in order to get the PhD degree. It’s been around for centuries – as long as PhD degrees have been awarded, this was the thing to do. But, with the growing importance of academic papers (peer-reviewed articles) and the simultaneous declining importance of scholarly works published as a book (monograph) in many disciplines, this has shifted. 

2) The paper-based dissertations emerged as an alternative to the traditional monograph, around about 20-25 years ago. From a history-of-science perspective, that means ‘recently’! And, just so you know: a paper-based dissertation may also be called a ‘cumulative dissertation’, but it’s the same thing. 

Which type is more common?

The paper-based dissertation is more common in the natural sciences, life sciences, medical sciences, engineering  and quantitative social sciences than in the humanities. So one determining factor is the research area in which you work. Also, different countries still have different preferences, or are about to shift from monograph to paper-based dissertations. Often, PhD students opt for a paper-based dissertation at the beginning of their PhD studies, but that may change during the PhD process. 

Who decides what can be handed in? 

The university from which you graduate, and more specifically your faculty decides. Even within your faculty, your specific discipline can hammer out particular requirements for submitting the dissertation. In some countries this is also subject to ministerial orders, governmental acts, and rulings. 

The university regulations are the framework within which you operate. Now let’s give you a better understanding of the key features of the two types of dissertations, their main differences and what this means for your PhD. 

Monograph – key features

• What you submit: A research-report with a comprehensive record of pretty much the total  research you did during your PhD time. It can include all findings of your study right from the start until the end. 
• Authorship: You are the only author. 
• Language: The monograph might be written in the national language. You may have an option to choose between your national language(s) or English. 
• Lengths: It varies. We’ve seen anything between 100 pages (a bit on the short end) and up to 1,500 pages. No kidding, this was a human geographer who graduated after 12 years and today is a professor at a university in the Netherlands. Most monographs would be in the range of 150 to 250 pages. 

Benefits of a monograph 

If you opt for a monograph, you’ll have this grand piece of work – all done in your PhD years – and it will remain for the rest of your life. It looks impressive on the book shelf in your office or in the library. You have a lot of freedom in the way you write, deciding rather freely on the layout, and how to include photographs, tables, figures or data-sheets. You’re not dependant on any external determining factors like the editorial and peer-review process of a journal. That means you have more freedom with the timeline in which you write your dissertation – it is you who makes the decisions. 

Problems with a monograph

What is often considered problematic about the monograph in the natural sciences and life sciences, is that most scholars find it too much to read in comparison to papers. Ask yourself: How many monographic PhD dissertations have you read cover to cover? One? Hmm, zero? 

If you do not plan to publish your monograph as a book with a publisher, it will have a relatively low distribution, with only a few copies going to the university library. International accessibility is then a real issue. Accessibility is further restricted if you write in a language other than English. 

Paper-based dissertation – key features

• What you submit: A number of international peer-reviewed journal papers, which must be related to the overarching topic of your PhD. The number varies between 2-5. Yes, that’s a broad margin, but it depends on your university and faculty. Many PhD regulations do not state an exact number, but leave it open, probably to have some flexibility in the assessment process. Often, however, and this is a crucial detail, not all your papers have to be accepted or published by the time you submit your thesis. So a regulation may well call for two accepted/published papers and an additional 1-2 submitted papers. 
• Authorship: The papers normally are (but don’t have to be) co-authored. An important detail (watch out for this!) can be that your regulations give requirement on the authorship of papers you hand in for your dissertation. For example, they can ask you to hand in three published papers, and require you to be the first-author of at least two of those papers. You normally have to declare the exact contribution each author made to the publication of your papers. 
• Language: The peer-reviewed publications you include are written in English.
• Lengths: Apart from the papers you’ve also got to write a binding-text. This means a substantial introduction, which also explains how the papers are related, and a detailed conclusion. The additional binding text may be in the range of 30-50 pages.

Benefits of a paper-based dissertation 

Clearly, if you consider the individual papers, the paper-based dissertation presents less to read than a monograph. Through the publishing platforms or the open access platforms and indexing databases, your peer-reviewed papers are far more widely distributed and accessible. 

Also, the external peer-review process is often considered as a quality-label regarding your scholarly work. Assessment committees ( = examination board) often perceive it as a bonus if the main body of scholarly work of your dissertation was already accepted by an international peer-reviewed journal in your field. With 2-3 published papers in such an outlet any risk of failing your PhD at the end is a close ‘zero’. 

In addition, you start your academic career already having some papers to your name, whereas with the monograph you might need to write additional papers! 

Problems with the paper-based dissertation

Critics sometimes point out that with a paper-based dissertation, you never get an overview on everything you’ve done in your PhD, because for the individual papers you just “take  the cream off” your research. You single out the very best and most innovative bits to write about. 

For the paper-based dissertation you are heavily dependant on decisions and deadlines of journals and editors. Plus, there is a risk of one or more of your papers being rejected. And that can make the entire process rather tricky. 

If you have to hand-in three accepted papers and you’ve got three years to complete your PhD, you’ve got a pretty tight timeline to consider. You’ve got to calculate anything between three months (that is rather quick) and 12 months (which is rather slow, but happens) for the entire peer-review process, from the day you submit your paper until you receive the letter of acceptance from the editor. The process for a paper-based dissertation is not entirely in your hands. It needs very careful planning and decision-making early on in order to avoid trouble. 

How can you get a smooth ride and figure out what you hand?

We so much want you to have a smooth PhD process, and the best way to do this is to  be really clear about the exact requirements of your dissertation! You can make your PhD process a lot easier, if you know early on, which option might be best in your case and what the specific consequences of your choice are. 

Let us help you on the way! Below, we’ve listed the key points that you should consider when thinking about the type of dissertation you hand in. And to make this even easier for you, we’ve designed a “Fact sheet: What type of dissertation do I hand in & what to consider?” 

So let’s get you out of the dissertation dilemma quickly: Download our free factsheet “What type of dissertation do I hand in and what to consider?”

What to consider for the type of dissertation you hand in?

• Check your PhD regulations : Figure out what your PhD regulations say about the type of dissertation that has to be handed in at your university, in your particular faculty, and also in your discipline. Do you have the choice of handing in a monograph OR a paper-based PhD? dissertation?
• What are the particular requirements for each type of dissertation that you can hand in? Find out, what exactly you have to hand in for the monograph and for the paper-based dissertation. 
• What is more common in your discipline ? This is the reality check. Because the regulations often leave some room for interpretation, it is good to check what was ultimately accepted as a dissertation by the university. If those PhDs passed, you’ll also pass. You have two options to find this out: 
• Ask 2-3 post-docs who have recently completed their PhDs at your university, in the same faculty and discipline. What did  they hand in?
• Ask a friendly librarian, to source the 5-10 most recently submitted PhD dissertations in your field. What have those PhDs handed in?
• What do your supervisors want: Do they have clear expectations for you to write a monograph or a paper-based dissertation? Have you discussed this together? The point of reference is always the PhD regulations and what is written there. 
• What type of research project are you working on for your PhD? This can also influence what type of dissertation is more suitable. Does your PhD project consist of a string of smaller but related individual sub-projects or experiments? Are you still able to design it that way? OR is it one big block of research or a single experiment? 
• When will you first have publishable results ? If this is rather late in your PhD due to the particular circumstances of your research, it can be difficult to get all the required papers for a paper-based dissertation through the review process so you can complete on time. 
• Future career choice: Do you want to stay in science and progress with an academic career? Therefore the monograph/paper-based choice is CRUCIAL to your discipline.  Or are you not staying in academia, but  have different plans for your career? So for you, the most important thing is to get the PhD title, but it won’t matter much which type of dissertation you hand in.

We hope we could shed some light on the important matter of submitting a paper-based PhD dissertation or a monograph. We would love to hear from your experiences on this topic! Did you have a good or not-so-good experience with the paper-based dissertation? What is most common in your discipline? And for all of you who completed already: What would you advise other PhD students to consider?  

Relevant resources:

• Fact-sheet: What type of dissertation do I hand in and what to consider?
• Smart Academics Blog #5: How to get started with writing papers?
• Smart Academics Blog #99: Why is dissertation writing so scary?
• Smart Academics Blog #74: No time for dissertation writing?
• Smart Academics Blog #58: Why you should not leave dissertation writing until the end!
• Smart Academics Blog #123: Publishing papers from a PhD thesis
• Free expert guide: 5 strategies to avoid initial paper rejection?
• Related blog-post at the University of Warwick: Six misconceptions about the three paper route

More information: 

Do you want to complete your PhD successfully? If so, please sign up to receive our free guides.  

(c) 2019 Tress Academic

photographs: beatriz-perez-moya, neon brand at unsplash.com

#PhDDissertation #Paper-basedDissertation #PhDDilemma #PhDSupervision #CompletingPhD

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Scholarly Communications

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• What is Scholarly Communications?
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• Preprints as Publications
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Things to Consider

Publishing your thesis as a book can be an alternative or an accompaniment to publishing an article in a journal. If you are considering publishing your thesis as a book or monograph, here are some things to consider: 

• You will first need to edit or restructure your thesis to make it suitable for publication. When adapting your thesis for publication, consider the expectations of publishers and your potential audience. 
• Your book should be published by a commercial or academic publisher, rather than a print-on-demand or vanity press. For help finding an appropriate publisher in your subject area, consider consulting your supervisor or a librarian. Self-publishing is not considered reputable for academic careers. 
• You will need to submit a book proposal to potential publishers. For more information on this, consult the Book Proposals tab. 
• Most publishers do not consider a thesis to be prior publication. Consult with the publisher for their policies on this. 

Selected Video Resources

• “From Dissertation to Book: Navigating the Publication Process” A panel talk of academic publishing experts hosted by UC Berkeley.
• “How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book” A panel talk of publishing professionals hosted by Yale University.
• “The Monograph Publishing Process” A short video from Cambridge University.
• “From Thesis to Monograph” A short video from Cambridge University.

Selected Library Resources

• << Previous: Publishing a Book
• Next: Book Proposals >>
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 11:31 AM
• URL: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/ScholarlyCommunications

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From PhD to Monograph: How to Revise Your Thesis for Publication | Lex Academic Blog

25 November 2021

Most early career researchers in the arts and humanities are encouraged to see their PhD thesis as a monograph-in-waiting – and with good reason. In the increasingly competitive academic job market, a monograph, along with several peer-reviewed journal articles, is often a requirement for obtaining a permanent lectureship. In the UK, the Research Excellence Framework – the system that assesses the quality and impact of a department’s research and determines how much funding it will receive – allows a monograph to count as two submissions. Job applicants with a monograph therefore offer the hiring department a valuable opportunity to add to its tally of research outputs. A monograph is, then, vital for kick-starting an academic career. Turning a thesis into a monograph normally requires some work because the needs of a publisher are different from those of a PhD examiner. Here’s our how-to guide to revising your thesis for publication.

The difference between a thesis and a book boils down to this: ultimately, a book has to sell. Revisions to your thesis must therefore make your book accessible and appealing to a variety of readers. One way to improve accessibility is to reduce the size of your theoretical framework. Much of the theoretical material in your thesis is included to show your examiners that you’ve engaged with and understood it. In your book, this material can be given a lighter touch. It’s important to strike a balance here, though, so as not to give the impression that the book is under-researched, which would damage its credibility. A tip is to take a book on a similar topic – perhaps one you refer to frequently in your thesis – and note when theory is introduced and in how much detail. Think also about the needs of your audience. If yours will be the first book-length study of a topic, readers might well benefit from an opening chapter that outlines the theories most applicable to it. This is equally true if your book is as likely to appear on an undergraduate student’s reading list as it is in the bibliography of an established researcher. Keep in mind, too, that your readers may include experts in different fields who are reading your book for background. On the other hand, if your target reader is a specialist who is already well-versed in the theories you draw on, or if an overview of these theories exists in another recent publication, a theoretical chapter might be redundant. No matter who your reader is, a big part of the journey from thesis to monograph is de-theorising .

Another thing to think about when considering the needs of your audience is structure. Whereas your thesis is intended to be read from cover to cover, readers of your book may want to consult only the introduction or the chapter most relevant to them. Your introduction should provide a strong sense of the topic, scope, originality and main findings, as well as a chapter-by-chapter outline. In your analytical chapters, avoid excessive cross-references to other sections and ensure as far as possible that a particular theme, text, event, etc., is discussed in full in a single place, rather than scattered throughout the book.

Revising the role of theory and the structure is probably the most time-consuming and intellectually taxing part of converting a thesis into a book, but there are a few other elements that warrant attention. Let’s go back to the main difference between a thesis and a book: a book has to sell. For it to sell, it must first be found . As an author in the digital age, you should ensure that your book is discoverable via a search engine. Your thesis title may be long, specific and technical. Your book title will need to be shorter and contain keywords that readers are likely to put into a search engine. Think about the terms you searched for when you were first looking for literature on your thesis topic and, if possible, include some in your book title. Likewise, overly generic chapter titles like ‘Aims’, ‘Methods’ or ‘Discussion’ will need to be replaced with clear and descriptive alternatives. Your publisher will probably insist on this ­– they want your book to be discoverable, too! But it’s also in your interest because you want your academic peers to read and cite your work. A tip for increasing your book’s visibility is to choose a publisher with a book series your title fits into. Publishing in a series gives your book an identity; an automatic endorsement from the series editor and a greater likelihood that it’ll be displayed at a conference or other event.

The last issue you’ll need to address is any formatting requirements requested by the publisher, especially if the book is part of a series. It’s worth asking, however, if your publisher would accept an alternative style guide, as many are flexible as long as the style is applied consistently. This will reduce time and effort spent on formal elements and enable you to focus on ensuring that the content, structure and readability of your book are as good as possible.

Before you can implement your plan for revising your thesis for publication, you’ll first need to obtain a contract from a publisher . Many proposals for books based on theses are rejected because they fail to demonstrate that the author understands the differences between a thesis and a book. It’s therefore worth including a bullet-point list detailing how you intend to revise your thesis to make it more accessible, coherent and relevant to readers. You should also emphasise your book’s originality. List any competing publications and explain why your book is distinctive. If parts of the thesis have already been published, indicate whether you could theoretically reproduce them (and especially if the material is open access). Finally, stress the marketability of your book. What readership do you envisage for it? Which courses would it be suitable for? If you’re lucky, the publisher’s book proposal form will invite you to share this information. If the application is more open-ended, you’ll have to take the initiative.

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From PhD Thesis to Monograph: Tips for Editing Your First Book

Heather Hind is a Lecturer in English Literature with research interests in Victorian literature and material culture. She is currently turning her PhD thesis into a monograph. In this post, the second in our series on the PhD and beyond, she shares her hints and tips for getting started with this process.

“ Steppingstones across the River Aire, Gargrave ” by  Tim Green aka atoach  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0 .

Why do you want to publish a book? And how, in broad terms, do you want to go about it? These questions are worth asking yourself early on. Perhaps you see a monograph as a steppingstone in an academic career. Or maybe you want to disseminate your research to a wider audience. Or publication might be a personal goal. Quite likely, your reasoning is a combination of all of these and more.

There are alternatives to the book route, such as publishing your research via academic journals or public-facing media outlets. In any case, practical life matters need to be factored in too. The post-PhD period can be tricky in terms of employment, access to resources and mentoring, and time. Even if you plan to lightly edit your thesis, the timeline from writing your proposal through to seeing your book being published can be surprisingly lengthy – not to mention busy and uncertain.

My best advice is to keep in mind a clear sense of your motivation for publishing your book, and to create a realistic editing schedule. For me, that has meant being more ambitious than I initially intended with my revisions (because my motivation is academic impact) and assigning plenty of time to do them (acknowledging that I have other demands on my time).

The next step, after deciding to publish your book, is to get a proposal and sample chapters in order. I’d highly recommend checking out Laura Portwood-Stacer’s Manuscript Works Archive . Laura is the author of The Book Proposal Book and her website contains guidelines, templates, prompts and all kinds of proposal-writing information.

The broad questions I found useful to think about while writing my proposal, and working out the new shape and emphasis of my monograph, were:

• What new perspective/s will my book offer?
• What ideas does it connect, or what story does it tell?
• How might it inform and influence my field and discipline?

Initial edit

First, remove any thesis-y phrasing and heavy-handed signposting, such as ‘In this thesis…’. Next, revise or cull your footnotes and any extraneous references. One of my PhD supervisors advised me to ‘wear my learning heavily’ in the thesis or, in other words, include plenty of references to show the full breadth and depth of my reading and research. While your monograph should be detailed and well-researched, it doesn’t want quite the same ‘heaviness’ as a thesis. During this initial edit, pay extra attention to the clarity of your writing and flow of your argument. As with your footnotes and references, consider cutting any tangential sentences or paragraphs. It’s a good idea to make space for new material before it’s written, rather than adding and adding to an increasingly baggy monster of a manuscript.

Content and structure

“ Hot Air Balloon Inflating ” by  ajagendorf25  is licensed under  CC BY-NC 2.0 .

Next, you might rethink your monograph’s overall content and structure. Your examiners’ reports can be very useful here! You may well plan to cut as well as add material, though identifying areas to expand—whether to include unused thesis research or new post-PhD developments—can make for a major selling point in a book proposal. I have heard that some publishers want to see an entirely new chapter for the monograph, though another approach (which I’ve adopted) is to add sections of new material to your existing chapters.

You might also consider restructuring your chapters so that they make more sense (or are more marketable) as a book. For example: would splitting your chapters up into shorter ones help to guide your reader through the material with more ease? Is there a current or emerging topic that you might engage with in a new chapter or sub-section? Can you retitle your chapters (or overall book) to appeal to a wider audience?

With these points in mind, I found it helpful to reread some monographs that I admire to reflect on what works well, especially in terms of structuring the introduction and conclusion.

Academic writing guides

These can also be sources of inspiration. Helen Sword’s books on academic writing are excellent and she also has some free writing tools and videos . Here are two more resources I’ve found helpful for writing and editing:

The Thesis Whisperer – This site is useful for thesis writing pointers as well as general academic writing tips.

Publish Not Perish / Jenn McClearen – A newsletter with a back catalogue of posts that includes tips on all aspects of academic writing.

Valuable tips

Picking up on my earlier point about recognising the pressures of the post-PhD period, here’s the advice I’ve found most helpful.

• Carve out writing and editing time

“ Mechanical Clock 9 – by Eric Freitas ” by  Kotomi_  is licensed under  CC BY-NC 2.0 .

I have found online writing retreats vital to gaining momentum with my editing because they force me to sit down, focus, and work in regular blocks. I even volunteered to run a series of them to squeeze more into my calendar. Even if you don’t join a writing group, you could try marking out blocks of writing and editing time in your calendar as well as planned deadlines for chapters or sub-chapters (which work even better if you tell someone about them for accountability!).

• Look into post-PhD funding and other kinds of support

While there are major postdoctoral funders that provide longer-term fellowships (e.g. Leverhulme, British Academy), these almost exclusively require you to start work on a new project. However, your period or discipline may have societies or associations that provide small pots of research funding to early career academics for developing existing projects or publications (e.g. the Royal Historical Society ). Some will cover expenses for research trips (ideal if needed for expanding your monograph), while others may fund proposal writing or even monograph editing. Some have early career memberships and fellowships that provide other benefits to recent PhD graduates, such as academic affiliation, library access, or networking and mentoring opportunities.

• Keep connected to others

I’ve found academic and peer networks in the form of writing groups, societies, conferences, and PhD/Early Career Researcher friends even more important in the post PhD-period. Whether it’s through presenting and getting feedback on your research, swapping proposals or chapter drafts with someone, or just venting about how it’s all going, don’t underestimate the value of sharing your work-in-progress with others.

Heather Hind Heather Hind ’s monograph will be the first book-length study of Victorian hairwork – the crafting of decorative objects from human hair – and its presence in British literature of the period, with chapters that focus on works by Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Wilkie Collins, and Margaret Oliphant. Her broader interests are in nineteenth-century literature, material culture, textiles and handicrafts, and object-led and embodied methodologies.

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Monographs and edited collections

This page explains how to publish a monograph open access, and highlights resources to help you do so.

On this page

What is a monograph? The benefits of open monographs The challenges of open monographs Including other people’s copyright work in open monographs and other research publications Funders who include long form publications in their open access policy Open book case studies Open monograph resources 

Useful links

Read about open access publication routes

Learn about paying for open access monographs costs

Learn about how to publish book chapters open access

Access the open access books toolkit website

What is a monograph?

A monograph is an in-depth work of academic writing, focusing on one specific subject or an aspect of a subject. Longer than an article, it is published as a single volume. 

A monograph presents primary research and original scholarship and usually has a specialist readership. This makes it different from a textbook, which presents existing knowledge of a subject and is aimed at those who are learning about the field.

The benefits of open monographs

You might be considering open access because your funder requires it for long-form works, but there are other good reasons for doing this.

Open monograph publication has many benefits compared with traditional monograph publishing.

• Increased accessibility: By making your research available in an open access format, you can expand its reach beyond those who have access to print edition books or institutional subscriptions to digital copies. 
• Greater impact: By removing paywalls and other restrictions, open monographs can reach a larger audience. Open access books are downloaded on average ten times more frequently than non-open access books and cited 2.4 times more often (source: Springer Nature ).
• Flexibility: Open monographs can be published in a variety of formats, including print-on-demand, PDF and HTML. This allows you to choose the format that best suits your needs and the needs of your readers.
• Innovative publishing models: Open monograph publishing is still a relatively new field, meaning you can experiment with innovative publishing models and technologies.
• Greater control: When you retain the copyright to your work, you have greater control over how it is used and how you can reuse your own published research. By providing an open access licensed edition or a 'green' open access/self-archived deposit, you can ensure that your work remains accessible to researchers long after a print run has ended.

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The challenges of open monographs

Open book publishing is an emerging field, so authors may encounter challenges that do not arise in traditional monograph publishing such as the cost of publication, and third-party copyright and open licensing.

Authors may also have concerns about the reputation and prestige of open access publication. There are many publishers that now publish open access books - from large traditional publishers to university presses, to small new open access presses. The review and publication process for open access books should be as rigorous and extensive as traditionally published books.

Including other people’s copyright work in open monographs and other research publications

It is likely that you will want to include work created by other people in your monograph that will be protected by copyright. For example, images, quotations or figures from other publications. This is referred to as ‘third party copyright’ material and it is a good idea to think about this early in the process of writing any scholarly work. The principles of addressing third party copyright in research publications are the same whether the output is openly licensed or not.

Go to the Bodleian Libraries' guidance on copyright

UKRI have provided specific guidance on addressing third party copyright in research publications which addresses common questions about open monographs and the UKRI open access monographs policy. It also includes template documents and text to support rights clearance and risk management.

Read Jisc's UKRI guide on third party copyright

If you have any additional questions about incorporating third party copyright in your work please contact [email protected] .

Funders who include long form publications in their open access policy

Open book case studies.

There are as many journeys to open access as there are researchers and books - below are the journeys of a few Oxford authors.

Case study: The early career researcher

Dr Matthew Kerry

For an early career researcher, the publication of their first monograph is a pivotal moment, one that can potentially shape their future career. While many early career researchers recognize the benefits of open access and support expanding accessibility, the question remains: does open access publishing confer the desired level of prestige that these researchers seek for their debut monograph? 

Dr Matthew Kerry, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of History in Oxford and a tutorial fellow at Jesus College, grappled with these questions when seeking to publish his first monograph, based on his doctoral research thesis. He was inspired by the open access ethos and wanted to publish a book that people could read, not one priced well out of most people’s reach.  

Beyond concerns of prestige and cost, early career researchers face the daunting task of navigating the often opaque and bewildering world of book publishing. Matthew encountered difficulties marketing and explaining his work to potential publishers. His work focused on 1930s Spain before the Civil War. 

The New Historical Perspectives series

The  New Historical Perspectives  series, commissioned and edited by the Royal Historical Society, in association with University of London Press and the Institute of Historical Research is a series of history monographs tailored to new authors, including recent Ph.D. graduates. It provides extensive feedback and support, an experience that Matthew found supportive and navigable. This scheme is supported by Oxford University.  

The series employs an intensive workshopping process that involves submitting a book proposal, chapter outline, and sample writing for peer review. Upon acceptance, Matthew worked on the full manuscript, which was then subject to a rigorous review by specialists arranged by the publisher. This in-depth feedback process resembled a second viva examination and allowed Matthew to further refine his manuscript before publication. 

Matthew was reassured by the prestige conferred by a University Press – and as this series publishes open access under a ‘diamond’ model Matthew did not have to pay a fee (or ‘book processing charge’) to make his work open access. Instead, the scheme is sustained through institutional memberships. 

Due to open publication, Matthew's work was easily accessible to readers globally. The book experienced an initial swell in readership, followed by a long tail of sustained interest, demonstrating that open access content allows for ongoing discovery. 

'Unite, Proletarian Brothers! Radicalism and Revolution in the Spanish Second Republic' by Matthew Kerry is available from University of London Press. This book is published open access through the "New Historical Perspectives" series. 

Unite, Proletarian Brothers! Radicalism and Revolution in the Spanish Second Republic

'Unite, Proletarian Brothers! Radicalism and Revolution in the Spanish Second Republic' available from University of London Press    

Case study: Open access publishing and convenience

Eleanor Peers

The  benefits of open access are well known – increased accessibility, greater impact, public benefit – but these often seem to come with the price of greater effort. Open access can be seen by researchers as an extra imposition. However, open access does not need to be more difficult than traditional publishing - but can even be the choice of convenience.

Eleanor Peers, the Subject Consultant for Slavonic and East European Studies at the Social Science Library of the Bodleian Libraries, contributed a chapter for an edited anthropology volume on lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian north. After publication of this volume was delayed for several years, word of mouth and a positive recommendation from a colleague led the authors to publish this volume via Open Book Publishers (OBP), an open access publishing house.  

Whilst the authors considered open access a benefit, this choice was driven by the desire to publish their work via a reputable publishing platform rather than a commitment to open access principles.

Open book publishers

Open Book Publishers  (OBP) is a non-profit, scholar led, fully open access publisher specializing in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the UK. They don't impose charges on authors for making their work open access. Instead, they sustain their publications through library memberships, grants, and the sale of hard copy editions of their books. This scheme is supported by Oxford University. 

OBP offered a straightforward and easy publishing experience for Eleanor and her co-authors, successfully navigating the sometime challenging aspects of open access publication, including reuse licenses, copyright, and funding. 

Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North

Eleanor’s chapter ‘Soviet Kul’tura in Post-Soviet Identification: The Aesthetics of Ethnicity in Sakha (Yakutia)’ can be found in the edited volume ‘Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North’ published open access via Open Book Publishers.

'Lifestyle in Siberia and the Russian North' available via Open Book Publishers  

Case study: Open access and the digital form

Professor Caroline Warman

Open access  books can be published in a variety of formats, including print-on-demand, ebook, and HTML, allowing authors to choose the format that best suits their needs and the needs of their readers. This increased flexibility enables authors to make multi-media enriched works that would not be possible in a traditionally published hardcopy book.

Professor Caroline Warman is Professor of French Literature and Thought at the University of Oxford, and has written extensively on French literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. 

Caroline's introduction to open access book publishing occurred whilst translating on a project that involved multimedia elements such as musical pieces, and complex linkages within the work – elements that would be impossible to replicate in a hardcopy format. The online format best suited this content's intricate nature, and a positive experience with the publisher, Open Book Publishers (OBP) brought open publishing to Caroline’s attention.  

Open Book Publishers

Open Book Publishers  (OBP) is a non-profit, scholar led, fully open access publisher specializing in the Humanities and Social Sciences in the UK. They don't impose charges on authors for making their work open access. Instead, they sustain their publications through library memberships, grants, and the sale of hard copy editions of their books. This scheme is supported by Oxford University.

The positive experience Caroline had with OBP has led to an ongoing partnership. When deciding on the publication of a complex monograph on Diderot, a subject with much of the potential audience in Europe, Caroline had considered a traditional publication that may be more prestigious on its face but would radically limit the works impact and accessibility – and so with the positive experiences of OA publication and its benefits Caroline published this work OA through Open Book Publishers, helping to open it to a global readership.

Denis Diderot 'Rameau's Nephew'

The Atheist's Bible

Caroline Warman co-translated ‘Denis Diderot 'Rameau's Nephew' - 'Le Neveu de Rameau': A Multi-Media Bilingual Edition’,  and is the author of ‘The Atheist's Bible: Diderot's 'Éléments de physiologie' , both published open access via Open Book Publishers, amongst other works.  

‘Denis Diderot 'Rameau's Nephew' available via Open Book Publishers  

‘The Atheist's Bible: Diderot's 'Éléments de physiologie' available via Open Book Publishers

Case study: Open access and global dissemination 

Academic monographs and edited collections can be expensive, restricting access to a limited number of academic institutions. Research institutions and researchers across the world, especially in the global south, can become locked out from accessing these research outputs. This can be doubly damaging when the research contained in these books is focused on, and co-produced with researchers from, those countries. Open access can democratise access - reaching not only fellow researchers but also government bodies, charitable organizations, and individual scholars who may lack access to traditionally published scholarly works.   

Global Urban Transformations series 

Professor Michael Keith, Centre on Migration, Policy and Society and co-Director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities, and Professor Sue Parnell of Bristol University, are co-editors for the Global Urban Transformations series. This series showcases ESRC-funded research compiled from workshops held across the world, in Rio, Quito, Cape Town, Beijing and at Oxford, that brought together leading urban writers. The result of those meetings materialised with two edited collections:  “ African Cities and Collaborative Futures: Urban Platforms and Collaborative Logistics ” and “ Urban Transformations and Public Health in the Emergent City ” edited by Michael and Dr Andreza De Souza Santos, Research Associate at the Latin American Centre and Director of Kings’ Brazil Institute (with more works to come). 

Michael and Andreza wished to make this book series open access, to make material available to policy makers and an audience that was global, whilst also being keen to publish with an academic press that offered a full academic publishing cycle and the rigour of full peer-review.   

Manchester University Press  

Manchester University Press (MUP) is a well-established press (founded in 1903) specialising in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Whilst MUP is primarily a publisher of traditionally published books, it has been active supporting and developing Open access (OA) publishing for over a decade and is one of the largest University Press publishers of OA books. MUP has a strong basis in development studies and urban studies, and their academic press offered thoughtful and innovative engagement in considering audiences for the research.    

These books were made OA under a Gold OA model with funding support from the ESRC. Besides the digital open access version there is the option to buy a physical book in hardcopy, an important consideration for the editors. Thanks to open access publication, the reach of this work is expanded beyond those who have access to print edition books or institutional subscriptions to digital copies and can be read widely in the covered regions.   

Open monograph resources

Oa books toolkit.

This toolkit aims to help authors to better understand open access book publishing and to increase trust in open access books. It organises articles according to different stages in the research lifecycle. 

The OAPEN Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation based at the National Library in The Hague, dedicated to open access, peer-reviewed books. They run OAPEN Library, the OA Books Toolkit and DOAB.

Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs is an international partnership of researchers, universities, librarians, open access book publishers and infrastructure providers. It is building community-owned, open systems and infrastructures to enable open access book publishing to flourish.

The Directory of Open Access Books is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers.

The Open Access Books Network

A forum for discussion around open access books, aimed at researchers, publishers, librarians and infrastructure providers.

Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem is a US-based project aimed at changing the way monograph publishing in the humanities and social sciences is funded.

Open books and chapters on ORA

A collection of open access books and book sections available within the Oxford University Research Archive, including monographs, book chapters, edited collections, trade books, and more.

How to write a PhD thesis: a step-by-step guide

A draft isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper, writes Kelly Louise Preece

Kelly Louise Preece

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Congratulations; you’ve finished your research! Time to write your PhD thesis. This resource will take you through an eight-step plan for drafting your chapters and your thesis as a whole. 

Organise your material

Before you start, it’s important to get organised. Take a step back and look at the data you have, then reorganise your research. Which parts of it are central to your thesis and which bits need putting to one side? Label and organise everything using logical folders – make it easy for yourself! Academic and blogger Pat Thomson calls this  “Clean up to get clearer” . Thomson suggests these questions to ask yourself before you start writing:

• What data do you have? You might find it useful to write out a list of types of data (your supervisor will find this list useful too.) This list is also an audit document that can go in your thesis. Do you have any for the “cutting room floor”? Take a deep breath and put it in a separate non-thesis file. You can easily retrieve it if it turns out you need it.
• What do you have already written? What chunks of material have you written so far that could form the basis of pieces of the thesis text? They will most likely need to be revised but they are useful starting points. Do you have any holding text? That is material you already know has to be rewritten but contains information that will be the basis of a new piece of text.
• What have you read and what do you still need to read? Are there new texts that you need to consult now after your analysis? What readings can you now put to one side, knowing that they aren’t useful for this thesis – although they might be useful at another time?
• What goes with what? Can you create chunks or themes of materials that are going to form the basis of some chunks of your text, perhaps even chapters?

Once you have assessed and sorted what you have collected and generated you will be in much better shape to approach the big task of composing the dissertation. 

Decide on a key message

A key message is a summary of new information communicated in your thesis. You should have started to map this out already in the section on argument and contribution – an overarching argument with building blocks that you will flesh out in individual chapters.

You have already mapped your argument visually, now you need to begin writing it in prose. Following another of Pat Thomson’s exercises, write a “tiny text” thesis abstract. This doesn’t have to be elegant, or indeed the finished product, but it will help you articulate the argument you want your thesis to make. You create a tiny text using a five-paragraph structure:

• The first sentence addresses the broad context. This locates the study in a policy, practice or research field.
• The second sentence establishes a problem related to the broad context you have set out. It often starts with “But”, “Yet” or “However”.
• The third sentence says what specific research has been done. This often starts with “This research” or “I report…”
• The fourth sentence reports the results. Don’t try to be too tricky here, just start with something like: “This study shows,” or “Analysis of the data suggests that…”
• The fifth and final sentence addresses the “So What?” question and makes clear the claim to contribution.

Here’s an example that Thomson provides:

Secondary school arts are in trouble, as the fall in enrolments in arts subjects dramatically attests. However, there is patchy evidence about the benefits of studying arts subjects at school and this makes it hard to argue why the drop in arts enrolments matters. This thesis reports on research which attempts to provide some answers to this problem – a longitudinal study which followed two groups of senior secondary students, one group enrolled in arts subjects and the other not, for three years. The results of the study demonstrate the benefits of young people’s engagement in arts activities, both in and out of school, as well as the connections between the two. The study not only adds to what is known about the benefits of both formal and informal arts education but also provides robust evidence for policymakers and practitioners arguing for the benefits of the arts. You can  find out more about tiny texts and thesis abstracts on Thomson’s blog.

• Writing tips for higher education professionals
• Resource collection on academic writing
• What is your academic writing temperament?

Write a plan

You might not be a planner when it comes to writing. You might prefer to sit, type and think through ideas as you go. That’s OK. Everybody works differently. But one of the benefits of planning your writing is that your plan can help you when you get stuck. It can help with writer’s block (more on this shortly!) but also maintain clarity of intention and purpose in your writing.

You can do this by creating a  thesis skeleton or storyboard , planning the order of your chapters, thinking of potential titles (which may change at a later stage), noting down what each chapter/section will cover and considering how many words you will dedicate to each chapter (make sure the total doesn’t exceed the maximum word limit allowed).

Use your plan to help prompt your writing when you get stuck and to develop clarity in your writing.

Some starting points include:

• This chapter will argue that…
• This section illustrates that…
• This paragraph provides evidence that…

Of course, we wish it werethat easy. But you need to approach your first draft as exactly that: a draft. It isn’t a perfect, finished product; it is your opportunity to start getting words down on paper. Start with whichever chapter you feel you want to write first; you don’t necessarily have to write the introduction first. Depending on your research, you may find it easier to begin with your empirical/data chapters.

Vitae advocates for the “three draft approach” to help with this and to stop you from focusing on finding exactly the right word or transition as part of your first draft.

This resource originally appeared on Researcher Development .

Kelly Louse Preece is head of educator development at the University of Exeter.

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Bringing the doctoral thesis by published papers to the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A quantitative easing? A small study of doctoral thesis submission rules and practice in two disciplines in the UK

• Open access
• Published: 15 May 2020
• Volume 124 , pages 1387–1409, ( 2020 )

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• John Rigby   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9833-5965 1 &
• Barbara Jones   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2717-6076 1  

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This paper examines how an alternative to the traditional monograph form of the doctoral thesis is emerging that reflects a new approach to the valuation and designation of scientific outputs. This new approach, based on co-citation as underpinning principle for the measurement of knowledge structures, values knowledge and knowledge producers in increasingly quantitative terms. Such a change aligns with wider institutional market-based approaches that have been transforming higher education sectors world-wide. Under these influences, which prioritize quantification and tangibility of output, with quality equated with citation, the thesis, a key institution of the university, is now subject to pressures to transform and be constituted by a series of publishable papers, referred to by a variety of terms, the most common being ‘T hesis by Published Papers ’, although ‘J ournal Format Thesis ’, ‘ Alternative Format Thesis ’, and ‘ Integrated Thesis ’ are also used. While the scientific disciplines have traditionally been closer to this paper-based model, albeit with significant national variations, Social Sciences and Humanities subjects are now being affected. We present evidence from a small study of the UK higher education sector of organisational regulations in 54 departments concerning doctoral degree submission formats in two disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences (History and Sociology). We investigate the prevalence of this new practice, investigate some of its key aspects, and identify a number of questions for future research on this emerging and important topic.

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Introduction

The award of a doctoral degree has been a strong signal that the holder of the qualification can join the academy’s latest generation of scholars. Possession provides the evidence of a successful attempt to make a knowledge claim and acquisition of research skills and capabilities including much tacit knowledge of the culture of the academy. While doctoral theses produced within scientific disciplines traditionally include bodies of papers reporting scientific discovery, in the Social Sciences and Humanities in the UK higher education sector this has not been so until recently. Now, however, doctoral education is transforming, and the thesis is being reconceived with greater emphasis upon it qua output and as a set of knowledge claims.

This paper considers aspects of this transformation. It begins with a discussion of the importance of distinctions within the academy. The paper then moves to review developments in the status of the doctoral thesis which have seen universities changing their rules on allowable thesis format to permit a submission for the doctoral degree to comprise an assemblage of papers, often three or four in number, each intended to be of publishable quality, and taken together forming a coherent body of work. The changes now being observed are then related to two developments both of which are underpinned by quantification, the first being the adoption of citation as the pivotal organizing concept which conceives knowledge as quanta with the value of knowledge considered quantitatively, and the second being the marketization of higher education which emphasizes commodification that re-frames activity as product (de Rosa 2016 ). The resulting transformation in the thesis is critically approached with a conceptual framing using ideas from realist philosophy (Searle 1995 ) and new institutionalist theory (Scott 2014 ), particularly the notions of constitutive rules, and institutional development and change. Such a framing helps to illuminate the tensions that exist as knowledge claims made within the context of one important academic institution, the doctoral thesis, are redefined in the terms of another, if not the central academic institution, the peer-reviewed paper. Our study then reports on an investigation of practice in the use of traditional and new thesis formats in two representative disciplines of the Social Sciences (Sociology) and the Humanities (History) at a random sample of 54 departments at British universities. The paper approaches the topic with an exploratory methodology, but with a limited number of prior expectations: (a) that on certain measures of research performance there might be a positive relationship with adoption;(b) that departmental size might be related to adoption practice; (c) that disciplines might show differences in adoption practice; and (d) that more established organisations, which we defined by membership of the Russell Group of universities, would show differences in practice. The paper provides a range of data and analysis and concludes with a discussion of issues raised by the research, proposing areas for further enquiry.

The academy—a place of distinctions

Understanding knowledge production as a system [‘metascience’ Ziman ( 2002 )] is a topic of long-standing and continuing interest across both the Sciences and the Humanities. Within debates about how such systems operate there has been much discussion of the way control is exercised over the outputs of the system and in particular the definition of quality. Key contributions in the debates about academic quality, what it is, and how it can be recognized, have been made by some of the most eminent researchers in the whole of social science, see for example the extensive contributions of Merton ( 1973 ), Merton and Sztompka ( 1996 ) and Bourdieu ( 1988 ).

Debate on how the quality and relevance of academic work, and of academics themselves, should be judged has commonly heeded the verdict of philosophers of science who have avoided the construction of explicit and objectivist criteria [see for example, Feyerabend ( 1993 ) on the diverse practices and forms of science of defining methods]. Instead, the approaches in metascience have attended to three main questions, see for example Merton ( 1973 ): (a) what, in scientific practice counts or can count as, or be measured as, or considered to exhibit scientific quality; (b) how, in practice, does it count (in the sense of how do such distinctions arise?); and (c) who should make such judgements? The second question is the one that has most occupied scholars and it has been understood and dealt with in two main ways: how should it count, i.e., normatively, or what, in practice, happens when the rules of the game are devised and or further applied. Both Bourdieu’s notion of academic capital (Naidoo 2004 ), and Merton’s reflection on the Matthew Effect (Merton 1968 ) have reflected this awareness of a connection between the question of who makes the judgement about quality, what criteria are in use to make judgements, and then how such criteria are subsequently applied and with what effect. Thus, while Merton and Bourdieu were concerned with what might give rise to distinctions within academic culture or the academic field (Merton’s emphasis is frequently upon the priority and novelty of the discoveries of the scientist, while Bourdieu identifies performance in the agrégation as one form whereby academic excellence is established), the main emphasis of their work has been upon what and how the reputation of those who possess it allows them to control and to exert influence in the systems they inhabit.

The emphasis in the work of Merton and in the work of Bourdieu therefore has been upon the social processes which underpin such distinctions. Bourdieu’s highly detailed analysis of academic hierarchies and distinctions has emphasised the importance of bodies of rules or the ‘rules of the game’ (Bourdieu 1988 ) which might change over time, but the approach to definition is largely a static one.

Across this wide range of work, there is great reluctance to state categorically what means should be chosen to designate excellence. Merton identifies many of the subtleties of distinction, and is mindful of the many difficulties of defining excellence; but his discussion covers the issue of what is prior to achievement, not in what achievement actually consists. Thus, in his framework, he refers to potential (‘talent’) while his approach to the question of excellence relies ultimately upon an identity: “For immediate purposes, it is enough to note that two of the meanings implied by the word excellence correspond loosely to the two meanings of recognition that have been briefly examined’ (Merton 1973 , p. 423). For him excellence is defined teleologically: there is potential on the one hand—in his terms a ‘quality’—and there is excellence in what is delivered—in his terms ‘performance’.

Within the academy, the position of the doctoral thesis within the hierarchy of academic knowledge has been little considered. Major writers on the subject of knowledge production have given little consideration to the doctoral thesis, either as knowledge product or in terms of a position or status in the academic hierarchy. Merton in his major works does not particularly consider students, nor does Ziman. The more recent analysis by Whitley ( 2000 ) of the intellectual and social organisation of the sciences does not once mention students as contributing to or creating scientific knowledge.

Where there has in fact been consideration of the doctoral thesis using citation-based bibliometric analysis, this has tended to treat the thesis as sui generis and not as part of the rest of the scientific literature. Important studies in this area using bibliometric analysis of the thesis have tended to study topic focus, see for an examination of the field of library and information studies Sugimoto et al. ( 2011 ) and more recently Sugimoto ( 2014 ) on academic heritages.

The valuation of the thesis as outside the normal knowledge producing process is evident also in the behaviour of citation indexers which do not consider the thesis as a type of output, and theses are not currently included in the Web of Knowledge (Clarivate 2019 ). Databases of theses have, though, developed as a result of initiatives taken by national bodies (Weisser and Walker 1997 ) and some national systems are now in place to record the output of students, see for example the UK’s British Library system (British Library 2018 ). The Spanish Government (Spanish Ministry 2018 ) also maintains its own database although with limited functionality (Hernandez Serrano 2020 ) and there is widespread recognition of the virtues of such databases for providing access to knowledge, see for example the work of Grigas et al. ( 2017 ). Other repositories can be found around the world at university level, see for example in Israel where Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has its own resource inspired by the global ETD movement (Asner and Polani 2008 ).

A number of reflections on how to turn the thesis into a paper (Singh 2015 ; Thomas and Skinner 2012 ) reflect a widespread view of the thesis as of a lower standard, a corollary of which is that such work needs ‘conversion’ (Thomas and Skinner 2012 , p. 2) to turn it into a proper piece of academic work, but that the effort is worth making to produce more papers in a regulatory climate that seeks to incentivize the production of texts. Currently, within the UK context, the UK Research Excellence Framework (the REF) ignores the thesis entirely qua knowledge claim (Higher Education Funding Agency for England (HEFCE)/Research England 2018 ), although other research systems do take notice of theses, for example the Danish one (Wilsdon et al. 2015 ).

A new model thesis

However, there have been strong arguments mounted over a long period in favour of a thesis structured in such a way that its contents are presented as papers, and, therefore, as a set of very explicit knowledge claims. For an account of the origins of the thesis by published work, see Bao et al. ( 2018 ), who note its origins in the so-called ‘cumulative dissertation’ of the German higher education system. Early work to establish the case for a publication based thesis is made by a number of writers with a leading figure being Rudy ( 1962 ). Later work in favour of the thesis qua contribution to knowledge (through a published papers format), and which takes a critical stance against the traditional monograph, includes most importantly that by Breimer and Breimer ( 1995 , p. 175) which dismissively terms the traditional format a ‘tome-based system’. Other proponents of the thesis that is formed from papers include Thomas et al. ( 1986 ) whose use of the term ‘alternative format’ begins to establish one of a number of new naming conventions, although ‘publication based system’ (Breimer and Mikhailidis 1993 , p. 406) is a more accurate description. Writing about the production of doctoral theses in the context of medical research, Breimer and Mikhailidis ( 1993 ) describe the difference between the UK system for a Ph.D. in medicine, which does not require a thesis to include papers, and the Swedish system, in which the thesis is required to be made up of papers. The authors however, note discrepancies even within systems: they observe that at a leading UK university, in the Faculty of Medicine (The University of Oxford), theses are indeed allowed to be presented as papers.

Characteristic of the debate about the definition of the thesis is a paradoxical approach to the status of the thesis as knowledge claim. Thus, despite arguing for the superiority of the thesis by published work through claiming it as a better test of the capacity of a student to produce knowledge of significance (Breimer and Breimer 1995 , 1996 ), the authors incongruously propose a database of theses that, in effect, formally segregates the thesis as knowledge product from the other scientific literature, even when it is the case the papers produced within a thesis are published. Again, to further demonstrate the difficulty of making a decision on which format of thesis is the better, rather than seeking to impose a system, the authors, perhaps rather paradoxically, argue for the freedom to choose which format to use, although they indicate that the market will decide, and do so in favour of the thesis by published papers.

The Social Sciences and the Humanities

While the debate over the format of the doctoral degree is long-running, and, as we note above, different systems operate in different countries, in recent years, the arguments in favour of the thesis by published papers have grown. In the UK higher education system, where the use of the thesis by published papers is still limited (Christianson et al. 2015 ), there is rising interest in the Social Sciences and Humanities in the adoption of that format (Jump 2015 ). According to de Rosa ( 2016 ), interest within the Social Sciences and Humanities in the thesis by published work is the result of two developments: (a) a change in our understanding of scientific knowledge brought about by the citation mapping revolution and; (b) the new public management. We elaborate on these two influences briefly below.

Citation—mapping and then measuring: changing cultures of valuation

In the same decade (the 1970s) that the pioneering sociological investigations into the field of scientific enquiry by Bourdieu and Merton were taking place, including into how hierarchies and distinctions formed and were reproduced, important developments were occurring in the technologies of information science, especially citation indexing (De Bellis 2009 ). To implement a large-scale indexing of papers, Eugene Garfield established the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), later the Web of Science/Web of Knowledge. Central to approaches developed within the ISI’s activities was co-citation (Small 1973 ) which associates publications into aggregations illustrative of scientific fields and research fronts. Citation also provided a means of measuring the recognition/impact of papers, but also the status of the journals which published them. While the idea of the journal impact factor had been developed earlier, it was in this period that it became more widely used. This quantifying approach to scientific information, anticipated in 1955 by Garfield ( 1955 , 1972 , 2006 ) and then made possible through computerization of citation indexing by the ISI, created possibilities for the appreciation and delineation of the quantitative dimensions of scientific achievement which had been shown to exist by Lotka ( 1926 ) and which had been more recently noted by Shockley ( 1957 ) and by De Solla Price ( 1963 ).

It is now clear that the quantitative paradigm for conceiving of the quality of academic work has become an increasingly important approach across the whole of the academy. For more detailed treatment of this subject, see Haley ( 2013 ), Egghe ( 2006 ) and Hirsch ( 2005 ), the latter work now having over eight thousand citations (on Google Scholar). Attempts to refine the quantitative approach have followed, Franceschini et al. ( 2012 ) who use an approach which they term the success index, while Waltman et al. ( 2011 ) use a field normalized recursive counting approach employing PageRank counting methods.

A context for quantification

The quantifying approach to knowledge production has developed if not flourished in a period that has seen a number of reforms of public sector organisations, including significant changes within the higher education sector across the world. These changes have arisen from two contrasting and yet related attempts to revise and re-frame the relationship between universities and the outside world: (a) attempts to impose notions of economic efficiency upon the sector, including upon its research functions, a set of changes that are often referred to as the new public management (NPM) and resulting from the neoliberal revolution; (b) attempts to engage the universities more broadly with societal concerns, a position outlined most notably by Gibbons et al. ( 1994 ) and in a later work Nowotny et al. ( 2001 ) and pursued under the notion of grand challenges by research funders such as the European Union (Cagnin et al. 2012 ; van Oost et al. 2016 ). The first of these two changes has been the more significant although the second cannot be denied as having importance.

The NPM has brought to bear upon the higher education sector not only a range of mechanisms to promote competition between institutions such as performance indicators of many kinds (Christensen 2012 ; de Boer et al. 2007 ; Erno-Kjolhede and Hansson 2011 ; Guthrie and Neumann 2007 ; Hicks 2012 ; Humphrey and Miller 2012 ; Olssen and Peters 2005 ; Vinokur 2017 ; Wollmann 2017 ) with attendant criticisms of their effects (Chandler et al. 2002 ; Christensen 2011 , 2012 ; Diefenbach 2009 ; Lorenz 2012 ; Moosa 2018 ; Rebora and Turri 2013 ; Renaudie 2018 ; Ryan et al. 2017 ; Schimank 2005 ; Schubert 2009 ; Shore 2008 ; ter Bogt and Scapens 2012 ) but has imposed notions of commodification upon the whole area of activity in which universities engage (McCowan 2017 ; Zacharakis and Holloway 2016 ). Commodification is not as Komljenovic and Robertson ( 2016 ) argue a static process but a continuous and dynamic activity to which the individual institutions of the sector are subject.

Institutional change in the academy

To examine the emergence, development, and adoption of the papers-based thesis, we believe it is productive to draw upon the work of institutionalist and realist scholars as this broad body of work provides concepts helpful in understanding the bases upon which social institutions, such as the doctoral thesis, rest, and how such institutions relate to other institutions and develop over time (and potentially across distance).

Institutionalist theory generally considers that social institutions are underpinned by three ‘pillars’ (regulative, normative, cultural-cognitive), and below the pillars are considered to lie informing assumptions about the creation of social reality that have been termed ‘constitutive rules’. Taking the form of statements, ‘X counts as a Y in context C’ (Scott 2014 , p. 76), they are definitional statements stating what is the case, not what should be the case or why something is the case (normative statements). Nor are they an expression of a rule or of the consequences of the breaking of a rule (regulative statements). Recent changes observed to the way in which the thesis qua social institution is defined within some of the disciplines is, we would argue, a clear example of the changing of the ‘constitutive rules’ of an institution. As we suggest, below, such a change is profound and significant.

In the example we are considering of changes to the rules that define a thesis, an immediate question concerns the nature of the effect of changing a second institution when other social institutions [they can be ‘institutional facts’ after earlier realist attempts to define social objects (Searle 1995 )] are affected by the re-definition of the constitutive rules of a first institution. Our argument is that if one institution is re-defined in such a way that its relation to another institution alters, then the constitutive rules of the second institution also change, by implication, or, least a tension arises from ambiguity. In the case we consider of institutional change, the process of redefinition of the thesis has begun to occur by reference to another social institution: the peer-reviewed academic paper. In summary form, if institution A [e.g. the thesis] is redefined in such a way that its property X [the content of the thesis] is now deemed to be a Y [published papers], and that institution B [the peer-reviewed paper] has this same property Y [published papers] which was not connected previously to X (and to institution A) in any way, but is now connected by virtue of the redefinition of A, a change to B has been implied through an attempt to change the properties of A.

A further concern relevant to our case with which institutionalist scholarship has been engaged is how such changes are brought about? Theorizing on the subject of change in the institutionalist literature identifies two contrasting processes to explain how changes happen—both of which may however be present in any given case. Where changes to institutions—in this case the definition of the thesis—proceed on an uncertain basis with a general open-ended approach, and where, as Scott indicates, outcomes ‘emerge from the collective sense-making and problem solving behaviour of actors confronting similar situations’ (Scott 2014 , p. 114), a naturalistic account is plausible. Where institutional change is led by specific agents, the term agent-based change is employed.

Our reading of the case of the redefinition of the thesis in light of the institutionalist scholarship therefore raises questions about relations between different institutions when their respective constitutive rules overlap or come into conflict i.e. have common reference points, and also questions about how such changes occur. Our view is that such topics invite a more detailed investigation. At this stage, it is appropriate to conduct, as we have done, a short exploratory investigation of actual practice of thesis formats, to document change to the rules regarding format, and to explore the extent of new practices, and relate changes to known features of the organisations and institutions of academe, such as their size, and performance.

Exploring changes in practice: an investigation

The foregoing review of context and literature suggested an agenda for empirical work as follows: (a) a general documenting of practice and intention as regards the use of the thesis as a means to publish work; and (b) identifying differences between disciplines, which a previous study on the general topic had not examined in detail (Christianson et al. 2015 ), and exploring how differences in practice and intention might have arisen. To provide empirical evidence about changes in practice in terms of thesis submission format adoption, a short exploratory study was conceived to obtain information by telephone and or email questionnaire on the use of theses by publication in universities in the United Kingdom in two disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities, namely Social Science and History respectively and to incorporate in the analysis of such data features of departmental organisation and performance that could conceivably shed light on such research practice and changes that had occurred to it. While initial review of university thesis documents provided to us at the start of the study suggested that an investigation of a taxonomic kind (or even the development of typologies) might be possible, our focus was upon obtaining an overview of developments.

Evidence from the REF2014 database was considered potentially relevant to explaining departmental practice and investigating differences. This database, created as part of the United Kingdom’s periodic review of university research known as the Research Excellence Framework or REF (—prior to 2014 the review was known as the Research Assessment Exercise or RAE), contains information at unit of assessment level (quasi departmental information) about the size of departments and various performance measures including the quality of academic outputs [‘the output measures’], the research culture [‘the research environment’] and the impact of the research upon society and the economy [‘impact’]. From this data it is also possible to generate a composite measure reflecting the amount of resource (financial resource won from the funding council funds) available to the unit of assessment on the basis of the entire REF submission (at REF2014).

Our expectation was that departmental size, i.e. larger size, might influence adoption of new practices, following the view that the more communication channels through which information about an innovation could pass, the higher the diffusion rate (Rogers 2003 ), although we note the relationship between size and performance is problematic and that above a certain size threshold, performance might decline (Kenna and Berche 2011 ). A further but weak expectation was that departments with a higher proportion of staff producing work regarded as of higher overall quality would be different from those at the other extreme—and would, furthermore, have adopted the new style—i.e. thesis by published papers, on the assumption that if flexibility on thesis format is advantageous to an organisation, it will occur more frequently in those which, on some yardstick of performance measurement, have fared better.

As disciplinary cultures vary significantly, in regard to citation amongst other aspects (Ziman 2002 , p. 260), it was our view that it could be reasonably expected that differences between Sociology and History would exist in thesis format: in particular, that more theses by publication might exist in departments where the use of ‘theory’ is more common, i.e. in Sociology, than in departments where narrative exposition and extended analysis is more common, i.e. History. For that reason, our approach was to consider the two disciplines separately.

Our sample included a number of newer universities and very well-established ones. We sought to investigate whether Russell or non-Russell Group universities were different in their use of the thesis by published papers as Russell Group universities have advantages of size, stronger research tradition and, through being often older, more experienced staff (Karran and Mallinson 2018 ).

Methodology

Selection of cases and sources of data.

We wrote to or phoned departments or quasi departments in 21 educational institutions where there had been return in the unit of assessment ‘Sociology’ in the last Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise of 2014. We also wrote to or phoned 40 education institutions where there had been a return in the unit of assessment ‘History’. We selected institutions randomly. From 29 institutions submitting in the unit of assessment Sociology we sought replies from 21, while from the 83 institutions submitting in the unit of assessment history, we sought replies from 40 educational institutions.

While the REF data applies to units of assessment, our study sought responses from academic departments/divisions or schools, as disciplinary practice was the focus. We recognize that our study relates data from responses given to a questionnaire about practice in 2019 to data from 2014 (published in 2014, the REF data). The relevance of what could be regarded as contemporary data about practice to historical data of research performance could be questioned, and we accept that previous performance might no longer be strongly associated with and relate to current departmental practice. The universities in our sample were from varying ages, with 15 founded prior to 1900, five founded in the period 1900–1950, ten in the period 1951–1990, and 23 in the period 1991–2020.

Ethics review statement

An ethical review manager (ERM) software tool provided by our university was used to assess the study’s requirement for formal review by one of its ethics committees. The tool indicated that the study would not require formal ethical review as personal data was not being collected and the guarantee of anonymity to respondents and to their institutions was to be provided verbally and in writing.

Research focus and questionnaire

We noted in our enquiry, which was carried out by email and by telephone survey, that in some institutions, the term journal format thesis was used instead of thesis by published papers format. But we also drew attention to the fact that our enquiry sought information only about the thesis format that was an alternative to the traditional doctoral monograph thesis and not the form of thesis which is intended for later career staff who might wish to earn a doctoral degree from work published over a long (sometimes a career-long) period (i.e. already published) which is in many institutions termed a ‘thesis by published work’. Our reasons for excluding this second form of thesis involving publications was that (a) in cases where academic staff are submitting papers for the degree of doctor of philosophy they are doing so with papers that are often already published, (b) this is a less common practice, and (c) importantly, this is not the major form of doctoral degree production. Our study aims therefore to examine the issue of whether and how the alternative to the traditional monograph thesis is emerging as a rival form in which the thesis is comprised of papers of publishable quality which are intended to constitute knowledge claims. We also sought to identify what other factors might be associated with such changes in practice. In each enquiry we made to departments, we aimed to contact administrators or academic staff with knowledge of the history of submission format practice who could answer the following questions in the table below Table  1 questionnaire on thesis type. In both email correspondence which accompanied the questions and when speaking on the phone to respondents (if a reply had been delayed), we were careful to state that we were not focusing our research on theses produced by staff based on published papers.

For the discipline of Sociology, all 21 departments we wrote to replied. 33 replies were received from 40 History departments. Our coverage of the sector was therefore, in Sociology, 21 from 29 submitting in the last REF (72%) and in History, 33 responses from 83 submitting in the last REF (40%).

Data was analysed in order to establish the following and the results are displayed in the following Tables  2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 and 9 .

In how many institutions has thesis submission been allowed in both monograph and journal format, and the current level of usage of the different formats, and current intentions.

Evidence of changes recently in the adoption of thesis by published papers.

The existence of statistically significant differences between disciplines in respect of the acceptance of monograph and thesis by published papers format.

The existence of different levels of submission in the two formats differ, and the presence of differences between disciplines?

If published papers are allowed in a particular discipline at a certain institution, when did changes occur and are there differences between subject disciplines?

For those institutions yet to adopt the practice of thesis submission in published papers format, what were current intentions?

If intentions were to introduce a thesis in published papers format, when would this be allowed?

Were there differences between subject fields?

Transformation of practice—current rules, practice, intention

Amongst Sociology departments, eight out of 21 now allow the submission of both a monograph thesis and thesis by published papers with five departments allowing the practice since 2001. Amongst History departments, 15 out of 33 departments now allow both formats with eight departments starting to allow the practice since 2001. In our sample of departments, there is no statistically significant difference in practice between the uses of the two formats between disciplines. The Fisher exact test statistic value is 0.7784 for the comparison of allowed practice by discipline. In terms of usage, the monograph is more common in both disciplines. Only in one department is the thesis by published papers more common than the Monograph. This occurs in Sociology.

Recent introductions and plans to introduce

As to intentions to allow both the monograph and the thesis by published papers, no Sociology departments in our study indicated that they were planning to introduce rules to permit students to submit theses in both formats currently, although one department replied that intentions were not known. Four History departments indicated that they were planning to permit both formats with two further departments of History indicating that their future plans were not known at the time of our request for information from them. Of those History departments intending to introduce both formats, two were intending to introduce them in 2019 and two in 2020.

Below we note the introduction of thesis by published papers (TBPP) and the number of departments adopting. In Sociology it is possible to see that in total, five departments have either adopted the TBPP or have plans to introduce TBPP since 2001, which is 17% of all departments, while in History 12 twelve departments have adopted since 2001 or plan soon to adopt, which is 14%.

Exploring differences in practice: Russell Group and non-Russell Group membership

Our samples of Sociology and of History departments included Russell and non-Russell Group universities. The proportions of each group were similar in each discipline. In Sociology, there were 8 Russell Group universities in the sample of 21 (38%), and in History, there were 13 Russell Group universities (33%) from a sample of 33. We used Fisher’s exact test to establish if there were differences in practice at the level of the whole sample of both disciplines [ N  = 54] between Russell Group departments and non-Russell Group departments, and also within subject disciplines (Sociology, N  = 21; History, N  = 33). No significant differences were found in any of the 3 tests.

Exploring the influence of the university upon departmental practice

When random samples of departments were chosen from both disciplines, a small number [ N  = 8] were located in the same education institution. It was therefore possible to examine the effect of institutional location on those universities that had departments in both. One of the departments in the group of eight did not however reply to the question and was removed. In the event, seven departments were examined and in three cases, there was departmental agreement, while in four cases, departments in the same institution operated different practices in regard to thesis submission format. A binomial test can be made and a null hypothesis of no influence can be tested. In the event of there being seven cases with four non-matches, the probability of four or more non-matches has a probability of 0.5, and a 95% confidence interval of 0.18–0.90, showing that the null hypothesis of no-influence cannot be rejected.

Exploring differences in practice: effect of size of department

Our analysis of the adoption of thesis by published papers as a distinct practice examined the role of the size of departments upon adoption. New practices may be more likely to arise where departments have more contact with the outside world. A crude indicator of a department’s exposure to outside influences would be its size in terms of the number of staff. While the number of staff submitted in the REF2014, which is the information we have used, is not necessarily a reliable guide to the number of actual members of staff in a department, for the purposes of this enquiry it might be a relevant indicator as those counted are the department’s active researchers with, potentially the stronger external contacts. A ranks test was used to assess the association between the adoption of the TBPP and departmental size. The analysis showed that in the case of Sociology, there was a statistically significant difference with larger departments more likely to adopt the TBPP. History departments showed no effect of size upon adoption of the practice.

Exploring differences in practice: the link with quality measured by the REF2014

We used information from the Research Excellence Framework 2014 [‘REF2014’] to explore the relationship between the performance of the department in the last major formal evaluation of university research and thesis submission practices. Our view was that judgements formed by the REF panels relate to departmental performance over a long period and, to that extent, are valid as assessments of departmental capability and achievement in a number of areas. Furthermore, as measures of organisational achievement in the area of research which are widely reported and of considerable importance to a university’s reputation, they might be expected to have an association with departmental practices, including the practice of interest to us, namely thesis submission format.

To assess the relationship between departmental capability and achievement and the practice of thesis adoption, we used REF data on the financial resources ‘earned’ by the department (UOA) on three measures assessed by the REF. These measures are all made at unit of assessment level and we have combined them to create a composite indicator. We made the assumption that the unit of assessment was an acceptable proxy for a department. The three measures assessed by REF are impact, environment, and output. We then combined three measures to form a compositive indicator to reflect the financial reward earned by a department. Our indicator follows the United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) methodology in measuring the reward in terms of full-time equivalent employees (FTE) and reflects the Quality of Research (QR) money earned by units of assessment from their performance in the REF.

Publicly available data was obtained from the last REF (REF2014) on the three main measures of unit of assessment performance to create our indicator. We term that indicator, ‘UOA_Total_Financial_Resource_REF2014’. The weightings at the last REF were as follows for each of the measures: 0.2 for the Impact score, 0.15 for the Environment score, and 0.65 for the Output score (Higher Education Funding Agency for England (HEFCE)/Research England 2011 ). To create the assessment of financial reward at university department level, these weightings are multiplied by the proportion of staff achieving category four status in the assessment and the proportion achieving category three status. Research impact, environment and output scores below three carry no financial reward and do not need to be included. Category four research is defined as ‘Quality that is world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour’. Category three research is considered to be “internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour’ (UK Research and Innovation 2019 ).

Our steps in creating the individual and overall measures were to calculate each of the three individual measures in terms of impact, environment and output, and then to weight each according to the REF model to create a Grand Total. The financial return to the department was the Grand Total with the London weightings applied (inner London 12%, outer London 8%). Our measures therefore give the notional financial reward (of impact, environment and output) which and that this financial reward may to some extent proxy for departmental capability and achievement.

Departments were then assessed on these three measures of performance and our UOA Total Financial Resource indicator and those operating both forms of thesis were compared with those operating only the monograph. A ranks test was used on each discipline. The results of the tests are shown below in Table  8 performance based measures comparison of departments—Sociology and Table  9 performance based measures comparison of departments—History.

We should note that while individual measures were analysed separately and are different data sets, analysis of the combined data set of total financial resources and the individual component data sets when taken together should be considered to be subject to the risk of an increased familywise error rate. There is no general agreement on a single approach to control the rate (Perneger 1998 ) and there are many suggestions on how to avoid the risks. Our view is to follow the common practice informed by the Bonferroni principle and divide alpha by the number of actual tests involved. In this case, that denominator is 2 as there are in effect two tests, one test with the whole data and a further 3 tests all of which contribute 1/3 to the first test, i.e. 1 + (3 * 1/3) = 2.

In the field of Sociology, three of these QR based measures of performance were statistically significantly related to thesis practice before correction, while after our correction we considered two were. The measures related to the overall research quality of the department, and the measure of the department’s quality of research were all significantly higher amongst the departments that had adopted the thesis than those who had not. The measure focusing on the impact of research was not significant. The measure focusing on the environment was significant when considered separately, and we consider is likely to be weakly associated.

In the field of History, no measure of performance was significantly related to the adoption of the thesis, and there was therefore no need to carry out correction of alpha. The measure of performance assessing the impact of research was, however, close to significant. Our interpretation of the results is that in Sociology, there is an association between the performance of the department, in certain aspects, and thesis practice. In History, there is no association.

Change in practice and regulation

Our study provides evidence from a systematic investigation of changes in the practices regarding thesis submission in both Sociology and History departments in the UK Higher Education sector. It uses a number of non-parametric statistics as the incidence of cases/data points in our sample is low. As yet however, we can only note changes in the rules that apply to format of thesis submission, rather than to the actual incidence of usage of different formats since there is no publicly available information, and responses volunteered from interviewees suggested that few if any organisational records were kept.

In both disciplines, more departments still permit thesis submission in the monograph format exclusively: amongst Sociology departments, 13 departments require the monograph as compared with eight departments where both formats are allowed; while in History, 18 departments require the monograph exclusively, compared with 15 departments that allow both formats. Despite changes to the rules affecting practice, it is only in one department that the thesis by published papers is more common than the monograph. Change however is occurring to the rules affecting thesis submission, but not rapidly.

Factors affecting change

Our view was that some factors associated with the adoption of innovations might be investigated to identify a link with the requirements to use different thesis types. We considered departmental size, the organisation to which the department belonged, and a small number of measures of performance of the department (obtained from the REF2014) as potentially relating to thesis adoption.

Departmental size

Departmental size, for which a proxy is available as an FTE measure in the REF2014, is a simple but readily available measure that is plausibly related to the scope for the adoption of new practices. And in Sociology, size of department is indeed statistically significantly related to adoption of the thesis by published papers, whereas in History, size has no effect. In departments of Sociology, the mean rank of departments that adopt both forms of thesis—i.e. that have adopted the thesis by published papers is nearly twice that of departments that have not adopted. The difference is statistically significant in the case of Sociology.

Organisational effect

We were able to consider if the university in which the department was located had any effect upon the adoption of the thesis by published papers. In our sample of universities there was a small number [ N  = 7] where departments of both Sociology and History had returned in the last REF and it was therefore possible for us to examine if the organisation itself in which the department (the Unit of Assessment) was located had an influence upon the types of thesis allowed. As we have noted above, four universities had differences in their thesis submission practice between their departments of Sociology and History, while three universities had the same practice in both disciplines. With such a small number of cases, it is not possible to be confident that university-wide policy has had any effect. However, we do note that there was more difference than there was similarity in thesis formats allowed. We tentatively suggest therefore that the organisations (i.e. universities) in which departments are located are not having a strong effect upon thesis format policy at departmental level.

Departmental performance

Our investigation also examined departmental performance along a number of dimensions and its association with thesis format types allowed. Our evidence suggested that in the discipline of Sociology, departments that are more successful, measured by our metric of QR money earned overall, and in terms of output measures, and possibly environment measures, were more likely to allow both types of thesis. In the discipline of History, there was no association between success measured using our metric and thesis adoption practice.

We had assumed that in departments that were more likely to achieve higher performance levels when judged by outside observers, there might be more alignment with notions of disciplinary good practice, including those relating to the adoption of new forms of thesis. This might be most evident when comparing departments on the Environment measure of performance. Our grounds for considering this is that funding council guidance on the way in which panels assess environment refers directly to the supervision of research students in Section C4: Assessment criteria, Paragraph 107, Section 3 subsection (ii) (Higher Education Funding Agency for England (HEFCE)/Research England 2012 ).

As we note above, in departments of Sociology such a link is very weakly evident but in departments of History, the link is not present. We might consider on the basis of this evidence that good practice in Sociology departments may be to use both forms of thesis, whereas in History, there is no consensus. This contention should though be considered in light of the fact that in Sociology, the thesis by published papers is less established (in our sample) at 38% of the cases, compared with History, where 15 departments (45% of our sample) have allowed both forms of thesis.

Conclusions

We note on the basis of our study of the UK that important changes to the institution of the doctoral thesis are occurring. But the changes we have observed may not be complete and, missing from our picture of practice is the number of theses which are produced in different formats in departments. We should also note that our study reached its conclusions without our examining university policy documents, and we relied upon respondent’s knowledge of each organisation’s policy and practice. The change we have evidence of appears to be piecemeal across disciplines. In our view, this is suggestive of more a more naturalistic form of institutional change than one, and here our limited evidence on the role of universities qua organisations is also suggestive, that is actor - led .

Our theoretical discussion noted that changes to the definition of the thesis concerned two central institutions within the academic field, the doctoral thesis and the academic paper that have historically served different purposes, but which today, are being brought, for various reasons, into a closer alignment. In the past, in the UK system, while the thesis has indeed been a knowledge claim clearly vital to the progression of the student forwards from the position of scholar to academic staff member, its knowledge claims have not necessarily been considered of sufficient strength or in an appropriate form to be considered suitable for incorporation into the formal bodies of codified knowledge. A cordon sanitaire had remained around the thesis, with the thesis remaining proof of a capacity to generate knowledge, and a claim of credentialization of the individual but not certification of the knowledge claim or claims made inside the thesis. Whether the two institutions can have a closer identity as some current practices envisage is very open to debate, and should be the object of further research.

A number of other questions are raised by the alignment of these two institutions: how should knowledge claims made within papers that comprise a thesis be linked to and indexed in the formal bodies of codified knowledge? Will the link be made from the thesis to its cited papers or from the papers themselves that comprise the thesis to those papers that are cited? If both routes are chosen, duplication will surely result. In the examination of the thesis, who now holds sway in passing the judgement of quality of a thesis by published papers, an examiner or the various peer-reviewers of the papers submitted within the thesis? What will be the quality of papers that are produced within a thesis by published papers? Will such papers be widely accepted within formal evaluative processes such as the research excellence framework? Will changes to the rules affecting the thesis lead to an increase in the production of papers? We respectfully submit that the topic expects more research and that taxonomic and typological approaches may be helpful in developing understanding.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Dr. Jonathan Adams, Professor Andrew McMeekin and Dr. Brendan Burchill for their helpful insights. Professor Keith Julian advised on statistical methods. An earlier version of this paper was published as a pre-print at SocArXiv (Rigby and Jones 2019 ).

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Rigby, J., Jones, B. Bringing the doctoral thesis by published papers to the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A quantitative easing? A small study of doctoral thesis submission rules and practice in two disciplines in the UK. Scientometrics 124 , 1387–1409 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03483-9

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