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The Ultimate Guide to Getting Your Thesis Published in a Journal

7-minute read

• 25th February 2023

Writing your thesis and getting it published are huge accomplishments. However, publishing your thesis in an academic journal is another journey for scholars. Beyond how much hard work, time, and research you invest, having your findings published in a scholarly journal is vital for your reputation as a scholar and also advances research findings within your field.

This guide will walk you through how to make sure your thesis is ready for publication in a journal. We’ll go over how to prepare for pre-publication, how to submit your research, and what to do after acceptance.

Pre-Publication Preparations

Understanding the publishing process.

Ideally, you have already considered what type of publication outlet you want your thesis research to appear in. If not, it’s best to do this so you can tailor your writing and overall presentation to fit that publication outlet’s expectations. When selecting an outlet for your research, consider the following:

●  How well will my research fit the journal?

●  Are the reputation and quality of this journal high?

●  Who is this journal’s readership/audience?

●  How long does it take the journal to respond to a submission?

●  What’s the journal’s rejection rate?

Once you finish writing, revising, editing, and proofreading your work (which can take months or years), expect the publication process to be an additional three months or so.

Revising Your Thesis

Your thesis will need to be thoroughly revised, reworked, reorganized, and edited before a journal will accept it. Journals have specific requirements for all submissions, so read everything on a journal’s submission requirements page before you submit. Make a checklist of all the requirements to be sure you don’t overlook anything. Failing to meet the submission requirements could result in your paper being rejected.

Areas for Improvement

No doubt, the biggest challenge academics face in this journey is reducing the word count of their thesis to meet journal publication requirements. Remember that the average thesis is between 60,000 and 80,000 words, not including footnotes, appendices, and references. On the other hand, the average academic journal article is 4,000 to 7,000 words. Reducing the number of words this much may seem impossible when you are staring at the year or more of research your thesis required, but remember, many have done this before, and many will do it again. You can do it too. Be patient with the process.

Additional areas of improvement include>

·   having to reorganize your thesis to meet the section requirements of the journal you submit to ( abstract, intro , methods, results, and discussion).

·   Possibly changing your reference system to match the journal requirements or reducing the number of references.

·   Reformatting tables and figures.

·   Going through an extensive editing process to make sure everything is in place and ready.

Identifying Potential Publishers

Many options exist for publishing your academic research in a journal. However, along with the many credible and legitimate publishers available online, just as many predatory publishers are out there looking to take advantage of academics. Be sure to always check unfamiliar publishers’ credentials before commencing the process. If in doubt, ask your mentor or peer whether they think the publisher is legitimate, or you can use Think. Check. Submit .

If you need help identifying which journals your research is best suited to, there are many tools to help. Here’s a short list:

○  Elsevier JournalFinder

○  EndNote Matcher

○  Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE)

○  Publish & Flourish Open Access

·   The topics the journal publishes and whether your research will be a good fit.

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·   The journal’s audience (whom you want to read your research).

·   The types of articles the journal publishes (e.g., reviews, case studies).

·   Your personal requirements (e.g., whether you’re willing to wait a long time to see your research published).

Submitting Your Thesis

Now that you have thoroughly prepared, it’s time to submit your thesis for publication. This can also be a long process, depending on peer review feedback.

Preparing Your Submission

Many publishers require you to write and submit a cover letter along with your research. The cover letter is your sales pitch to the journal’s editor. In the letter, you should not only introduce your work but also emphasize why it’s new, important, and worth the journal’s time to publish. Be sure to check the journal’s website to see whether submission requires you to include specific information in your cover letter, such as a list of reviewers.

Whenever you submit your thesis for publication in a journal article, it should be in its “final form” – that is, completely ready for publication. Do not submit your thesis if it has not been thoroughly edited, formatted, and proofread. Specifically, check that you’ve met all the journal-specific requirements to avoid rejection.

Navigating the Peer Review Process

Once you submit your thesis to the journal, it will undergo the peer review process. This process may vary among journals, but in general, peer reviews all address the same points. Once submitted, your paper will go through the relevant editors and offices at the journal, then one or more scholars will peer-review it. They will submit their reviews to the journal, which will use the information in its final decision (to accept or reject your submission).

While many academics wait for an acceptance letter that says “no revisions necessary,” this verdict does not appear very often. Instead, the publisher will likely give you a list of necessary revisions based on peer review feedback (these revisions could be major, minor, or a combination of the two). The purpose of the feedback is to verify and strengthen your research. When you respond to the feedback, keep these tips in mind:

●  Always be respectful and polite in your responses, even if you disagree.

●  If you do disagree, be prepared to provide supporting evidence.

●  Respond to all the comments, questions, and feedback in a clear and organized manner.

●  Make sure you have sufficient time to make any changes (e.g., whether you will need to conduct additional experiments).

After Publication

Once the journal accepts your article officially, with no further revisions needed, take a moment to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. After all, having your work appear in a distinguished journal is not an easy feat. Once you’ve finished celebrating, it’s time to promote your work. Here’s how you can do that:

●  Connect with other experts online (like their posts, follow them, and comment on their work).

●  Email your academic mentors.

●  Share your article on social media so others in your field may see your work.

●  Add the article to your LinkedIn publications.

●  Respond to any comments with a “Thank you.”

Getting your thesis research published in a journal is a long process that goes from reworking your thesis to promoting your article online. Be sure you take your time in the pre-publication process so you don’t have to make lots of revisions. You can do this by thoroughly revising, editing, formatting, and proofreading your article.

During this process, make sure you and your co-authors (if any) are going over one another’s work and having outsiders read it to make sure no comma is out of place.

What are the benefits of getting your thesis published?

Having your thesis published builds your reputation as a scholar in your field. It also means you are contributing to the body of work in your field by promoting research and communication with other scholars.

How long does it typically take to get a thesis published?

Once you have finished writing, revising, editing, formatting, and proofreading your thesis – processes that can add up to months or years of work – publication can take around three months. The exact length of time will depend on the journal you submit your work to and the peer review feedback timeline.

How can I ensure the quality of my thesis when attempting to get it published?

If you want to make sure your thesis is of the highest quality, consider having professionals proofread it before submission (some journals even require submissions to be professionally proofread). Proofed has helped thousands of researchers proofread their theses. Check out our free trial today.

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Open Access Theses and Dissertations

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Recent Additions

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About OATD.org

OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions . OATD currently indexes 6,912,508 theses and dissertations.

About OATD (our FAQ) .

Visual OATD.org

We’re happy to present several data visualizations to give an overall sense of the OATD.org collection by county of publication, language, and field of study.

You may also want to consult these sites to search for other theses:

• Google Scholar
• NDLTD , the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. NDLTD provides information and a search engine for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), whether they are open access or not.
• Proquest Theses and Dissertations (PQDT), a database of dissertations and theses, whether they were published electronically or in print, and mostly available for purchase. Access to PQDT may be limited; consult your local library for access information.

How to Get Your Thesis Published

Writing a thesis is tough. Current or recent graduate students understand the time and effort required to successfully complete their research program. Indeed, graduate training involves extensive amounts of research that often reflects years of failures and successes. This research often leads to some type of novel insight, which is organized into either a t hesis paper or dissertation.

When writing a dissertation or a thesis , there is much to consider. Both require extensive amounts of work and reflect the years of research conducted by the student. Some universities require that students publish this final research in peer-reviewed journals prior to being considered eligible to graduate. Meanwhile, others do not require the thesis to be officially published. Ultimately, regardless of the graduation requirements, certain career tracks for PhDs or Master’s students require publication in peer-reviewed journals.

Graduate Writing

The type of graduate writing that is required by a student’s university depends upon where the graduate student has studied. In Europe, a doctoral thesis reflects original research, whereas, in the USA, a thesis is often a shorter document associated with a Master’s degree.

Whatever the title, extensive research projects are organized into a final document. Some of these written documents can be formatted into a book. Before publishing, a graduate student should consider several factors prior to publishing. Namely, the student should ask, is my research

• Rigorous: Is it methodical, scholarly work?
• Significant: Why does it matter to your potential audience?
• Original: Is it novel and unique?
• Marketable: Are there potential customers?

When to Publish?

In the past, universities have published theses graduation research summaries in only a hard copy format, such as a bound book. Now, some theses or dissertations are available online, often with a Creative Commons license. This can be a problem due to the requirement by journals that manuscripts contain only unpublished and original data. However, generally, a thesis or dissertation consisting of original, previously unpublished research that has been made available by your home institution does not prevent you from publishing. Rather, journals will consider these theses and dissertations that were published by universities as, understandably, still sufficiently novel data. Furthermore, peer review is an integral component of publication. To pass the muster of peer review, it is important to consider the feedback of dissertation or thesis committee. The critiques of your committee will often mirror the potential concerns of your peer reviewers.

Related: Planning to publish your Ph.D. research in a good journal?  Check these journal selection guidelines now!

Tips and Common Concerns

When going to publish your dissertation, there are generally some common errors made by graduate students.

First, it is generally a good practice to reference or acknowledge the thesis. Since the dissertation may be available publicly, it is important to be transparent about the source of the data.  Similarly, always inform journals that some research contained within a thesis or dissertation was published either in a print-only version or in an online repository.

You can publish your thesis as a monograph or a series of articles. It can depend on the type of thesis.

• Traditional thesis: It is usually in the form of chapters and is an original work written by an individual student.
• Thesis by publication: It consists of papers that have already been published in a journal.

According to COPE guidelines , when thesis contains original unpublished work, it should not be considered as prior publication. Therefore, it is acceptable to be published as a manuscript or a monograph in a journal, even if it is available freely in university repositories and Creative Common license may or may not apply.  However, if the thesis is of the second type, then the papers will be considered as prior publication and are not acceptable as original works for publication. As a research lab hosts student’s work, it is important to first review the policies of your host university. Similarly, since fields transform rapidly, don’t wait too long before publishing. If you do, you run the risk of your literature review or methodology becoming outdated.

I have my dissertation i want to published

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Copyright and your thesis or dissertation.

• Using Others' Work
• Reusing Your Published Work
• Your Copyright
• Publishing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• Frequently Asked Questions and Resources

Preparing for Publication

Norms around publishing thesis or dissertation material vary from one field to another. For instance, in some science and engineering fields, it is common to publish individual chapters from the thesis or dissertation before it is submitted. In the humanities, it is common to develop a monograph from the dissertation after completing a doctoral degree.

Whether you publish before or after submitting your thesis or dissertation, it is important to plan ahead when signing publishing contracts or submitting your dissertation. Will the publishing contract you sign allow you to use the article in your thesis or dissertation later? How does depositing in the ETD repository impact this? Can you use material that you've coauthored in your dissertation or thesis? For questions about the norms in your field, talk with your advisors. With Graduate School policy questions, consult the Graduate School's Thesis and Dissertation Guide . With copyright questions, contact the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright .

From Dissertation to Book

Thinking about transforming your dissertation into your first book? Hardly any dissertations are published as books without significant work on the author's part to refocus the manuscript for an audience beyond the dissertation committee.

Here are a few resources to help you understand the process of reworking a dissertation for publication as a monograph:

• Dear First-Time Author: How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book, by Theresa MacPhail MacPhail shares advice from writing her own first book as well as advice from editors at university presses.

In reading some of the resources listed above, you might encounter discussions of how having your dissertation available online (for example, in Penn State's ETD repository ) could negatively impact a publisher's willingness to look at your manuscript. Some authors assert that you should not put your dissertation online if you hope to sign a publishing contract. However, please note there is very little evidence to support this view. In fact, research has shown that publishers will indeed consider manuscripts that are revised versions of openly-accessible dissertations:

• Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers, by Ramirez, et al.

Attribution

This guide is based in part on Copyright for Dissertations , a guide from the University of Michigan Library Copyright Office, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license .

• << Previous: Your Copyright
• Next: Frequently Asked Questions and Resources >>
• Last Updated: May 23, 2024 2:44 PM
• URL: https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/copyright-td

PhDLife Blog

Sharing PhD experiences across the University of Warwick and beyond

Getting your thesis published

Wondering how to go about getting your thesis published? In this guide Georgina Collins provides information for early career researchers on the process of converting your thesis into a published book.

From PhD to publication

Following the PhD, if you wish to remain in academia or move into a related profession, publishing your thesis is often considered essential. Few PhD theses are published in their original form; the PhD is an academic exercise aimed at gaining a qualification and a set of skills, whereas a book is intended to be read by others. Converting your thesis into a book can be used as a building block to an academic career, to influence your discipline and expand your knowledge of the field.

One practical way in which the academic exercise and publication process differ is over copyright. Your thesis may contain content which is copyrighted to others that you will need permission from rights owners to include in publication.

Adapting a thesis

When adapting your thesis for publication you should take into account the shift in audience: as a thesis your work had a very small readership, but when published it should attract a much larger one. How will you go about amending your thesis to achieve this?

You will also need to consider whether to publish your thesis as a monograph or series of articles. Bear in mind the advice you have been given by supervisors and examiners.

Consider how these decisions may affect your employability. Sometimes three or four strong papers in refereed journals can be better when applying for jobs than having to wait several years for a monograph to come out.

You should also consider how you will balance your publication commitments alongside the inevitable post-doctoral challenges of finding a job, teaching, and pursuing new areas of research.

Choosing a publisher

There are different types of publishers – university presses and commercial presses are the most common ones. Some will pay you, while others that will expect a publishing subsidy from you. It is important to get a good sense of the range of publishers in your field, the kinds of work they publish, and their different strengths. Consider how your work could enhance their current series.

You may also consider how you wish to pitch your book – at a general readership, a trade audience or a specialist academic audience. Whether your thesis is published or not is usually decided by the commissioning editor or editorial board. That decision will be made on the grounds of intellectual coherence, whether the research is cutting edge, and also if the book is commercially viable.

Writing a book proposal

A major step in the process of publishing your thesis is getting the book proposal right. Make sure you read publishers’ guidelines. Catch their eye by being brief and punchy. Carefully proofread your work and do not just cut and paste an abstract from your thesis. There are four key criteria to consider:

• Rigour – is it a scholarly piece of work?
• Significance – is it talking to a wide audience?
• Originality – are you doing something brand new?
• Marketability – is the book commercially viable?

Your goal is to convince them that your book will be essential reading in your field.

Rewards, royalties and subsidies

In the UK, research is judged by the Research Excellence Framework (REF)  which is based on peer review. Therefore, whether you are paid or have paid to be published should not make a difference to how your work is viewed: it is the opinion of your peers that will matter.

Most of the big presses do not charge and have very well-established peer review systems of their own – so on the whole, work published by these large publishers tends to be of a higher standard. The ultimate prize is a contract with royalties, but unless your first book is a trade book that will have a huge impact, do not expect much. Also bear in mind whether your publisher is tying you in for your next book – this could be either a good or bad thing.

If you are required to pay a publishing subsidy, find out who is expected to pay. Many university departments will only pay if the book is likely to form part of an REF submission, which means it will have to reach a certain quality threshold – three-star or four-star in REF terms.

With these smaller publishers, you may have to do much of the quality control, proofing and marketing yourself. If this is the case, you may choose instead to go for articles – but on the other hand, sometime these publishers can provide you with a quick turnaround which will allow you to move on to the next book or project.

The challenges of PhD publication

Don’t leave it too long to publish your thesis. PhDs are perishable and the literature review and methodological foundations will often be out of date after five or six years.

This article is based on a paper given by Professor Charles Forsdick, Series Editor at Liverpool University Press. Listen to his paper in full here .   (podcast of event: Publishing Your Thesis in the Humanities and Social Sciences)

Click here for a guide to publishing for first-timers.

Image: Alex Proimos, Wikicommons

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15 thoughts on “ getting your thesis published ”.

• Pingback: Approaching a publisher | PhD Life

I’m amazed, I must say. Seldom do I come acroas a blog that’s both equally educative and amusing, and without a doubt, you’ve hit the nail on thhe head. The issue is something which not enough folks are speaking intelligently about. Now i’m very happy that I stumbled across this in my search for something relating to this.

I want to publish my thesis but its been 5yrs now

Depending on the field that you were researching and the intended output format, I guess you would have to check whether something similar has already been published. If not, I cannot see why, following updates in literature and other parts where needed, you would not be able to write a proposal, either for a monograph, a chapter in an edited volume or something else. 🙂

Good luck! Ana

This is Really Nice Post & Appreciating for reading this piece of blog.

Does anyone publish a PhD on line?

Thanks for your comment. I’m not sure are you referring to publishing the actual thesis or a monograph/papers based on it? I think quite a few people do the former, for example in the UK most PhD students are obliged to leave their thesis with university’s repository (I believe you can choose the period of time after which you’d like to make it available to the public). Some are available in larger repositories, like http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do , and in some cases the funding body might have special regulations regarding this.

In terms of reworking your thesis into a monograph, I suppose you could do it online (publishing or self-publishing), but do consider the impact you are trying to achieve.

All the best, Ana, PhD Life

I was thinking of a web site on which the whole PhD was published as approved by the University with search tags to find content

I want to publish my Ph D thesis in form of book

I want to publish my thesis into book

I want to publish my thesis on ‘Investigation of Bio mass Stirling Engine’ into book

How can i publish my MS thesis online, can you help me with it?

Hi, publishing a thesis is a very individual process and it’s hard to give specific advice for your question. I’d highly recommend speaking to your supervisor and other academics in your faculty as a starting point. Best of luck! -Jessica

• Pingback: Como publicar sua tese? – Biblioteca Prof. Lydio Machado Bandeira de Mello – Faculdade de Direito da UFMG
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Get Published

• About this guide
• Publishing strategy
• Selecting a journal
• Evaluating journals
• Open Access publishing
• Choose a conference

Publishing from your thesis

Examples of publisher's policies, got invited to publish a book.

• Publishing processes
• Author rights & copyright
• Publishing guidelines

Worried your open access thesis will compromise your article publishing? 

Some researchers may have been questioned or refused acceptance for self-plagiarism. Many publishers use plagiarism checkers like Turnitin on the initial submission and this will find postgraduate theses on Tuwhera.

Consider the following before you submit your articles:

• Check the publisher's policy on their website.
• Check publisher's policy -  this document  lists some key publishers' statements regarding pre-publication and open access theses.
• Whether you are writing a book or an article from your thesis, make sure you have rewritten your research substantially.
• Negotiate an agreement with your publisher to ensure that you are able to use your research in your thesis for your article or book.
• Make sure that you have gained permissions for using any 3rd party copyright materials in your publications.
• Turning your PhD into a successful book Taylor and Francis
• Converting your PhD Thesis into a Book in Five Steps Elsevier Author Services

Some postgraduates may be contacted by "Print on Demand" (POD) publishers offering to publish their research as a book. POD publishers publish theses in a PDF format with an ISBN number. Theses are then listed on Amazon and other bookseller sites. A hard copy is printed when someone makes a request. Typically such emails come from a publisher called VDM (Verlag Dr. Mueller) or any publishing units associated with LAP (Lambert Academic Publishing).

While you own the copyright in your work and are therefore free to decide what to do with it, we advise that you consider these points before proceeding:

• Unlike traditional publishing, the works are not vetted, peer reviewed or professionally edited.
• Your research is already available on Tuwhera, without cost or restriction, for other researchers and students around the world to read.
• You may be asked to sign away the copyright in your own work. Look at the terms and conditions very carefully and consider seeking legal advice before signing.
• Publishing in this way is very likely to harm your chances of publishing your research with a traditional and often more reputable publisher.

In addition to requesting a copy of their author-publisher agreement, here are some things you should try to ascertain before making a decision:

• What is the quality of the printed books (jackets, binding, etc)?
• What is the royalty share you will receive? With POD, as with vanity publishing, you have very little certainty as to the number of books that will be sold.
• What will the publisher do to market/promote your work?
• Will people be able to obtain your thesis only through this publisher from now on? Will they require that your thesis be removed from Tuwhera ?

Vanity Press

The difference between predatory publishers and vanity press. "Predatory publishers claim to have a working peer review, but actually it’s either not present or it’s substantially flawed. Vanity press, on the other hand, never claim to have a peer review process – therefore they are usually perfectly legal businesses." From Bealll's List . Be careful about sending your work to these publishers.

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• Next: Publishing processes >>
• Last Updated: Jan 26, 2024 11:18 AM
• URL: https://aut.ac.nz.libguides.com/getting_published

• Public Resources
• Publishing Your Dissertation in a…

Publishing Your Dissertation in a Scholarly Journal

So you’ve decided you want to earn a PhD. You have read about the road blocks , you’ve selected your committee, and you’ve started writing your dissertation. But why start thinking about a publication? What does that have to do with earning the ultimate degree?

Writing a dissertation without a publication is like going to the trouble of making a cake but not baking it. No one can taste your cake, no one can benefit from your hard work—of course, no one can criticize your work either. But without a publication, or two or three, the dissertation is not technically a total success. You’d be amazed at how many people don’t get a publication out of their dissertation. Without advanced planning, a publication likely won’t happen, because, once again, there are often unanticipated roadblocks.

1. Publication will be completely driven by you and no one else. A publication will not be on the priority list of your dissertation committee. And you will likely be the only one to understand where to publish.

2. Planning is the most important step and the only way to be successful. If you wait until after you go through the dissertation process, you will be too exhausted to publish, and it won’t happen for a year or two. You must plan.

3. Configure your dissertation for three separate publications. This may be three separate chapters, or it may be three different data sets or arms of your data. Link this to the selection of your committee. In my previous articles, I recommended choosing a committee wisely, with different members being associated with different jobs. Committee members should not have similar areas of expertise. Their “jobs” should not overlap. There should be a content expert or literature review expert, a methods person, a results person and a “whip.” Ideally, the “whip” (think politics, as in majority whip or minority whip in Congress) is your dissertation chair. The jobs of each member should be distinct to avoid having members fighting or making conflicting suggestions. Each article should be aligned with a separate expert. So there can be a Review article, a Methods article, and a Results article.

4. You get to decide who is listed as an author on your articles. You will be first author, and your mentor should be last author (a position of honor). If a committee member does not contribute, they ethically should not be included in the list of authors. Many journals now ask you to list the authors along with their meaningful contributions.

5. Decide ahead of time the journals in which you wish to publish. Full disclosure — I am on the board of the Journal of the American Academy of PAs (JAAPA), and I’m a reviewer for the Journal of Physician Assistant Education (JPAE). I’m going to recommend these PA journals for one of your publications. Here is my pitch (although biased): We are THE scholarly journals for the profession. If your data is completely focused on PA education, then select JPAE. Think about JAAPA for any research on PAs themselves or PA analogues. Select a PA journal for a personal touch and some really important feedback. Your article will be on a stage with your peers. This gives you the home crowd advantage.

6. Lose ownership. Remember how I said your dissertation is like your baby? Well, your baby now has gone through elementary school and the tumultuous teenage years and currently is entering college. Your publication needs you to back off and give it some space. It will leave home for a while (often for the long review process). When it comes back, it might need to do some laundry, but it should essentially not look at all like the baby you once knew. A publication should look like a publication, not a dissertation. It should be neat and mature and all grown up.

7. Try for the highest level journal you can realistically get published in. Here is the main problem: time. You cannot ethically submit the same article to multiple journals. You will need to make sure you have three completely separate articles in order to submit to multiple journals. There are many people who believe you should publish in the most prestigious journal you can make it into. I do not disagree with this philosophy; however, the alternative is that your work might not get read in a higher scholarly journal because PAs and PA educators don’t tend to read these other journals. This is for you to decide. There are websites that can help you determine where to publish. But be careful and check out Beall’s List, a list of potentially predatory “scholarly” open-access publishers.

8. Best of luck — and don’t fail to publish. Don’t bake your cake and not put it in the oven. Remember to reach out to your peers within the profession to aid in your success. Ultimately, your committee will be pleased to add a publication to their CVs. They will remember this as their reward for all the hard work that they (and you) put into your PhD.

A publication is the lasting legacy for all of your tough efforts and sacrifice. It is the “so what” of all you have put into this academic Mt. Everest. Consider the impact that your work will have on the profession. Don’t run the marathon (or climb the mountain) and not cross the finish line!

Jennifer Coombs, PhD, MPAS, PA-C

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• RIT Libraries
• Thesis and Dissertation Resources
• Databases and Websites
• Thesis Writing Guides
• Writing in Engineering and Science

Why search this literature?

It is crucial for graduate students to search the thesis and dissertation literature to make sure that an idea or hypothesis has not already been tested, explored, and published.  An additional reason to search this literature is that it is rich with ideas and information not found elsewhere.  If graduate students do not continue on as academics or if students that came after them in their programs did not continue their research, this literature may be the end of the line for scholarship on a topic.

ProQuest has published dissertation e-learning modules covering the usefulness of using dissertations as a research source.  See link below:

• Dissertation eLearning resources from ProQuest Uncover the value of dissertations.

Library Databases

All graduate students should, at minimum, search the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global database (PQDT) to see if the research they are proposing to do has already been done by a student at another institution/university.  RIT dissertations and theses have been included in PQDT since approximately 2006.

• Proquest Dissertations & Theses Global This link opens in a new window Identifies Ph.D. dissertations from U.S. & Canadian universities since 1861. Abstracts from 1980. Master's theses from 1988. Many with full-text.

RIT Digital Institutional Repository

• Digital Institutional Repository The digital institutional repository for the Rochester Institute of Technology, managed by RIT Libraries.
• ProQuest - Most Accessed Dissertations/Theses

Each month ProQuest updates this list of the top 25 Most-Accessed Dissertations and Theses across all subjects, based upon total PDF downloads. Find out what is trending.

The web sites below should also be consulted as appropriate to perform a full and thorough review of the dissertation and thesis literature beyond your introductory search of ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.  Consider whether a particular country or part of the world would have an interest in your potential research topic.

Only large-scale repositories of dissertations and theses are included here. You may also need to search individual university repositories directly.

• Ebsco Open Dissertations Search thousands of open dissertations and theses from over 50 participating libraries.
• EThOS (from the British Library) EThOS offers a 'single point of access' where researchers the world over can access ALL theses produced by UK Higher Education.
• Indian Institute of Science Dissertations and theses from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
• Indian Theses and Dissertations (Shodhganga) Over 130 participating Indian universities and over 8800 ETD documents.
• National ETD Portal (South Africa) South African theses and dissertations.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The NDLTD Union Catalog contains more than one million records of electronic theses and dissertations. Search the Union Catalog from here: http://thumper.vtls.com:6090/?theme=NDLTD
• OhioLINK ETD Center Electronic theses and dissertations from colleges and universities in the state of Ohio.
• Open Access Theses and Dissertations OATD aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 600 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes over 1.5 million theses and dissertations. RIT is included.
• Theses Canada Canadian universities voluntarily participate by submitting approved theses and dissertation to Theses Canada. Click on "Search Theses Canada" under the Introduction on the left hand side of the page to begin your search.
• TROVE From the National Library of Australia - Search Trove to explore amazing collections from Australian libraries, universities, museums, galleries and archives.
• Next: Thesis Writing Guides >>

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Dissertation & Thesis Publishing: Home

• LIU Post Print Dissertation Retrieval
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How To Publish Your Dissertation or Thesis Online and/or in Digital Commons@LIU repository

You have three options for publishing your dissertation or thesis online:

• Publish your dissertation  or thesis  in Digital Commons @ LIU - our Institutional Respository
• Publish your dissertation  or thesis  with Proquest /UMI Digital Dissertation Publishing (EDT Administrator)
• Publish your dissertation  or thesis  in BOTH of the above.

Proquest/UMI Digital Dissertation & Thesis Publishing

The library provides access to an online dissertation or thesis  publishing platform through Proquest/UMI Digital Dissertation & Thesis Publishing.  When you publish your dissertation or thesis online using this service it will be available in the Proquest Dissertation & Theses  Global   database and in Dissertations & Theses @ LIU database .  These databases can also be found on our library online databases page.  The links are provided below for your convenience. You may submit your dissertation or thesis once you have permission from your department to do so.

 You can go to the LIU dedicated “ETD Administrator” website at:

http://www.etdadmin.com/liu

On this page you will find links to information about publishing your dissertation or thesis online.  You are encouraged to read all of the provided information under the “Resources and Guidelines” tab so that you have a full understanding of the process and of your rights as an author. 

If you have not already done so you will first need to create an account by clicking on the "Sign up and get started today!" button. Once you have logged in and are ready to publish, you will be asked several questions during the process concerning copyright protection, open access publishing, and if you wish to delay (embargo) the publication of your dissertation or thesis.   The “traditional” publishing option is free of cost.  If you choose additional options you can pay online with a credit card. The online resources provided should answer your questions. 

You will be asked for your "Institutional Student ID" number during the process.  This is not your University login.  Your Institutional Student ID number can be found within your "My LIU" account or by contacting your academic department.

During the process you can also choose to order one or several personal print copies. These would be in addition to the bound copies you may have already ordered through the library if your department requires this. This online publishing service for digital dissertations and the bound dissertations oe thesis service in the library are separate programs. Please contact the Dean's office (516-299-2764) concerning ordering print copies of a dissertation through the library.

Once you submit your dissertation, the ETD Administrator will review your submission for formatting and other quality control issues.  The final submittal to the Proquest Dissertation & Theses Full-text database will take place after your graduation.

You must follow the formatting guidelines as stipulated by your department.   It is particularly important that you follow the correct format on the title page so that your dissertation or thesis can be indexed correctly.  For security reasons, do not include a page containing personal signatures.  Please remove the page or submit a replacement page without the signatures .  Proquest has advised not to include signatures.   If you include signatures in the document, you will need to resubmit and the publication of your dissertation or thesis will be delayed.

The Proquest publishing process can take up to 8 to 12 weeks to complete.  You will receive an email from Proquest when your dissertation or thesis is published in the databases.

If you still have questions concerning this program you can contact the ETD administrator, professor Natalia Tomlin ([email protected]).

In addition to submitting your dissertation or thesis to the ProQuest EDT Administrator, you can also submit your dissertation to the LIU Institutional Repository Digital Commons@LIU.  You do not need to submit your dissertation or thesis to the Digital Commons separately. During the submission process to ProQuest, you will be asked to indicate if you want your work to be in the Digital Commons @LIU repository as well. If you chose so, we will upload your work in the repository on your behalf.

Dear  Student,

We would like to invite you to submit your dissertation or thesis (free of charge) to our Digital Commons @LIU open access Institutional Repository.

Your submission to Digital Commons (should you chose to submit) would be in addition to submitting the dissertation or thesis to ProQuest. The advantage is broader dissemination of your scholarship. PLEASE NOTE that if you already indicated that you wish your work to be submitted into repository during ProQuest submission process, you don't need to do the steps outlined below. H owever, if you did not submit the work to ProQuest, OR you forgot to indicate that you wish your work to be in our repository, please follow the procedure " How to submit your thesis/dissertations to Digital Commons@LIU"

How to submit your thesis/dissertations to Digital Commons@LIU:

•  sign the submission agreement  http://digitalcommons.liu.edu/creative_works_permission.pdf  (electronic signature is fine) and scan it.
• email scanned permission and the copy of your thesis/dissertation to  http://digitalcommons.liu.edu . Please note that your paper can be in either World Document or PDF format. The front page has to be free of signatures.
• The library will upload your dissertation or thesis once/if your agreement is received.

Once your dissertation or thesis is posted:

• Once your work is uploaded, the system will automatically create an account for you in BePress. The account will use email address that you supplied during submission. Bepress is the name of platform that hosts our repository. You can log into the system and create/change your password. To do so, log into the site via "My Account" link (you will need to use email address that your supplied during submission process). Click on the "Edit Profile" option from "My Account" page and update email.
• your dissertation or thesis is periodically featured as a Paper of the Day
• you receive URL “for life’ that you can include in social media sites, digital portfolio, blackboard etc.
• you also receive monthly report if your research is downloaded during specific month period
• you have access to personal author dashboard that shows the location in the world where your work is read and downloaded as well as by what kind of organizations (educational, commercial etc.)
• your work is disseminated world-wide
• potential for increased Google citation statistics 

Proquest Dissertation Databases

• Dissertations & Theses @ LIU
• Dissertations & Theses Global

Example Title pages

• Library and Information Science
• Clinical Psychology

ETD WorkFlow

Attribution.

Created by Professor Robert Battenfeld

• Next: LIU Post Print Dissertation Retrieval >>
• Last Updated: Jan 6, 2024 4:05 PM
• URL: https://liu.cwp.libguides.com/dissertations

Theses: Getting published

• Queen's e-thesis
• Embargoes and making your thesis open
• Copyright: seeking permission
• Training & support

Getting published

• Finding theses

During the course of your thesis you may wish to get your research published. In the past, and for certain disciplines, this tended to occur once your thesis was almost, or finally, completed. Now, it is not uncommon for researchers to publish some of their research before submission of the thesis. This is usually in the form of a journal article. Certain chapters of the thesis may naturally lend themselves to being worked into separate journal articles. Or, perhaps, you wish to create a monograph (book) based on your entire thesis.

Based on your research, discipline, discussions with your supervisor, peers and other experts in your field, you will be well placed to make decisions regarding publication e.g. where to publish, what type of format etc. This can, however, be very daunting for researchers.

Reasons to publish your thesis

• There are a number of reasons why you might consider publishing all, or part of your thesis:
• Share the results of your research with others. This will directly benefit other researchers, scholars or practitioners in your field.
• If you research has uncovered something noteworthy, novel, or important, there is added impetus to publish.
• It may be a requirement of your funder.
• It may help to secure future employment, particularly if you wish to pursue an academic career.
• Even if you decide to pursue employment outside of academia, publishing your research may be a helpful way to end mark your time as a research student.
• Even if you decide not to get your thesis published as an article, series of articles/chapters or a book, even by making it Open Access you are ensuring that your findings can be accessed and therefore will help future researchers.

Embargo information

Do not fear making your thesis Open Access. Why not?

If necessary, you can apply an embargo to your e-thesis at any point

Consult with funder, potential publisher, supervisor etc to inform decision if an embargo is required or not

Implications of making your e-thesis open access

Once you upload your e-thesis to Pure , barring any embargoes, it will be can be viewed and accessed online via Queen's Research Portal . This is a good thing! As a result, people may be able to contact you about your research, ask you to speak on your topic or engage with it on social media or scholarly publications. You are likely to have greater visibility as a result of making your thesis open access.

Some researchers are, however, concerned that by making their e-thesis online this will scupper their chances for monograph publication. This may not actually be the case. For example, a thesis may only come to the attention of a publisher or a commissioning editor exactly because it has been made open access first! Also, it is important to remember that it is possible to make your thesis open access while you consider your publication options and then later to apply an embargo if this is required.

Whether or not you apply an embargo to your e-thesis or not, it is important to remember that a dissertation will probably have to be quite significantly revised before it will be published. Different publishers moreover have different policies regarding Open Access theses. Included is some of the policies regarding some of the more prominent publishers.

Some publishers accept proposals based on PhD dissertations and are not overly concerned about a thesis being available in an institutional repository. Other publishers may ask for an embargo period. Some may have a blanket policy of not publishing dissertations. The policy will vary from publisher to publisher. If in doubt it is always best to contact the publisher to ask what is their policy.

Recent research indicates that almost 50% of university press welcome manuscripts that are revisions of Open Access e-theses, with a further almost 50% willing to publish on the basis of substantial revision. Open Access is rapidly evolving and changing the scholarly publication landscape.

Benefits of e-thesis

Some useful resources

Can Openly Accessible E-Theses Be Published as Monographs?

Can't Find It, Can't Sign It: On Dissertation Embargoes. Harvard University Press

Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities?

Electronic Theses & Dissertations: Publishing and policy based on fear

Open Access and the Graduate Author: A Dissertation Anxiety Manual

The Continuing Cautionary Tale of Creative Writing Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Open Access, Publishers and PhD Theses

PhD Theses - Drawing Attention to the Often Overlooked Articles in Open Access Repositories

Copyright, Open Access and your Thesis

Publisher policies

• << Previous: Training & support
• Next: Finding theses >>
• Last Updated: Feb 28, 2024 4:30 PM
• URL: https://libguides.qub.ac.uk/ethesis

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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