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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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Revising Your Dissertation for Publication

While a dissertation’s in-depth research and analysis can provide a strong foundation for a book, the dissertation itself is not a book and will not be published by an academic press without substantial revisions. Some acquisitions editors are interested first books, especially if they bring new perspectives and fresh ideas to a field, while others do not often publish first books. If you are considering submitting your dissertation for publication, we recommend that you contact editors at university presses that publish in your subject area for guidance on revising your work. Many editors prefer to be involved in the early stages of this process so they can advise you on how to structure the book and your arguments to create a publishable book. Editors generally require changes in the length, content, tone, and style of a dissertation in order to produce a book that will appeal to buyers in the academic market. Read more about submitting a proposal in our Scholarly Publishing Guide .

Below are selected resources to help you revise your dissertation for publication as a book or journal article(s).

Advice from publishers

• Harvard University Press
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Rowman & Littlefield
• Taylor & Francis
• University of North Carolina Press
• Yale University Press
• Publisher Policies on using content in both a thesis or dissertation and an article (from MIT Libraries)
• From Dissertation to Book by William Germano (Lauinger Library, 4th Floor, PN162 .G37 2013)
• Revising Your Dissertation, Updated Edition : Advice from Leading Editors (updated edition, 2008) edited by Beth Luey (online; GU NetID and password required)
• From Dissertation to Book , Duke University (February 27, 2018)
• From Dissertation to Book ( full transcript ), Harvard University (December 17, 2010)
• How To Turn Your Dissertation into a Book , Yale University (April 6, 2016)
• From Dissertation to Book by Leonard Cassuto (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2011)
• From Dissertation to Published Book (lanugageandphilosophy.com report on an American Comparative Literature Association workshop)
• Give It a Rest by Laura Portwood-Stacer (Inside Higher Ed, August 6, 2019)
• The Stages of Revising a Dissertation into a Book by Amy Benson Brown (Journal of Scholarly Publishing, vol. 52 no. 2, 2021, p. 127-140) (GU NetID and password required)
• Turning Your Dissertation into a Book (University of Washington)
• Publishing your Dissertation (American Psychological Association)

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A Guide to Publishing a Dissertation

The moment your dissertation is accepted by your university’s graduate college is one of sweet relief. You’ve reached the end of a very long road, and the work is done. Or is it? For many academics, the siren song of pursuing publication strikes not long after the ink is dry on their diploma. The idea of seeing your name in a prestigious academic journal or emblazoned on the spine of a book is indeed tempting. However, submitting to academic journals or becoming a published author can be a lengthy journey of its own.

While publishing your dissertation may seem like the natural next step in your scholarly journey, there is a lot of work that needs to be done before you’ll see your research in a journal or your book on a shelf at your local library or bookstore. Completing your dissertation is the first step to becoming a published author, and there is plenty that you need to know before pursuing publication.

These are a few frequently asked questions about publishing a dissertation:  

• Can a dissertation be published?
• What do I have to do to publish my dissertation? 
• Who publishes dissertations?
• Why publish a dissertation?

Can a Dissertation Be Published?

Yes. Of course, this is merely the short answer. Since we’re talking about academia, a simple “yes” does not tell the whole story. While there is sometimes an assumption that dissertations get published by the university that granted the author their Ph.D., this is incorrect. Though the final revised and edited copy of a dissertation is bound and can sometimes even be found for sale on sites like Amazon, it is not truly published. 

However, the fact that your dissertation has not been published does not mean that you are automatically free to pursue publication. Upon submitting your dissertation to your university, you likely signed some paperwork related to your dissertation as a piece of intellectual property. You might not be free to pursue a publishing contract or publish on your own right away. You’ll want to read the fine print, in the event there is a required waiting period for publishing. 

Publishing Your Dissertation in Academic Journals

Dissertation research can be published in two ways; it can either be expanded into a book or pieced out into multiple academic articles. There are benefits to both approaches. While getting a book published often carries more prestige, academic journal articles allow for (relatively) quicker publication, while the research is fresh. Breaking your dissertation down into multiple articles also offers more opportunities for publication. 

To pursue article publication, first decide how to deconstruct your manuscript to separate your research into multiple articles. This will involve some revision and structural changes, but the natural “breaks” in your dissertation should already be clearly defined by chapters. The introduction, literature review, and the methodology/results sections can all be transformed into individual articles and submitted to separate journals for publication. 

When searching for journals to submit each article to, make a list based on your literature review and reference page. You may want to rank the journals by impact factor or another method, but make sure to submit your articles to top-tier or higher-tier journals first. If they are declined or heavy revision is suggested, you have a lineup of less-competitive journals ready to go. 

When I was a newly-minted professor in my first job post-dissertation, I chose to go the journal route and got my dissertation research published as multiple articles. While it does take some work to reconfigure each article into a piece of writing that can exist on its own, I’m glad that I did it this way. I was new to the peer review process and I learned a lot about submitting to academic journals. It was also a good way to add much-needed lines to my CV for my yearly performance evaluations. 

Preparing a Book Manuscript 

A dissertation is a very long document . It feels like a book, but in reality, your dissertation is not yet a book. Your dissertation is part of a book, and the work ahead of you is to complete your manuscript. You will need to add additional context, and probably flesh out the next steps of your research outlined in the discussion section of your dissertation into fully-realized chapters. What was formerly your dissertation will then be sold as an academic monograph. 

It is also important to note that the qualities that make a dissertation successful are unlikely to directly correlate to marketability. Your dissertation may offer a vital contribution to the body of knowledge in your field, but will it sell? Is it timely? Does it have a hook that will make it stand out in a competitive market? These are all questions to take into consideration when preparing an academic manuscript for a broad audience. 

Finding Publishers for Your Book

There are a few routes that can be taken when searching for a place to publish a dissertation as a book. The most common is academic publishing. (The other two are commercial and independent, both of which are difficult unless you have a built-in audience or a large social media following.) Every year, academic presses around the country receive proposals and offer book contracts to authors. Many of these presses are affiliated with universities, and their proposal requirements and contract terms are similar. 

Many manuscripts that began as dissertations land at university presses. If you are interested in pursuing a contract with a university press, go to their website and familiarize yourself with titles they have published recently. See if they are open to unsolicited submissions and look at their proposal requirements. If it seems like a good fit, consider putting together a proposal and submitting it. 

There are quite a few academic publishers and university presses, so you’ll need to do your homework to find the right one for your research. As an academic, one of my favorite parts of any conference is the book fair. I love perusing all the new titles from academic publishers and university presses, and it’s a great way to become familiar with many of them at once. 

Another benefit to these book fairs is that tables are often helmed by acquisitions editors. In my experience, talking to an editor for a press that I’m interested in is a great use of downtime at a conference. If you decide to do this, have an elevator pitch of your manuscript memorized and ready to go. If the editor likes it and invites you to submit, your proposal will go to the top of the inbox. 

Why Publish a Dissertation?  

There are a couple reasons to think about publishing your dissertation. If you are starting your career as an academic, particularly on the tenure track, publishing is an essential part of fulfilling your scholarship requirement. “Publish or perish” remains a very real aphorism in academia, and the more quality publications you add to your CV, the better. 

Publishing a dissertation as an academic monograph is also a great way to start making a name for yourself as a scholar. Being an expert in your field has limited utility unless you are writing, publishing, and presenting at conferences consistently. Publishing is a great way to establish your expertise, and having a book to promote can also help you secure lectures at universities and keynote invitations. If you have the time and the inclination, publishing your dissertation can pay dividends (not literally–academic monographs tend to earn their authors very little). 

While publishing your dissertation requires a good bit of transformation into a more substantial academic monograph, authoring a book can open a lot of professional doors. Though there are also other projects that will undoubtedly demand your attention–conference presentations, critical articles, new research–publishing your dissertation will give you an opportunity to finally close the book (pun intended) on your graduate research and set your sights on new horizons. 

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Courtney Watson, Ph.D.

Courtney Watson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of English at Radford University Carilion, in Roanoke, Virginia. Her areas of expertise include undergraduate and graduate curriculum development for writing courses in the health sciences and American literature with a focus on literary travel, tourism, and heritage economies. Her writing and academic scholarship has been widely published in places that include  Studies in American Culture ,  Dialogue , and  The Virginia Quarterly Review . Her research on the integration of humanities into STEM education will be published by Routledge in an upcoming collection. Dr. Watson has also been nominated by the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Rising Star Award, and she is a past winner of the National Society of Arts & Letters Regional Short Story Prize, as well as institutional awards for scholarly research and excellence in teaching. Throughout her career in higher education, Dr. Watson has served in faculty governance and administration as a frequent committee chair and program chair. As a higher education consultant, she has served as a subject matter expert, an evaluator, and a contributor to white papers exploring program development, enrollment research, and educational mergers and acquisitions.

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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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Publishing a Master’s Thesis: A Guide for Novice Authors

Robert g. resta.

1 Swedish Cancer Institute, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA USA

Patricia McCarthy Veach

2 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN USA

Sarah Charles

3 Jefferson Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA USA

Kristen Vogel

4 Center for Medical Genetics, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL USA

Terri Blase

5 Department of Maternal Fetal Medicine, Advocate Christ Medical Center, Oak Lawn, IL USA

Christina G. S. Palmer

6 Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA

7 Department of Human Genetics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA

8 UCLA Semel Institute, 760 Westwood Plaza, Room 47-422, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA

Publication of original research, clinical experiences, and critical reviews of literature are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field, delivery of genetic counseling services, and professional development of genetic counselors. Busy clinical schedules, lack of time and funding, and training that emphasizes clinical skills over research skills may make it difficult for new genetic counselors to turn their thesis projects into publications. This paper summarizes and elaborates upon a presentation aimed at de-mystifying the publishing process given at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Education Conference. Specific topics include familiarizing prospective authors, particularly genetic counseling students, with the basics of the publication process and related ethical considerations. Former students’ experiences with publishing master’s theses also are described in hopes of encouraging new genetic counselors to submit for publication papers based on their thesis projects.

Introduction

Scholarship is important for growth of a profession and for clinical care. For these reasons, the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) endorses scholarly activities through Practice Based Competency IV.5 (American Board of Genetic Counseling 2009 ). Boyer ( 1990 ) describes four types of scholarship (Scholarship of Discovery, Scholarship of Integration, Scholarship of Application, and Scholarship of Teaching), all of which are endorsed by ABGC and required of accredited genetic counseling training programs. The first three types of scholarship, which involve generating new knowledge or applying existing knowledge to an important problem, are the basis of the ABGC’s requirement that students in accredited programs engage in scholarship and complete a scholarly product. The ABGC defines a scholarly product to include: a master’s thesis, an independent research project, a literature review/case report, a formal needs assessment, design and implementation of an innovative patient, professional, or community educational program, and/or preparation of a grant proposal.

The purpose of this article is to encourage students to disseminate their scholarly work (except grant proposals) through a journal publication. This article was developed from an Educational Breakout Session (EBS) at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Education Conference and draws upon the experiences of a past editor and current assistant editor of the Journal of Genetic Counseling ( JOGC ), a student mentor, and recent genetic counseling graduates who successfully turned their student thesis projects into peer-reviewed publications.

Engaging in scholarship is important for increasing genetic counselors’ self-knowledge, but dissemination of scholarship is essential for the growth of the genetic counseling field. McGaghie and Webster ( 2009 ) identify a wide range of types of scholarly products that promote broad dissemination of information, including peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g., original research, case reports, review articles), book chapters, books or monographs, edited books, essays, editorials, book reviews, letters, conference reports, educational materials, reports of teaching practices, curriculum description, videos, simulations, simulators, and web-based tutorials. As evidence of the importance of disseminating scholarship to the field of genetic counseling, dissemination of scholarly products is actively promoted by the NSGC, the major professional organization for the genetic counseling profession. A prominent example of NSGC’s commitment to dissemination is the JOGC , a professional journal devoted to disseminating peer-reviewed information relevant to the practice of genetic counseling. The success of this journal over nearly two decades is a strong indicator of the value genetic counselors place on publishing journal articles as an essential product of scholarship.

Individuals who have completed a master’s thesis or equivalent should consider publication. This “call to publish” student work is based on evidence that a large proportion of students engage in a scholarly activity with publication potential. A recent survey of 531 genetic counselors suggests that 75% of respondents fulfilled their scholarly activity requirement via a master’s thesis (Clark et al. 2006 ). Among this group, 21% classified their thesis as “hypothesis driven” and 20% classified it as a “descriptive study.” Although the research may be relatively small scale given the time and resource constraints of short training programs (≤2 years), it nonetheless offers a rich and varied source of information about the practice of genetic counseling that could be shared with the broader community through publication. Yet Clark et al. ( 2006 ) found that only 21.6% of respondents who completed a master’s thesis had submitted a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It appears that many students do not submit their research for professional publication, perhaps due to a combination of time constraints, lack of mentoring and support, unfamiliarity with the publication process, lack of professional confidence, and fear of rejection (Clark et al. 2006 ; Cohen et al. 2008 ; Driscoll and Driscoll 2002 ; Keen 2006 ). Because this is one aspect of scholarship that has received limited attention, guidance regarding the details and vicissitudes of the publication process, and acknowledgement that master’s theses can be successfully published, are needed.

Of course, one might question why students should or would publish the results of their graduate work. The answer is complex, without a “one size fits all,” because scholarship can be intrinsically and/or extrinsically motivated. McGaghie and Webster ( 2009 ) describe intrinsic motives as including sharing knowledge, career advancement, status improvement, collegial approval, personal pleasure, and response to challenge; extrinsic motives include academic pressure, commitment to patient care, practice improvement, and promoting the use of new technologies. Although the reasons genetic counselors publish articles have not been empirically evaluated, Clark et al. ( 2006 ) (i) concluded that a substantial number of genetic counselors consider active involvement in research (a form of scholarship and precursor to publication) to be a core role, and (ii) found that respondents endorsed a range of intrinsic and extrinsic motives for their involvement in research. These reasons included interest in the subject, contributing to the field, personal development/satisfaction, diversifying job responsibilities, job requirements, lack of existing research on a particular topic, and career advancement. It is reasonable to infer that these reasons would extend to publication as well.

The work that culminates in a master’s thesis provides the basis for a professional journal article. However, writing a professional journal article differs from writing a master’s thesis. This article, therefore, provides practical ideas and considerations about the process for developing a master’s thesis into a peer-reviewed journal article and describes successful case examples. Research and publication occur in stages and include many important topics. Previous genetic counseling professional development articles have partially or comprehensively addressed the topics of developing and conducting a research project (Beeson 1997 ), writing a manuscript (Bowen 2003 ), and the peer-review process (Weil 2004 ). This paper expands on previous articles by describing the publication process and discussing publication ethics, with emphasis on aspects pertinent to publishing a master’s thesis. It is hoped that this article will encourage genetic counselors to publish their research.

The primary audience for this article is genetic counselors who are conducting a master’s thesis or equivalent or who completed a thesis in the last few years which remains unpublished. The secondary audience is other novice authors and affiliated faculty of genetic counseling training programs. Although the focus of this paper is on journal publications which are subject to a peer-review process (e.g., original research, clinical reports, and reviews), some of the basic information applies to a variety of publishing forms.

The Publication Process

Publish before it perishes.

Like produce and dairy products, data have a limited shelf life. Research results may be rendered marginal by new research, social changes, and shifts in research trends. For example, a study of patient reluctance to undergo genetic testing due to concerns about health insurance discrimination conducted in December 2007 would have been obsolete when the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (Pub.L. 110–233, 122 Stat. 881, enacted May 21, 2008) was enacted 5 months later. Or studies of whether patients think they might undergo testing if a gene for a particular condition were identified become less relevant once the gene is actually mapped and sequenced.

The hardest part about writing is actually writing. Making the time to sit down and compose a report of research findings is a very difficult first step. As noted in the three case examples, this is particularly true for a recent graduate whose time is occupied with searching for a new job, moving to a new city, and learning the details of a new job. However, the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes, and the greater the risk that your data will grow stale. If you do not write it, the paper will likely not get written. The three case examples identify strong mentorship, ongoing communication with co-authors, constructive criticism, and commitment to publication by every author as key elements for successfully preparing a manuscript. The following sections describe basic processes for preparing a paper. See also Table  1 for helpful references about technical aspects of manuscript preparation.

Table 1

Selected Resources For Manuscript Preparation

Choosing a Journal

Research delivered to an inappropriate audience is ignored. Many journals publish genetic counseling research—as demonstrated by the three case examples—and therefore, choosing the right journal is critical (Thompson 2007 ). The first step is to decide who the audience should be. Is it important to reach genetic counselors? Medical geneticists? Or is the audience outside of the genetic counseling community? Some genetic counseling research is of interest to researchers in patient education, decision-making, or the social sciences. Clinicians such as surgeons, radiology technicians, psychologists, and family practice physicians might benefit from a greater understanding of genetic counseling and how it interfaces with their specialties.

The next step is to decide whether the journal is interested in the type of research conducted. For example, does the journal publish articles mostly on medical and clinical issues? Does it publish qualitative research? A description of the scope, aims, and types of research that are published is located in the “Instructions to Contributors” section on the web page of most journals. A look at the journal’s editorial board might also provide a good idea of a journal’s theoretical approaches, philosophical orientation, and research interests. Another strategy is to contact the journal’s editor or a member of the editorial board prior to submitting a manuscript to discuss the appropriateness of the manuscript for the journal. Many editors welcome such pre-submission contact since it reduces their workload of reading inappropriate manuscripts.

A journal’s “impact factor” may be important to some authors when considering where to publish a manuscript. The impact factor is a—perhaps imperfect—statistical measure of a journal’s importance. The impact factor was developed in the early 1960s by Eugene Garfield and Irving Sher and is technically defined as A/B, where A = the number of times articles published in that journal were cited and B = the number of citable articles published by the journal (letters and editorials are not usually citable articles) (Garfield 1994 ). An impact factor of one indicates that on average, articles published in the journal were cited once by other authors.

A journal’s impact factor can vary greatly from year to year, and its practical utility is widely debated (Andersen et al. 2006 ; Chew et al. 2006 ; Greenwood 2007 ; Ha et al. 2006 ; The PLoS Medicine Editors 2006 ). Genetic counselors often publish small studies and case reports. The journals that might publish such papers usually have impact factors of ten or less. Thus the impact factor may be a less important consideration for many genetic counselors when deciding where to publish.

A publisher’s copyright policy may also influence the choice of where to publish. The majority of publishers own the copyright (United States Copyright Office 2008 ) and authors do not have the right to copy, re-use, or distribute their own publications without buying reprints, which can be a significant source of income for publishers. Some journals, like the Public Library of Science (PLoS), are completely Open Access and make all articles fully available online. Other journals have Delayed Open Access, which makes articles publicly available after a specified period of time, often a year or two. Many journals, such as the JOGC , promote Hybrid Open Access in which authors, for a fee, can make their articles publicly available. Some journals will make select articles publicly available, usually those that attract media attention. For grant-funded research, consider the requirements of the funding source; some granting agencies require that the research results be made publicly available at some point.

Peer Review

Peer review is the process in which two or three experts evaluate a manuscript to determine whether it is worthy of publication. Peer review is the backbone of scholarly publishing; no research manuscript gets published until a team of reviewers and journal editors vets it. Ideally, reviewers are objective, constructively critical, open-minded, fair, and insightful. Some journals blind the reviewer to the author’s identity, in hopes that the authors’ reputations or professional relationships will not influence the review. Some journals will let authors suggest reviewers or request that certain people not review a manuscript. A journal’s peer review policies may be another important consideration in choosing where to submit a manuscript.

In practice, peer review is not always ideal (Benose et al. 2007 ; Curfman et al. 2008 ; Hames 2007 ; Wager et al. 2006 ). Nonetheless, no better or viable alternative has been proposed. Reviews may sometimes appear to be arbitrary, unfair, and poorly performed. Reading such reviews can be very difficult and frustrating, even for experienced authors. However, it is a reviewer’s job to be critical, and there may be elements of truth in even the most negative reviews. Some editors may be willing to send a manuscript to another reviewer if an original reviewer produces a harshly critical or poorly thought out critique. Some journals have a formal appeals process if a manuscript is rejected or an author feels a review is inaccurate, inappropriate, or biased. However, sometimes it is simply easier to submit the manuscript to a different journal. Case # 2 describes a successful example where submitting a manuscript to a different journal led to publication.

The manuscript rejection rate varies widely across journals, but about half of all manuscripts are rejected or require significant revisions (Armstrong et al. 2008 ; Hall and Wilcox 2007 ; Liesegang et al. 2007 ). About half of rejected manuscripts are published in other journals (Armstrong et al. 2008 ; Hall and Wilcox 2007 ; Liesegang et al. 2007 ). Even among articles that are accepted for publication, the vast majority will require significant revisions. All three case examples describe manuscripts that underwent significant revision. Thus, prospective authors should not be disheartened if a manuscript is rejected or needs extensive re-writing; this is the rule rather than the exception . Many editors are willing to work with authors who have questions about specific comments or how best to incorporate the reviewers’ suggestions. Busy journal editors would rather answer questions up front than have to laboriously edit a revised manuscript and send it back for further revisions.

Peer review, and the subsequent manuscript revisions, along with the number of manuscripts submitted to the journal, are probably the most critical bottlenecks in determining how long it takes before a manuscript appears in print. Typically, a year or more may pass from the time of submission to the publication date. The three case examples include their timeframes to highlight the need for perseverance and patience with the publication process.

The clearest way for authors to respond to editors’ and reviewers’ comments is to prepare a table that lists each comment and how the authors addressed them, item by item. Some reviewers’ comments may be inaccurate or simply unrealistic (e.g. “The authors should re-do the entire research study...”); these can be discussed in the table or in the cover letter that accompanies the table. Additional information about the peer-review process can be found in Weil ( 2004 ).

Acceptance!

Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the publisher or the journal editor will send a copyright transfer statement that spells out ownership of the article. This statement must be signed and returned in short order before the manuscript will be published. The corresponding author will receive page proofs, usually electronically, which must be read by the author for accuracy and returned fairly quickly (usually 2–3 days). Many publishers are reluctant to make significant changes in the page proofs, and they may charge for substantial revisions. Thus, the version of the manuscript that is submitted to the journal before the page proofs are generated should be very close to what the author wishes to see in print. Usually at this time publishers will offer the author the option to purchase reprints to allow the author to share the publication with other researchers, co-authors, and colleagues. Some journals will provide a limited number of free reprints or a complimentary copy of the issue of the journal in which the paper appears. The steps in the publication process are summarized in Table  2 .

Table 2

Steps in the Publication Process

a ∼50% of manuscripts are rejected or require significant revision before being accepted for publication

Ethics of Publishing

“Scholarship (like life) is not always fair or precise.” (Thompson 1994 )

Manuscript preparation and submission for publication can be complicated by ethical issues. Many authors may not be aware of these ethical conundrums, let alone have a plan for addressing them. Ethics is not a stagnant concept. As research methodologies and research questions evolve, new ethical issues in publishing arise. This section contains a description of several issues broadly relevant to the publishing practice of genetic counselors, particularly as students or recent graduates. However, it is important for genetic counselors-as-authors to keep abreast of ethical issues relevant to their own work.

“Ethics” are principles that govern the behavior of individuals or groups (Merriam-Webster 1974 ). Ethical codes of conduct exist in order to preserve the integrity of a profession, ensure the public’s welfare, and protect scholars. Ethical issues particularly relevant to writing for publication, include: (1) authorship determination, (2) disclosure and conflicts of interest, (3) plagiarism, (4) subject confidentiality, (5) accuracy of information, and (6) publishing in multiple sources.

Authorship Determination

Consider the following situation: A student conducted an excellent study for her master’s thesis project. At the beginning of the project, her supervisor promised her that she would have first authorship on any manuscripts based on the project. However, when the time came to write the paper, the student procrastinated. Finally, after the supervisor repeatedly “nagged” her, she submitted a draft to her, but it was very poorly written. The supervisor decided the only way to salvage the paper was to totally rewrite it herself. Now the supervisor thinks that she deserves to be the first author. Is this ethical? Does it matter if the project was the student’s master’s thesis rather than a project in which she was voluntarily involved? Are there guidelines that might be implemented in advance to handle this kind of situation?

This complex situation may be all too familiar for many supervisors and students. It raises issues about valuing contributions to the publication process, the power differential between supervisors and students, determining when renegotiation of authorship is warranted, and setting expectations and priorities up front. Whenever manuscripts are authored by more than one individual, order of authorship should be negotiated as early in the process as possible. Only individuals who have actually contributed to the work should be listed as authors. Their order should indicate “...the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status” (Shadish 1994 ) (p. 1096). In the sciences, the first and last authors typically are the individuals that made the greatest contributions to the project (Laflin et al. 2005 ). Many journals require a listing of each author’s contribution to the manuscript in order to make sure each person meets the journal’s requirements to be listed as an author.

Student authors pose a special situation. Doctoral students usually are the first authors of papers based on their dissertation research (Nguyen and Nguyen 2006 ). Authorship order is less clear for masters’ projects because masters’ students may lack sufficient knowledge and skills to conduct a project and prepare a manuscript of publishable quality without considerable input from their supervisor (Shadish 1994 ). Thompson ( 1994 ) recommends that when there is any question as to who made the primary contribution, the student should receive higher authorship. His recommendation helps to protect the person who has less power in the situation. Often students are involved in studies that are not based on their own master’s or doctoral research, but rather are connected to an existing research program, such as case examples 1 and 2. In those situations, some authors contend that their involvement should be creative and intellectual in order to warrant authorship; otherwise, student input can be credited in an acknowledgement section (Fine and Kurdek 1993 ; Holaday and Yost 1995 ; Thompson 1994 ).

Negotiating authorship is an important step that should begin in the initial stages of a project. This step usually involves assessing and agreeing upon each person’s tasks, contributions, and efforts. The amount of supervision required for an individual’s contributions is usually considered as well (Fine and Kurdek 1993 ). Sometimes renegotiation of authorship order is necessary due to unexpected changes and/or substantial revision of the manuscript. The key is to remember that authorship is negotiated. Questions to consider throughout this negotiation process include: Who had the original idea for the basis of the publication? Who designed and conducted the study that generated the data? Who will write most of the first draft of the paper? Is the study part of someone’s research lab? Students should maintain early and on-going communication with their co-authors about their investment of time and efforts and the outcomes of those efforts (Sandler and Russell 2005 ). However, scholarly contribution is more important than actual time and effort expended when determining authorship. For more information regarding authorship determination, it may be useful to review guidelines for discussing and clarifying authorship order (Gibelman and Gelman 1999 ) or developing individualized contracts for research collaboration (Stith et al. 1992 ). These guidelines also may be useful for initiating discussion of authorship as part of the curriculum in genetic counseling training programs.

Take another look at the authorship scenario. At the time of the original negotiation of authorship, it is likely that the supervisor (and other parties) believed the student warranted first authorship due to her creative contributions and time allotted to the study. In most authors’ minds, first authorship is equated with substantial contribution to writing the manuscript, usually the first draft, so it is important the student understand this is part of the responsibilities of being first author. Typically students have no experience writing a journal article, and so some procrastination is likely. In this scenario, the authorship dilemma may have been averted by having in place a plan to mentor the student, providing support, and delineating a specific process for writing the first draft of the manuscript.

Manuscripts invariably undergo substantial revision as co-authors and reviewers weigh in, so it is not unusual that the supervisor would revise the student’s first draft. This activity does not prima facie warrant a change in authorship order. However, by developing a specific plan to support the student’s writing, it may minimize the extent of the supervisor’s revisions. It is possible, though, that the student’s procrastination and poor writing should initiate a renegotiation of authorship order because the level and nature of her contributions to the work may be changing. The supervisor and student should discuss the reasons for changing authorship order; the supervisor should not unilaterally make this change without discussion. Keep in mind that the bar for changing authorship should be much higher if the paper is based on the student’s master’s thesis than if it is based on a project in which she was voluntarily involved. It is also important to inform students early in the process that most research is a collaborative effort, requiring time, energy, and sometimes funding, and therefore their collaborators have expectations that their contributions will be rewarded through publication. Developing an a priori policy for renegotiation may often reduce misunderstandings and minimize conflict.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Consider the following situation: A student conducted a study to evaluate a new program that her clinic is offering to its patients. She interviewed ten patients who participated in the program about their experience. Nine of these patients were in general agreement about the value of the program, while the 10th patient was quite negative about her experience. The student’s impression of this patient is that she is a generally negative person. The student believes that the patient came into the program expecting not to like it. Furthermore, the student is concerned her clinic will lose funding for this program if she reports this patient’s responses. The student decides to exclude her data from the paper. Is this decision ethical? Why or why not?

One ethical issue raised in this scenario involves determining when it is appropriate to exclude data points. Data collected from research can be messy, and it is not unusual for some data points to be excluded from analyses. However, there must be an explicit methodology for excluding data points or subjects, and this information usually is reported in the manuscript. Examples for exclusions include: missing data (e.g., a participant did not complete a majority of the items on a questionnaire); measurement error (e.g., the recorded measurement of a biological process or part of the anatomy is simply impossible); small sample sizes (e.g., an insufficient number of individuals from a minority group participated in the research resulting in numbers too small for meaningful analysis). In the scenario described above, the rationale provided for excluding the 10th patient’s experience is not sufficient to warrant exclusion. Instead, it appears that exclusion of this individual is based on a desire to promote the new program in the student’s clinic. In order to eliminate this form of conflict of interest, one could consider involving a clinic outsider in the analysis and interpretation of the data. By including a clinic outsider in the project, editor and reviewer concerns about the integrity of the data, analyses, and conclusions will be allayed.

Most journals provide another “safeguard,” by requiring a statement about possible conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest statement requires the author to acknowledge in writing the nature of any circumstances that might bias the process and/or outcome of their work. For example, any project and published report that might result in direct financial gains for an author(s) should be disclosed to a journal’s editor and to the readership. Examples of possible conflicts of interest include conducting a study of the effectiveness of a genetic test funded by the company that developed and is marketing the test, or a program evaluation study whose outcome would determine the continuation of the investigators/authors’ jobs.

Plagiarism is a familiar concept to most people. Everyone generally understands the importance of “giving credit where credit is due.” Yet, the National Science Foundation estimates that the prevalence of plagiarism may be as high as 50% (Roig 2001 ). Probably many of these incidents are unintentional and/or occur because the authors were unaware of some of the nuances regarding plagiarism. Although there is some variability within and across disciplines about the specific behaviors that constitute plagiarism, there is general agreement about two broad types (Roig 2001 ): cryptamnesia -an individual thinks their idea is original when it actually was presented by someone else previously; and inappropriate paraphrasing —an individual uses another person’s published text without properly citing that use, and/or using their statements with little or no modification. Specific examples of inappropriate paraphrasing include: (1) publishing another person’s work as one’s own; (2) copying part of another author’s paper and claiming it as one’s own; (3) copying text from another source without using quotations marks and without citing that source in the text; (4) paraphrasing text from another source without providing an in-text citation; (5) summarizing material from another source without clearly connecting the summary to that source; and (6) using copyrighted materials without author/publisher permission (East 2006 ; Lester and Lester Jr. 1992 ).

Additional types of plagiarism include ambiguous use of citations. For instance, an individual includes a citation in a paragraph but does not clearly indicate which content in the paragraph is from the cited work. Another type of plagiarism is self-plagiarism . Self-plagiarism occurs when an individual includes published work of their own for which they do not own the copyright (e.g., reprinting a table from one of their previously published papers); repeating verbatim text from a previously published article. Permission to reprint material from the publisher must be obtained.

Plagiarism is a serious ethical breach which can result in a legal penalty. Strategies for avoiding plagiarism include limiting the use of direct quotes; avoiding the use of secondary sources—it is always better to read and cite an original source when available; and restating ideas in one’s own words while providing in-text citation of the work that contains the original ideas (East 2006 ; Lambie et al. 2008 ; Lester and Lester Jr. 1992 ). When in doubt regarding the originality of one’s words, it is best to cite the source(s) on which they are based. In this regard, it may help to bear in mind that readers will assume all words in the paper are the author’s unless the source(s) are cited.

Subject Confidentiality

Published papers must be written in a way that no subjects can be recognized by others without their written consent (Gavey and Braun 1997 ). Given the unique nature of genetics, family members may also need to provide written consent (McCarthy Veach et al. 2001 ). When possible, identifying information should be removed or disguised (e.g., use of pseudonyms) and data based on multiple subjects should be reported in aggregate (group) form. Institutional review boards (IRBs) play a critical role in assuring protection of subject confidentiality. Many journals require authors to indicate either in the paper or a cover letter that they have obtained institutional review board approval to conduct their animal or human subjects study. In some cases, an ethics board may have been consulted regarding ethical dilemmas reported in a clinical paper and this should be acknowledged in the paper.

Accuracy of Information

Authors are responsible for rigorously checking the accuracy of their facts, data, and conclusions. However, despite one’s best efforts, substantial errors sometimes are not discovered until after a paper is published. In that case, the corresponding author should contact the journal immediately and ask that an erratum be published. On a related note, authors have a professional responsibility to make data sets reported in published papers available to other professionals. This practice allows for verification of the findings and conclusions, and it also makes possible research replications and extensions of the original study. The length of time for retaining research records depends on institutional policy and sponsor policy, so it is important to be aware of how these policies apply to the research generated by a master’s thesis. Often institutional review boards require researchers to state how long they will maintain a data set, and the researchers must adhere to that time frame.

Another accuracy issue concerns modifying and reporting the use of published material (e.g., an interview protocol, psychological instrument, curriculum) without clearly describing the precise nature of the modifications. Interpretation of findings and their comparison to other studies using the “same” instrumentation may be severely compromised when an author fails to report modifications. Further, professional courtesy suggests that permission be sought from the author before changing her or his material. Also, use of published material requires crediting the author(s) of that material by including relevant citations.

Publishing in Multiple Sources

In the sciences, a manuscript should not be under review by more than one journal at a time. It is, however, acceptable to submit material for presentation at a conference prior to its actual publication in a journal, as the authors in case examples 1 and 3 did. Some conferences publish proceedings , and some journals will not publish work that is already published in a Proceedings unless the two papers differ substantially. When in doubt, it is good practice to contact a journal’s editor to determine the journal’s policy. Journals typically only publish original work, but on occasion there may be interest in reprinting an article. Reprinting a previously published paper requires written permission from the owner of the publication copyright. As a matter of courtesy, one should also seek the corresponding author’s permission, even if the author does not own the copyright.

Examples of Success

The benefits of sharing knowledge within the medical community and with the public via publication have been delineated. The publication of original work contributes to the advancement of the genetic counseling field overall, and at the individual level, authorship establishes a level of professional credibility, enhancing opportunities for future employability, funding and job satisfaction. The opportunity to develop a genetic counseling master’s thesis into a manuscript should therefore not be overlooked. Below are the personal accounts of three recent graduates who successfully transformed their individual master’s theses into published manuscripts. These examples were not systematically ascertained, and as such, do not necessarily represent all experiences with trying to publish a master’s thesis. These stories provide “first-hand accounts” of the authors’ experiences and, while acknowledging the challenges, demonstrate commitment to publishing their own projects throughout their careers. Table  3 contains a list of helpful hints gleaned from these cases.

Table 3

Helpful Hints for First Time Authors

Case 1: Consider Writing Your Thesis and Journal Article Concurrently

As a result of personal determination, and above all, strong mentorship, I was able to turn my master’s thesis work into a manuscript published in Patient Education and Counseling , titled “Satisfaction with genetic counseling for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations among African American women” (Charles et al. 2006 ). My work was a small component of an existing research project being conducted within a university academically affiliated with my genetic counseling training program. The project was an evaluation of the overall effects of “Culturally Tailored vs. Standard Genetic Counseling Protocol” among African American women.

I started by reviewing previous publications this group of researchers had produced and using these as a guide for my first draft, followed by multiple revisions. Approximately 17 months elapsed between first submission and publication. We submitted the manuscript in its original form in May 2005. We received the reviewers’ comments later that summer, and submitted revisions five months later. The article was accepted in that same month, published online five months later and in print seven months after the online version appeared. Shortly after graduating from my program I submitted an abstract of the work to NSGC for presentation at the 2005 Annual Education Conference, and subsequently learned that it was selected for the NSGC Beth Fine Student Abstract award.

My experience may be unusual because I worked on the manuscript and thesis project concurrently. Composing separate but related documents while still juggling second year genetic counseling student responsibilities was certainly a challenge. Preparing a comprehensive thesis project is a very different task than manuscript composition, the latter of which is more focused and narrow in scope. Challenges posed by this concurrent approach included ensuring that text requirements and deadlines specific to each document were met, as well as incorporating and addressing the reviews of both the training program and peer-reviewers. The main benefits of this approach were that I was still in school and therefore geographically close to my mentors, which facilitated ongoing communication throughout the process, and that the manuscript was under review by a journal before I started my new job.

Factors contributing to the successful publication of this project include mentorship, accountability, and commitment to publication by every author. Supportive, constructively critical, and well published, my mentors had high standards and knew the process. Frankly, I did not want to disappoint them. I found setting deadlines and meeting them, along with the accountability of in-person meetings (as opposed to email), to be effective approaches. Finally, publishing the project was a stated goal of the authors at the initiation of the project. I will not claim that the process was easy, but the goal is certainly attainable and worthwhile.

Case 2: You Need Not Publish Every Thesis Finding—Pick The Most Interesting and Relevant

As is the case for many graduate students, the first time I attempted to publish was after I completed my thesis. My thesis concerned the development of a minority research recruitment database and was the result of my graduate research on underserved populations.

Following graduation, I started my first job as a genetic counselor in a new city. During the overwhelming process of adjusting to “my new life,” my thesis advisor asked me to submit a manuscript to the American Journal of Public Health in response to a call for abstracts on genetics topics. Unfortunately, the deadline was only one week away. I scrambled to cut down my lengthy thesis to a reasonable length and submitted it, knowing that it was not my best work given the time constraint. Needless to say, it was rejected.

I decided that before resubmitting the manuscript to a different journal, I would need to take a different approach to the paper, more or less starting over. While my research results were interesting, they were limited in their application. I decided to publish instead on the success of our research initiative, as other researchers could learn from our process. Since I was changing the focus of the manuscript, I had to do an additional literature search and produce much of the writing from scratch. Most of this work had to be completed in my free time. While it was difficult to stay motivated, working on my manuscript when first starting a job was manageable as my caseload was lightest in the beginning. After several weeks of hard work, I submitted the manuscript to Health Promotion Practice .

About one month later, the editor contacted me and asked me to resubmit my manuscript with revisions. Three different reviewers provided feedback. Initially, it was overwhelming to read through their comments and frustrating, particularly when the reviewers contradicted each other. Despite my frustration, with my co-authors’ guidance I forged ahead and resubmitted, only to have the editor and reviewers ask for additional revisions. There were comments from the same three reviewers, however, far fewer in number. Still, I was beginning to think they would never accept the manuscript. I once again called upon my co-authors for guidance and was able to address the reviewers’ comments and resubmit the manuscript once again.

This time when I heard from the editor, the manuscript was finally accepted. What started out as a 120 page thesis ended up being published as an eight page paper (Vogel et al. 2007 ). It took approximately 8 months of writing and revising before the manuscript was finally accepted and an additional year before it came out in print. While the entire process was a true test of patience and determination, it was ultimately worth it. The experience gave me the foundation to carry on my research career and continue to publish successfully.

Case 3: Expectations and Mentorship are Crucial

I defended my thesis, received my Master’s degree, and was about to move back to the Midwest to start my new job as a genetic counselor, but my long “To-Do” list had one remaining item: Publish master’s thesis. I started the initial master’s thesis process with the expectation from one of my thesis advisors, and now a co-author, that research is not “put down and set aside” until published. I never questioned the process; if I was going to work with this advisor, I would be publishing. I was excited to undertake this challenge and impressed by my thesis advisor’s dedication, mentorship, and desire to see our hard work recognized. Nearly two years later, I could proudly say that this expectation, held by all of my thesis advisors and me, was accomplished. The manuscript, published in the JOGC , describes qualitative research regarding communication of genetic test results within a family (Blase et al. 2007 ).

In the beginning, I was unfamiliar with the publication process, but because of the support and guidance of my advisors, I began to learn the process, and so the frustrations and uncertainties were minimal. I also had a great working relationship with my co-authors that included communicating regularly and setting and meeting deadlines. After deciding the JOGC was the most appropriate venue for my research, I spent a good deal of time reducing and reformatting the 80 page thesis to a 20–25 page manuscript to meet the journal’s guidelines. Given the page constraints, this process necessitated determining which data to focus on and re-framing some information to appropriately fit the readers of my selected journal. Conversations with my advisors were instrumental in this phase.

There was nothing quick about publishing my master’s thesis. I graduated in June 2005, received an email shortly thereafter from one of my advisors about how to begin constructing a first draft of a manuscript, and began working on the manuscript in July 2005. I submitted the manuscript to JOGC in May 2006 and subsequently was informed by the editor that based on the reviews, revisions were required before the manuscript could be considered for publication. In September 2006, after two rounds of revisions, my manuscript was accepted, and by June 2007 it was published in the journal.

Although ultimately I was successful in publishing my master’s thesis, the process had its moments of frustration. I remember getting my first round of comments from the reviewers; I thought I was never going to get to the point of publication. My co-authors supported and encouraged me by explaining that revisions are truly part of the process. I was overwhelmed by the reviewers’ list of questions and changes after my initial submission, followed by additional reviews and revisions. Not only did I have to figure out how to keep the manuscript a priority in light of my new job, but I had to weed through and address the reviewers’ comments, and the suggestions of each co-author. The guidance of my thesis advisors, now co-authors, helped me navigate this process.

I have gained much through this experience. The process has opened doors for me including opportunities to work with other professionals with impressive publishing experiences, as well as speaking and poster presentation opportunities at national conferences. I also have greater confidence about the publishing process. What seemed like such a daunting and impossible task is now an attainable outcome. Although my master’s thesis was my most recent publication, the thought of taking on the publication process again is not nearly as intimidating as I once thought.

Publication of original research, clinical experience, and literature reviews are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field and to the delivery of genetic counseling services. Publishing also promotes personal growth by counting toward maintenance of ABGC-certification as well as establishing the author as a credible and respected authority both within and outside the genetic counseling field. This professional recognition in turn can lead to employment opportunities, speaking engagements, research funding, and career advancement.

Submitting a manuscript for publication also can be an intellectually challenging, emotionally trying, and time-consuming task. But similar to life’s other difficult tasks, the rewards and satisfaction are commensurately great—to see your name in print, have your work cited by other authors, and know that you have contributed in a meaningful way to the practice and understanding of genetic counseling. Transforming a master’s thesis into a journal article is an obvious first step in developing and sustaining a commitment to publishing for our genetic counseling profession. Common themes in the three success experiences include the importance of mentorship and clear expectations for publishing, recognition of the length of the process and concomitant need for perseverance in the face of revisions, awareness of personal and professional benefits in terms of presentations at national meetings, awards, and motivation to continue publishing. Hopefully the information provided in this article will help to de-mystify the publishing process, promote consideration of ethical issues in publishing, and stimulate genetic counseling students and new graduates to embrace a “Publish for Success” philosophy.

Acknowledgments

This paper was developed from an Educational Breakout Session (EBS) sponsored by the Jane Engelberg Memorial Fellowship Advisory Group at the 2008 NSGC Annual Education Conference.

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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• Knowledge Base
• Dissertation

What Is a Dissertation? | Guide, Examples, & Template

A dissertation is a long-form piece of academic writing based on original research conducted by you. It is usually submitted as the final step in order to finish a PhD program.

Your dissertation is probably the longest piece of writing you’ve ever completed. It requires solid research, writing, and analysis skills, and it can be intimidating to know where to begin.

Your department likely has guidelines related to how your dissertation should be structured. When in doubt, consult with your supervisor.

You can also download our full dissertation template in the format of your choice below. The template includes a ready-made table of contents with notes on what to include in each chapter, easily adaptable to your department’s requirements.

Download Word template Download Google Docs template

• In the US, a dissertation generally refers to the collection of research you conducted to obtain a PhD.
• In other countries (such as the UK), a dissertation often refers to the research you conduct to obtain your bachelor’s or master’s degree.

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Table of contents

Dissertation committee and prospectus process, how to write and structure a dissertation, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your dissertation, free checklist and lecture slides.

When you’ve finished your coursework, as well as any comprehensive exams or other requirements, you advance to “ABD” (All But Dissertation) status. This means you’ve completed everything except your dissertation.

Prior to starting to write, you must form your committee and write your prospectus or proposal . Your committee comprises your adviser and a few other faculty members. They can be from your own department, or, if your work is more interdisciplinary, from other departments. Your committee will guide you through the dissertation process, and ultimately decide whether you pass your dissertation defense and receive your PhD.

Your prospectus is a formal document presented to your committee, usually orally in a defense, outlining your research aims and objectives and showing why your topic is relevant . After passing your prospectus defense, you’re ready to start your research and writing.

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The structure of your dissertation depends on a variety of factors, such as your discipline, topic, and approach. Dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay , building an overall argument to support a central thesis , with chapters organized around different themes or case studies.

However, hard science and social science dissertations typically include a review of existing works, a methodology section, an analysis of your original research, and a presentation of your results , presented in different chapters.

Dissertation examples

We’ve compiled a list of dissertation examples to help you get started.

• Example dissertation #1: Heat, Wildfire and Energy Demand: An Examination of Residential Buildings and Community Equity (a dissertation by C. A. Antonopoulos about the impact of extreme heat and wildfire on residential buildings and occupant exposure risks).
• Example dissertation #2: Exploring Income Volatility and Financial Health Among Middle-Income Households (a dissertation by M. Addo about income volatility and declining economic security among middle-income households).
• Example dissertation #3: The Use of Mindfulness Meditation to Increase the Efficacy of Mirror Visual Feedback for Reducing Phantom Limb Pain in Amputees (a dissertation by N. S. Mills about the effect of mindfulness-based interventions on the relationship between mirror visual feedback and the pain level in amputees with phantom limb pain).

The very first page of your document contains your dissertation title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you. In some cases, your acknowledgements are part of a preface.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

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The abstract is a short summary of your dissertation, usually about 150 to 300 words long. Though this may seem very short, it’s one of the most important parts of your dissertation, because it introduces your work to your audience.

Your abstract should:

• State your main topic and the aims of your research
• Describe your methods
• Summarize your main results
• State your conclusions

Read more about abstracts

The table of contents lists all of your chapters, along with corresponding subheadings and page numbers. This gives your reader an overview of your structure and helps them easily navigate your document.

Remember to include all main parts of your dissertation in your table of contents, even the appendices. It’s easy to generate a table automatically in Word if you used heading styles. Generally speaking, you only include level 2 and level 3 headings, not every subheading you included in your finished work.

Read more about tables of contents

While not usually mandatory, it’s nice to include a list of figures and tables to help guide your reader if you have used a lot of these in your dissertation. It’s easy to generate one of these in Word using the Insert Caption feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

Similarly, if you have used a lot of abbreviations (especially industry-specific ones) in your dissertation, you can include them in an alphabetized list of abbreviations so that the reader can easily look up their meanings.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

In addition to the list of abbreviations, if you find yourself using a lot of highly specialized terms that you worry will not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary. Here, alphabetize the terms and include a brief description or definition.

Read more about glossaries

The introduction serves to set up your dissertation’s topic, purpose, and relevance. It tells the reader what to expect in the rest of your dissertation. The introduction should:

• Establish your research topic , giving the background information needed to contextualize your work
• Narrow down the focus and define the scope of your research
• Discuss the state of existing research on the topic, showing your work’s relevance to a broader problem or debate
• Clearly state your research questions and objectives
• Outline the flow of the rest of your work

Everything in the introduction should be clear, engaging, and relevant. By the end, the reader should understand the what, why, and how of your research.

Read more about introductions

A formative part of your research is your literature review . This helps you gain a thorough understanding of the academic work that already exists on your topic.

Literature reviews encompass:

• Finding relevant sources (e.g., books and journal articles)
• Assessing the credibility of your sources
• Critically analyzing and evaluating each source
• Drawing connections between them (e.g., themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps) to strengthen your overall point

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing sources. Your literature review should have a coherent structure and argument that leads to a clear justification for your own research. It may aim to:

• Address a gap in the literature or build on existing knowledge
• Take a new theoretical or methodological approach to your topic
• Propose a solution to an unresolved problem or advance one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework. Here, you define and analyze the key theories, concepts, and models that frame your research.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to critically assess its credibility. Your methodology section should accurately report what you did, as well as convince your reader that this was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• The overall research approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative ) and research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment )
• Details of where, when, and with whom the research took place
• Any tools and materials you used (e.g., computer programs, lab equipment)
• Your data analysis methods (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• An evaluation or justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. You can structure this section around sub-questions, hypotheses , or themes, but avoid including any subjective or speculative interpretation here.

Your results section should:

• Concisely state each relevant result together with relevant descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Briefly state how the result relates to the question or whether the hypothesis was supported
• Report all results that are relevant to your research questions , including any that did not meet your expectations.

Additional data (including raw numbers, full questionnaires, or interview transcripts) can be included as an appendix. You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results. Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is your opportunity to explore the meaning and implications of your results in relation to your research question. Here, interpret your results in detail, discussing whether they met your expectations and how well they fit with the framework that you built in earlier chapters. Refer back to relevant source material to show how your results fit within existing research in your field.

Some guiding questions include:

• What do your results mean?
• Why do your results matter?
• What limitations do the results have?

If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your dissertation’s conclusion should concisely answer your main research question, leaving your reader with a clear understanding of your central argument and emphasizing what your research has contributed to the field.

In some disciplines, the conclusion is just a short section preceding the discussion section, but in other contexts, it is the final chapter of your work. Here, you wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you found, with recommendations for future research and concluding remarks.

It’s important to leave the reader with a clear impression of why your research matters. What have you added to what was already known? Why is your research necessary for the future of your field?

Read more about conclusions

It is crucial to include a reference list or list of works cited with the full details of all the sources that you used, in order to avoid plagiarism. Be sure to choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your dissertation. Each style has strict and specific formatting requirements.

Common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA , but which style you use is often set by your department or your field.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

Your dissertation should contain only essential information that directly contributes to answering your research question. Documents such as interview transcripts or survey questions can be added as appendices, rather than adding them to the main body.

Read more about appendices

Making sure that all of your sections are in the right place is only the first step to a well-written dissertation. Don’t forget to leave plenty of time for editing and proofreading, as grammar mistakes and sloppy spelling errors can really negatively impact your work.

Dissertations can take up to five years to write, so you will definitely want to make sure that everything is perfect before submitting. You may want to consider using a professional dissertation editing service , AI proofreader or grammar checker to make sure your final project is perfect prior to submitting.

After your written dissertation is approved, your committee will schedule a defense. Similarly to defending your prospectus, dissertation defenses are oral presentations of your work. You’ll present your dissertation, and your committee will ask you questions. Many departments allow family members, friends, and other people who are interested to join as well.

After your defense, your committee will meet, and then inform you whether you have passed. Keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality; most committees will have resolved any serious issues with your work with you far prior to your defense, giving you ample time to fix any problems.

As you write your dissertation, you can use this simple checklist to make sure you’ve included all the essentials.

Checklist: Dissertation

My title page includes all information required by my university.

I have included acknowledgements thanking those who helped me.

My abstract provides a concise summary of the dissertation, giving the reader a clear idea of my key results or arguments.

I have created a table of contents to help the reader navigate my dissertation. It includes all chapter titles, but excludes the title page, acknowledgements, and abstract.

My introduction leads into my topic in an engaging way and shows the relevance of my research.

My introduction clearly defines the focus of my research, stating my research questions and research objectives .

My introduction includes an overview of the dissertation’s structure (reading guide).

I have conducted a literature review in which I (1) critically engage with sources, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of existing research, (2) discuss patterns, themes, and debates in the literature, and (3) address a gap or show how my research contributes to existing research.

I have clearly outlined the theoretical framework of my research, explaining the theories and models that support my approach.

I have thoroughly described my methodology , explaining how I collected data and analyzed data.

I have concisely and objectively reported all relevant results .

I have (1) evaluated and interpreted the meaning of the results and (2) acknowledged any important limitations of the results in my discussion .

I have clearly stated the answer to my main research question in the conclusion .

I have clearly explained the implications of my conclusion, emphasizing what new insight my research has contributed.

I have provided relevant recommendations for further research or practice.

If relevant, I have included appendices with supplemental information.

I have included an in-text citation every time I use words, ideas, or information from a source.

I have listed every source in a reference list at the end of my dissertation.

I have consistently followed the rules of my chosen citation style .

I have followed all formatting guidelines provided by my university.

Congratulations!

The end is in sight—your dissertation is nearly ready to submit! Make sure it's perfectly polished with the help of a Scribbr editor.

If you’re an educator, feel free to download and adapt these slides to teach your students about structuring a dissertation.

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Publishing Dissertations and Theses: Publishing a Dissertation

• Master's Thesis FAQ
• Dissertation Research
• Publishing a Dissertation

Steps to Publishing Your Dissertation

Once you have successfully completed your defense and your work has been accepted by your Dissertation Committee members, your dissertation is ready to be bound and uploaded to Proquest ETD Administator .  Proquest is the primary repository for dissertations in the United States.  Lawrence Tech, as well thousands of universities world-wide, requires that you deposit a copy of your work for discovery by other researchers.  Proquest indexes your dissertation so that it will be discoverable by other researchers.  The formal copyright request (fee) will also be filed through Proquest. You may chose from two models:  

• Traditional Model - no fee -  Proquest makes the dissertation available for sale (you receive royalties for any sale), or
• Open-Access Model - author fee - to offset lost revenue to Proquest. In this model, the complete dissertation is available in the Proquest database.

More information about the models is available within your Proquest account.

Every doctoral student will need to set up an account at LTU's Proquest Dissertation site (link below). However, the library recommends not submitting the dissertation PDF etc. until after making an appointment to drop off copies of the dissertations for binding.  The library representative will provide more detailed instructions at that time.

Remember, Lawrence Tech Library will handle the copyright registration of your work on your behalf through Proquest. It is the student's responsibility to upload the dissertation PDF to Proquest.

If there are any questions about the binding or uploading of your dissertation, contact the library at 248-204-3000 or email the reference desk at [email protected] .

• Proquest/UMI - Submit Your Dissertation Click here to create an account and upload your dissertation to Proquest/UMI. Remember, the SIGNED signature acceptance page must be scanned and inserted before creating the PDF for uploading.

Uploading to ProQuest ETD Administrator

• Go to http://www.etdadmin.com and choose "Submit my dissertation/thesis" .
• Select your school from the list provided.
• Create an account or login using an existing account.
• Once you create an account, the ETD Administrator will walk you through a simple process that involves accepting the publishing agreement and uploading the relevant files and information about your submission.
• After you complete your submission, your graduate school administrator will review the submission before sending it to ProQuest Dissertation Publishing. Note: the SIGNED signature acceptance page must be scanned and inserted before creating the PDF for uploading and all dissertations and theses must be submitted as a PDF document. You should select "Yes" to allow Search Engine Access . This refers to indexing your dissertation. For the broadest exposure of your work, you want it indexed by major search engines.  If you have chosen the Traditional Publishing model, researchers will find the citation and abstract but will not have immediate access to the full-text of the dissertation.

Preparing Print Copies

Complete information is in the Brochure below. The last 3 pages are printable forms to bring to the library with the print copies.

Answers to Some Common Questions:

How many copies will I need?

• 2 copies for the library
• plus copies for your department & committee -this number will vary - check with your advisor
• personal copies

What type of paper should I use?

• Acid free or archival quality -- most printer paper is acid free;
• 20# - 28# weight;
• 20# is the same as most printer paper; a heavier paper is often used for a dissertation

If you have questions regarding paper quality, binding, library requirements, etc., please contact the library prior to printing your copies. Once the copies are printed you may make an appointment to bring them in by calling 248.204.3000 or emailing [email protected] . To ensure binding in a particular month, please deliver the printed copies to the library the Thursday BEFORE the scheduled pick-up date. The turn-around time for binding has been 4-5 weeks, but is subject to change.

• February 28
• September 11
• Master's Thesis - Binding Order Form Your advisor must sign this form before we can process your thesis.
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• Last Updated: Feb 5, 2024 2:26 PM
• URL: https://libguides.ltu.edu/dissertations

Why publish a dissertation or thesis with ProQuest?

• Article Number: 000032597

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Research Guides

Submit and publish your thesis.

• The Graduate Thesis: What is it?
• Thesis Defences
• Deadlines and Fees
• Formatting in MS Word
• Formatting in LaTeX
• Making Thesis Accessible
• Thesis Embargo
• Review and Release
• Your Rights as an Author
• Re-using Third Party Materials
• Creative Commons Licenses for Theses
• Turning Thesis into an Article
• Turning Thesis into a Book
• Other Venues of Publication

Publishing from your thesis before or after graduation

"Will repository submission affect my publishing plans?"

... this is a common question for someone looking to publish from their thesis before or after graduation.

Most journals welcome submissions based on a thesis or dissertation. Some may have additional requirements, such as to:

• Let them know about the university’s requirement to make your thesis publicly available
• Submit a manuscript that is substantially different than the thesis content
• Embargo the thesis until after publication, etc.

Your steps will depend on the following scenarios:

Scenario 1 - you ARE NOT planning on publishing your thesis before or after graduation

In this case:

• You can submit your thesis without an embargo
• Your thesis will become publicly available in TSpace  and Library and Archives Canada after your convocation and will be widely indexed via search engines and indexes
• Use the TSpace-generated permanent URL to share and cite your thesis - see example of such citation below

Tajdaran, K. (2015). Enhancement of Peripheral Nerve Regeneration with Controlled Release of Glial Cell Line-derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) (Master’s Thesis, University of Toronto). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1807/74747

Scenario 2 - You ARE planning on publishing your thesis AFTER graduation

Most journals are interested in “original, previously unpublished” research. Some journals consider theses as a form of “prior publications”, others do not, and the majority does not have a clear definition. It will be best to check journal policy before you submit your thesis.

Nature Research will consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification.

►►►How to check journal policies:

• MIT Libraries' list of policy excerpts from major publishers
• Journal’s website - usually under Information for Authors or Copyright / Permissions or Editorial Policy; or in the publication agreement if available online
• If such information cannot be located online, contact the editors directly
• If the journal requires that you place an embargo on your thesis until after publication, see the SGS instructions on how to request an embargo on your thesis .

Scenario 3 - You ARE planning on publishing (or have already published) from your thesis BEFORE graduation

You may want or be expected to publish parts of your thesis before your thesis is submitted, such as with an integrated/publication-based/sandwich thesis. The most important thing to keep in mind here is copyright. You own copyright of your written materials, and a publisher may require copyright transfer of your manuscript.

You need to ensure you retain certain rights or obtain permission in order to satisfy the university’s requirement of making your thesis openly accessible via TSpace, ProQuest and Library and Archives Canada (LAC). For more details on these repositories, see the  Review and Release  section of this guide.

Check whether the journal requires prior notification about U of T’s open access requirement for theses. Some journals want to be notified of this mandate whether or not they restrict the re-use of articles in theses.

Check whether the publisher requires copyright transfer . This should be stated on their website, in the publication agreement, or you can inquire directly with the journal.

If the publisher does not require copyright transfer , i.e. author retains copyright, then you can reuse your article/chapter in your thesis; no permission needed.

If the publisher requires copyright transfer , follow these steps:

Check if the publisher has special provisions for reusing your published work in your thesis. They may permit the inclusion of a non-final version, such as your submitted or accepted manuscript. See more below on understanding different article versions for sharing .

►►►How to check journal policies:  See MIT Libraries' list of policy excerpts from major publishers or the journal/publisher website.

For example, Taylor and Francis policy allows to:

Include your article Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM) or Accepted Manuscript(AM) , depending on the embargo period in your thesis or dissertation. The Version of Record cannot be used. https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/copyright-and-you/

Check if the article is distributed under a Creative Commons license. This may allow re-use.

►►►How to check journal's CC license:  See the journal/publisher website or contact the journal directly.

If the publisher requires copyright transfer, has no special provisions and does not publish under a CC license, you will need to contact them to request permission to include your article in your thesis. You can:

• Negotiate making the article available as part of the thesis in TSpace, ProQuest, and LAC Theses Portal; 
• Request an embargo [link to Lisa’ section on embargo] if the publisher only permits open sharing after some time post-publication;
• If permission is denied you may include in place of the chapter an abstract and a link to the article on the journal website.

If you have specific questions about your situation, publisher policy or author rights, contact the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office at [email protected] for a consultation (best before you publish!)

Understanding different versions of a published article

A publisher may distinguish between the versions of an article that you may be allowed to include in your thesis:

• Submitted manuscript / pre-print - version you initially send in (often permitted)
• Accepted manuscript / post-print - version after peer review but before copyediting, layout editing, formatting, etc. (sometimes permitted; publisher may require an embargo/access restriction for a period of time)
• Version of record / final publisher’s PDF - version that appears in the journal (many publishers do not permit sharing this version)

►►►How to check article versions permitted for sharing:

• MIT Libraries’s list of policy excerpts from major publishers
• Sherpa/RoMEO database of publisher policies
• Journal’s website - usually under Information for Authors or Copyright/Permissions or Editorial Policy; or in the publication agreement if available online
• << Previous: Creative Commons Licenses for Theses
• Next: Turning Thesis into an Article >>
• Last Updated: Sep 15, 2023 3:23 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/thesis

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How to Turn your Dissertation into a Book

You finished your dissertation and want to turn it into a book? Then don’t let the revision process scare you – we've got you covered with helpful tips and tricks on the way.

This post is part of a series, which serves to provide hands-on information and resources for authors and editors.

After years of hard work on their dissertation, more than a few Early Career Researchers consider turning their PhD research into a monograph. While this is great to reach a whole new audience, the process of getting there can seem complex and daunting at first.

But we’re here to help!

The first and most essential step is to decide whether your dissertation should become a book at all. For many scholars this is a no-brainer, especially in the humanities and the social sciences, where the publication of books is crucial for getting professional recognition, climbing up the career ladder, and eventually gaining tenure.

Your dissertation could also be published in the form of one or several journal articles. Or something you just want to upload on a university server and be done with.

However, let’s say that you do want to convert your thesis into a publishable book, here are the general steps of this exciting undertaking:

• Find your match
• Build your confidence
• Get down to the nitty gritty
• Pitch your work
• Respond and revise

1. Find Your Match

The process of revising a dissertation goes hand-in-hand with the search for the right publishing house. The question what kind of book you want or need will influence your choice. Vice versa, the publisher shapes what kind of book you will be rewarded with.

Publishing with an established publisher is still considered as a sign of quality. They take care of things like quality control and peer review, and they select their titles carefully, so they fit their lists. This also means the books will sell better. Moreover, and most importantly: a publisher makes your work visible, be it online, in catalogues, on conferences, book fairs, or by distributing your book among libraries and universities.

Are you looking for the right press to publish your academic work? Find out here whether De Gruyter might be the right partner for your project!

Ask yourself this: Where do you want to see your book? Where have your favorite publications been published? Browse bookshelves, and visit book exhibitions at conferences . Talk to editors, approach them, ask for their conditions; check websites.

But whilst you do all of that: Please never submit to more than one publisher at the same time. Wasting editors’ time is frowned upon and doesn’t bode well for future publication with the house.

2. Build your Confidence

Once you decided on which press would be a good choice (from university presses, independent academic publishers, trade publishers etc.), there are a couple of things you need to take into consideration.

First and maybe most importantly: Be kind to yourself. Acknowledge what you have already accomplished. This has been a huge effort, and you have earned every right to be proud of yourself! Then, get to work.

Be prepared to invest time and nerves into reworking your dissertation. Focus on what you have already done, and build from there.

Remember, a book is not a dissertation. You do not need to convince anyone anymore that you are the expert and that you have done your reading. The reader of your book trusts that you are, and that is why they bought it.

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3. Get Down to the Nitty Gritty

• Envision your audience. This will help you give your dissertation a makeover.
• Your viva was probably a while ago, so lots of new and interesting research has been published since then that could potentially influence your work. Do the reading.
• Go over your literature review and see what is not needed anymore for your argument. Do not quote other people as much – the reader wants to know what you think. The reader of your book is also not hugely interested in all of the methodologies out there. Tell them what you used and why, but cut everything else.
• Tell the reader in the introduction what the book’s central argument is. What is your contribution to the field? What’s new? In the conclusion, tell them what the consequences are. What difference do your findings make? How do they help the field?
• Try to stay close to the 100,000 word threshold (=300 pages), including notes. Keep the manuscript sleek, limit the apparatus. Try to have chapters of equal lengths.
• Sure enough, images are nice and often help the reader get a sense for the text, but do not forget that you have to clear rights for most of them, and get all the technicalities for print sorted.
• Use simple wording. Be on point. Always remember your audience needs to understand you, and not all of them are experts.
• Go easy on the footnotes: Resist making them a container for all of the brilliant thoughts that don’t quite fit in the flow or argument of your book. If a remark doesn’t belong in your text, it might not belong in your book altogether.

Bear in mind: With a dissertation, you have something to prove. With a book, you have something to say.

4. Pitch Your Work

After revising, you need to prepare a pitch: Sell your book! Let the publisher know why your research is important and how it changes the field. What’s the unique selling point of your book, what sets it apart from others?

To get started, check the publisher’s website. Usually there is a proposal form hidden away somewhere. Try to find information on the submission process and/or a personal contact. Follow the guidelines, and write an e-mail to the responsible Acquisitions Editor.

Indicate that you are familiar with the scope of the publisher’s list. Maybe you know of a book series of theirs, where your work might fit in. Let them know you did your homework, and that you are invested. Describe how your book complements other titles in the series and why it would be a great fit.

Learn more about book proposals in our blog post “How to Write an Academic Book Proposal: 6 Questions for Laura Portwood-Stacer” .

Be concise. Your proposal should demonstrate not only that you are an expert on the topic, but that you can condense and synthesize what you know, that you can share it concisely, and that you can present your research in a way that is stimulating and thought-provoking.

Usually, the more material you send, the better. Being able to read a sample chapter of the dissertation, in addition to the proposal, makes it much easier for the publisher to get a sense about the writing style of an author, who is still unknown to them.

5. Almost There! Respond and Revise

After you submitted, and heard back from the editor of the press, you can relax a little. Your manuscript is now either under consideration with the editor or already sent out for external peer review. This might take a while.

Chances are, when you hear back from the editor the next time, the reviewers will have criticized parts of your manuscript and are asking for improvements. Hence, you will need to get back into the text once again. This can be a hard moment, but remember: you are so close now! Revise one last time and at the end of the road, you might already see the light of your shiny new author contract.

Good luck – you got this!

If you are interested, check out this related blog post

[Title image by hanna grace via Unsplash]

Rabea Rittgerodt

Rabea works as Acquisitions Editor at De Gruyter. She is specialized on 19th & 20th century social, cultural, and global history. You can follow her on Twitter via @RabeaRi .

Sophie Wagenhofer

Sophie Wagenhofer works as Senior Acquisitions Editor Islamic & Jewish Studies at De Gruyter.

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Dissertation Essentials

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Dissertation Resources

Completed dissertation examples.

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• Dissertation Database A-Z Databases: Dissertations & Theses
• NU Dissertations ProQuest - Review National University Dissertations & Theses.

Writing a dissertation is a serious and lengthy task, with so many steps to complete, revise, and perfect. The NU Dissertation Template provides a lot of helpful info, but students still often have many questions and need additional guidance.  Seeing completed examples helps a lot.  This guide will help you to access completed NU dissertations in the NU library to inspire and inform your own research and writing.

Accessing completed NU dissertations can help students with the following common issues:

• Finding examples/inspiration for methodology, focus, topic, and other “big-picture” concerns.
• Identifying specifics on length/depth/breadth of each section of the dissertation.
• Seeing examples of formatting in context, such as APA style headings.
• Understanding specific dissertation committee expectations.
• Finding new references on completed reference lists.
• Supporting your peers’ scholarly work by reading their dissertations and participating in the scholarly community.

It’s easy to locate completed NU dissertations in the NU Library!

• Log into NCUOne and click on the NU Library link  - https://resources.nu.edu
• Access the pull-down menu on left entitled “Research Resources” and click on “Find Dissertations”.
• Access the pull-down menu for Vendors/Providers in the top middle of the page and click on “ProQuest”.
• Click on ProQuest Dissertations & Theses @ Northcentral University .

Narrow your search

Once you have located the published NU dissertations, you can narrow your search, just like you would with any other library resource.  Try the following strategies to start:

• Keywords/terms that you are using in your own research.
• General area of focus (for example, “Special Education”).
• Methodological approach (for example, “Phenomenology”).
• Dates (Tip – Consider narrowing your search to only the past 5 years).
• Advisors (Dissertation Chairs).
• Committee members.
• References/citations you plan to use.
• Just like with any other library resource, you can perform an advanced search using a combination of these strategies.
• In addition to the NU dissertations, you may want to consider accessing non-NU dissertations via the general ProQuest link on the pull-down menu (see steps outlined above).  This can be helpful if your topic is extremely specific, if you are very far along in your work, and if you need to broaden your search.

Now that you have accessed the completed NU Dissertations in the NU Library, the possibilities to inspire and guide you in your own work are endless.  Be excited that one day soon, your own dissertation will be published in the NU library!

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• Last Updated: Mar 13, 2024 9:17 AM
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How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book: A Step-By-Step Guide for New Authors

Whether you are just starting graduate school, writing your dissertation, or the proud recipient of a recent Ph.D., you may be thinking about turning your dissertation into a published book. There are many reasons why this might be a good idea. In some fields, a published scholarly book is a preferred method for presenting a comprehensive view of pivotal research. A book gives you the space to discuss details, complications, connections, and ramifications in a way that is not possible in a journal article. In these fields, a well-reviewed book gives you instant credibility when applying for faculty positions, tenure, and related positions. A published book also has a much longer shelf life than an unpublished dissertation, and will occupy a respected place on your CV or resume for years to come.

In other fields, good dissertations are expected to produce one or more published journal articles, and many tenured faculty at top research institutions never publish a book. In these fields, publishing a book may still be an asset for those pursuing a traditional academic career, and can be a great way to transition into other careers such as science communication, education, or public policy. So if turning your dissertation into a book is something you are considering, here are some steps to get started.

Step 1: Identify your audience

Publishers are businesses that make money by selling books. This is true of "trade" publishers that sell books for the general public, and "academic" publishers that sell books primarily for students and scholars. Therefore, in order for a publisher to consider publishing your book, there must be a sufficiently large audience to buy your book. This audience will strongly influence how you organize and write your book, and may cause your book to be massively different from your dissertation. After all, the purpose of a dissertation is to show that you are knowledgeable about your field of study, and have made a significant contribution to it. In contrast, the purpose of a book is to serve a need for the reader.

Some dissertation topics may work well as required reading for college and university courses. In that case, you need to identify the types of courses that would be appropriate (e.g. courses in sociology that cover gender identity), and develop an understanding of how many students take such courses. For example, you might find that almost all colleges in the California State system have a sociology department. At California State AnyTown, there are 20,000 undergraduate students, and 400 students a year take a sociology course that focuses on gender identity. Other dissertation topics might appeal to people in specific professions (e.g. people who work with children who suffer concussions), and you might look at the number of people in relevant professional organizations (e.g. associations for coaches or pediatric nurses). At the other end of the spectrum, you might imagine a book that appeals to a fairly wide audience (e.g. a book that addresses recent events linked to gender identity, or a broader discussion of concussion in youth sports). For these books, the intended audience may be harder to define, so you can estimate its size in the next step.

Step 2: Identify competing books

Once you have identified a potential audience, you need to familiarize yourself with the books they are reading. Your book will be competing with these books, so you need to determine how your book will fill a gap for this audience. Here you have the opportunity—and the obligation—to read widely in your intended niche. If this opportunity doesn't excite you, do not try to write a book for this niche. The process of writing a good book is laborious and time consuming, so if you are not interested in exploring similar books for what works and what doesn't, you will not enjoy writing your own book for this category.

As you identify and read competing books, you should pay attention to the topics that they cover, and how the author writes about these topics. Consider whether the text is instructive or narrative, what details are included, how the text is organized, and whether visual aids such as photographs, diagrams, or tables are included. Also find out when the book was published, how long it is, how much it sells for, and how many copies have been sold (or at least what its Amazon sales rank is).

You may find books that are very similar to your book, or that are different in significant ways (such as the specific topic) but that have characteristics you want to emulate (e.g. a good strategy for presenting technically challenging research to a broad audience). As you gain a good understanding of related books, you'll need to develop a list of 3-10 books that will compete with your book. You will use this list to support two points:

• Books similar to your book have been successful with your intended audiences; and
• Your book fills an unmet need for this audience, so they will buy it.

That unmet need might be a more recent book that incorporates new knowledge, or a book that takes a different approach to a question that has already been addressed.

This survey of related books will also help you plan your book. If you find that multiple books already exist for your intended topic, you may need to shift your emphasis so that your book offers something new. If you find that there are few successful competing books, it may be that your intended audience is too small, and that you need to shift your emphasis to fit into a more productive niche.

Step 3: Create an outline for your book

Once you have an intended audience, an excellent understanding of successful books in the same category, and an idea for how you can fill a need in that category, you can start planning your book in detail. Put together an outline, starting with the major topic for each chapter, and thinking about how the overall theme will progress through the entire book. Even for a purely academic book, there must be an overall arch to your story.

While it may be tempting to slip into the same mindset that you used for planning and writing your dissertation, remember that the purpose of your book is to serve a need for the reader. So rather than focusing on your specific research contributions (which is essential for a dissertation), focus on what the reader needs to know. To facilitate this mindset, it may be useful to put away your dissertation for a bit (assuming that it is already complete) and focus on other projects. Then revisit your dissertation topic when you have fresh eyes and a better understanding of what would be useful for your intended audience.

As you flesh out the details for each chapter, set a target word count and think about any images or tables that should be included. Keep in mind that book publishers must pay for every page, image, and footnote to be edited, prepared, and printed. Books that are only available electronically still have most of these per-page expenses. Therefore, use successful books in your category as a guide for how long your book should be, and how many images should be included. Color images also add significantly to the production costs .

As you are preparing your outline, you will likely reach a point where you are unsure if the details of your plan will work. Then it is time to write.

Step 4: Write a sample chapter

If you want a publisher or agent to consider your book, you will typically need to submit a sample chapter or two. You may be asked to submit your first chapter or your "best" chapter, so I recommend starting with your first chapter and making it excellent.

While there are many different approaches to successful writing, one common theme is that the first draft is usually terrible. So write the first draft of your first chapter and let it be terrible. Then read and revise, and repeat. As you are writing and revising, I recommend regularly taking time to read some of your competing titles. How do they deal with some of the challenges you are facing? Are their approaches successful or can you envision a better way?

As you write your first chapter or two, you may find that you need to revise your outline. Pay attention to what you can effectively cover for your audience in the space available.

Step 5: Identify appropriate publishers or agents

Once you have a strong plan and a sample chapter or two, you need to identify potential publishers. Start by looking at your list of competing titles, and learn about those publishers. Also talk to colleagues who have published books, and ask if they would be willing to put you in contact with their publisher or agent. The process can be quite complicated, and for a comprehensive guide I recommend The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Many publishers also post guidelines for potential authors on their websites. For most publishers, you will need to show that you understand your audience and competing books, and provide a detailed book outline and convincing sample chapter.

Here is an infographic that breaks down all of these major points:

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How to Get Your Dissertation Published in the UK

Congratulations on completing your dissertation! It is a great achievement, and now it is time to share your research with the rest of the world by publishing it. Publishing your dissertation in the UK can be a significant step in your academic career.  

It can also be a daunting task if you are not familiar with the process. In this article, we will guide you through the 8 steps and at the end of it, you will master how to get your dissertation published in the UK.

Choose a Publisher When Publishing Dissertation

The first step in publishing your dissertation is to choose a publisher. You can consider publishing with an academic publisher or a university press. Make sure to choose a reputable publisher with experience in your field of study.

Lambert Academic Publishing is a reputable publisher that specializes in publishing dissertations and scholarly books. We offer a wide range of services to help you publish your dissertation, including marketing. All you need is to check the steps on  how to publish with us . 

Check the Publisher’s Submission Guidelines

 Once you have chosen a publisher, check their submission guidelines carefully. This will help you understand what the publisher is looking for and how to format your manuscript accordingly. Some publishers have specific formatting requirements, so make sure you follow them closely.

Prepare your Manuscript

Before submitting your manuscript, you need to prepare it for publication. This involves proofreading and editing your work, making sure that it adheres to the submission guidelines, and creating an abstract and a table of contents. You may also need to format your references and citations in a specific style.

 Submit your Manuscript

Once your manuscript is ready, you can submit it to the publisher. Most publishers have an online submission system , so make sure you follow the instructions carefully. You may also need to submit a cover letter and a CV.

 Wait for the Peer-Review Process

After you submit your manuscript, it will go through a peer-review process. This is where experts in your field of study review your work and provide feedback. The review process can take several weeks to several months, depending on the publisher.

Revise Your Manuscript

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, you will need to revise it based on the feedback you received during the peer-review process. 

This may involve:

•  rewriting certain sections;
•  adding more data or references;
•  making other necessary changes.

Publish now!

Sign a Publishing Contract

Once your manuscript is revised and accepted, you will need to sign a publishing contract with the publisher. This contract will outline the terms of your agreement, including the publication timeline, royalties, and copyright.

Publish Your Dissertation

Finally, your dissertation will be published! Depending on the publisher, your dissertation may be published as a book , an e-book, or an article in a journal. Make sure to celebrate this accomplishment and share your work with your colleagues and peers.

In conclusion, publishing your dissertation in the UK can be a rewarding and challenging experience. Make sure to choose a reputable publisher, follow the submission guidelines closely, and prepare your manuscript carefully. 

Remember that the peer-review process can take time, so be patient and be prepared to make revisions. With perseverance and hard work, you can successfully publish your dissertation and contribute to your field of study.  

What are the Benefits of Publishing Your Dissertation in the UK?

The Significance of Publishing Your Dissertation

You’ve invested countless hours into your dissertation, and completing it is a remarkable achievement. However, what’s next? Have you ever considered publishing your dissertation in the UK? In this article, we’ll explore the numerous benefits of taking this step.

 Enhancing Your Academic Visibility

Publishing your dissertation is more than just a formality, it’s a significant accomplishment. It demonstrates that you’ve conducted original research and contributed new knowledge to your field. Sharing your findings allows you to take pride in your hard work and benefit others who can learn from your research.

Establishing Expertise and Reputation

Publishing your dissertation can significantly boost your visibility in the academic community. It helps you establish yourself as an authority in your field, a valuable asset when applying for academic positions or research grants. Moreover, publishing increases the likelihood of being cited in future research, further elevating your academic reputation.

Unlocking New Research Opportunities

Another compelling advantage of publishing your dissertation is the potential for new research opportunities. Sharing your work enables you to connect with fellow researchers who may be interested in collaborating with you or expanding upon your findings. 

This can lead to exciting research projects and opportunities for further knowledge and expertise development.

Honing Crucial Skills

Publishing your dissertation is a learning journey that hones essential skills. It involves receiving feedback and revising your work accordingly. This iterative process enhances your writing skills and your ability to articulate ideas effectively. Furthermore, it continues to develop your critical thinking skills, which are vital in navigating the publishing process.

 Achieving Academic Closure

Lastly, publishing your dissertation offers a sense of closure to your academic journey. After years of dedicated effort, seeing your research in print and knowing it contributes to your field can be incredibly rewarding.

In conclusion, publishing your dissertation in the UK offers a host of valuable benefits, including increased visibility, research opportunities, skill development, and a sense of accomplishment. Most importantly, it enables you to share your hard-earned research with the broader academic community. 

Don’t hesitate to consider taking the next step and sharing your valuable research with the world.

Exploring Publishing Opportunities with Lambert Academic Publishing

Are you a researcher or author wondering how to publish your undergraduate dissertation or master’s dissertation ? Lambert Academic Publishing is your solution! Our streamlined, cost-effective publishing process allows you to share your research with a global audience.

With no publishing contract required and comprehensive editing and formatting services included, publishing your thesis with us has never been easier. Plus, our extensive worldwide distribution network ensures that your work reaches a broader audience. 

Don’t let your research go unnoticed.

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