slides from a three hour workshop with final year doctoral researchers

1. publishing from the PhD
(not the PhD by publication)
Pat Thomson

2. a post/during PhD
publishing plan
• sets out what you will write
• who you are writing for the target
readers
• the order of publications
• when you will publish
• where you will publish
Joao Silas
Unsplash

3. what does a plan look like?
a writing folder on your desktop - the writing folder contains :
• a summary publishing plan document in table form with hyperlinks
to abstracts and target journals
• also in the master folder:
your thesis with bookmarked relevant pages for each publication
a folder for each paper

4. title of journal
article
hyperlinked to
abstract
target
publication
draft target
date
revisions due
date
acceptance
date,
publication
date
your goal today – to do the master sheet, target
journal and roughs of abstracts

5. but…
the folder for each paper contains the abstract doc and six
further folders:
1. a folder for source material - any data and any cut and paste from your
thesis
2. a folder for PDFs or links to PDFs of key literatures
3. a folder for drafts
4. a folder for final docs as submitted for review, one anonymised and one
non-anonymised
5. a folder for revised docs
6. a folder for the pdf of final submitted version which is submitted to a
repository and the letter of acceptance with date

6. well actually that’s just a
suggestion, you can
organise it any way you
like, but it’s neat to have it
all together
Simpson
Petrol
Unsplash

7. why do plan everything all at once?
because you can see overlaps
• you don’t try to write everything in the first paper
• you can sort out what goes where
and this might help you in writing because
• you can see the order in which you need to write all the things
and
• you can organise your life a realistic writing schedule
what’s more - its not written in stone. you can change the plan as you go
along.

8. is there a book from
the thesis?
the publisher will ask you:
• who is the reader?
• why do they need this book?
• what is already out there?
• what is your book’s USP?
• will it sell enough?
if you can answer these questions, what
publisher(s) will be interested? you have
to know the lists to work out who to talk
to
Andrew Neel
Unsplash

9. the journal articles
• forget the overall thesis results.You can’t stuff 80k into 6k. If you
want to write the overall message of your thesis, maybe it’s a book,
or it comes at the end of a series of papers which build up to it.
• it’s not even a cut and paste of a chapter. you can’t get a 7k paper out
of a 10k chapter. that’s because
• each chapter has several strands running so may not break up well
or easily, and
• a paper also has to have additional words - an intro, literatures,
methods, discussion and a big So What.
• it’s a nugget of something which might be in a chapter or more than
one.

10. first of all, think critically about what you
have in hand:
• what are the NEW bits in your thesis:
• methods?
• something about the research process?
• a new line on the literatures?
• a key finding or two or three?
• a good case study or two?
• something which contradicts a set of literatures out there, or adds
to them?
• something which speaks to a current hot topic?

11. title of journal
article
hyperlinked to
abstract
target
publication
draft target
date
revisions due
date
acceptance
date,
publication
date
write out your list and the populate the first
column of the table

12. now take one possible paper and think about
your reader
• who are they?
• why would they be interested?
• what do they already know about this
• where will they read about your ‘stuff’ – which journal or professional
publication
• what’s the point you want them to take from this paper?

13. check the journal
• is it the right place?
• do you know this journal
community?
• what kind of papers have
they already published about
this topic?
Ilya Ilyukhin
Unsplash

14. what is the title of this article?
• something catchy
which sums up the
point: description of
process
Thought Catalogue
Unsplash

15. title of journal
article
hyperlinked to
abstract
target
publication
draft target
date
revisions due
date
acceptance
date,
publication
date
now change the title of that paper in the first
column and add the journal

16. now write bullets for the abstract
• context
• focus of the paper – this paper examines/investigates etc
• the methods
• the argument – the paper argues that…
hyperlink this document to the paper title in your table.

17. rinse and repeat until your table is populated
• check the order of papers –
adjust if necessary
• sort out realistic dates for
drafting
• put these into your diary, onto
a planner Marten Bjork Unsplash

18. ready set write
Raw Pixel Unsplash