These slides describe the overall idea and the description of the article thesis(thesis by publication). Slides contain the theoretical background along with the practical aspects. Mostly this type of thesis used in postgraduate doctoral degrees.

1. Article Thesis
Buddhi Wathsala Kothalawala

2. Importance of Article Thesis to You
❖ If you continue your career to academia after the graduation
❖ Not only for them, but others also need to aware if they will got a job in R&D
❖ This approach not only for PhD but also can apply for undergraduate
researches as well
➢ But there exists practical issues like time limitation
2

3. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
3

4. Thesis or
Dissertation ?
A thesis or dissertation is a document submitted in
support of candidature for an academic degree or
professional qualification presenting the author's
research and findings.
Thesis. (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis#cite_note-3

5. Why we write
thesis ?
❖ It begins to put forth(to state or offer an idea) our
ideas.
❖ It foreshadows(indicate) our arguments.
❖ It attracts a reader's attention.

6. Article Thesis ?
A thesis comprised of sole-or
multi-authored works that have been
submitted or accepted for
publication.

7. Thesis or Dissertation
Article thesisMonograph
Collection of research papers with an
introductory section consisting of summary
chapters.
❖ already-published journal articles
❖ conference papers
❖ book chapters
❖ occasional not yet published manuscripts
A specialist work of writing on a single subject
or an aspect of a subject, usually by a single
author.
Student writes a comprehensive piece of research
in a book form, with typically separate chapters for
❖ Literature review
❖ Conceptual development
❖ Analyses
❖ Conclusions

8. Thesis or Dissertation
Article thesisMonograph
❖ Theoretical Part
➢ Summarizing chapter or
➢ Framework
❖ Empirical Part
➢ Peer-reviewed articles
❖ Theoretical Part
➢ Theoretical reasoning
➢ Introduction
➢ Underlying concepts
➢ Literature review
➢ Theoretical framework
❖ Empirical Part
➢ Study design
➢ Target groups
➢ Data collection
➢ Data analysis
➢ Results and discussion with conclusion

9. Thesis or Dissertation
Article thesisMonograph
❖ Natural
❖ Medical
❖ Engineering sciences
❖ Social science
❖ Cultural science

10. Article Thesis
Synonyms…?
❖ Thesis by Publication
❖ Thesis as a collection of articles
❖ Series of papers
❖ Thesis by published works
❖ Theses including publications (TIP)
❖ Compilation thesis (Nordic countries)

11. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
11

12. Comparison
Category Monograph Article Thesis
The outcome Have more detail in each
chapter
Is more concise(brief). Because
journals demand parsimony in
writing
The implications for the
“pipeline” of PhD students
“article pipeline” for PhD by
Monograph is typically empty
Full with journal papers
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13. Comparison (cont.)
Category Monograph Article Thesis
The process The supervision tends to be
more at a distance (i.e students
independently conduct the
research)
The supervision is more of the
nature of a master (supervisor)
and apprentice (PhD student).
The PhD student still takes the
lead in the whole research
process, but obtains rather
direct supervision to ensure
that the resulting working
paper is worthy of being
submitted to an academic
journal
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14. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
14

15. Characteristics
❖ It comprized with students authors or co-authors multiple articles
❖ Each article consists with
➢ Literature review
➢ Conceptual development
➢ Analyses
➢ Discussion
❖ This enables researchers to write impactful research papers
❖ Papers must be accepted by reputable, high profile journals
❖ Splits the thesis up into manageable sections
❖ One of the toughest parts of doing a thesis by publications is that the research is criticised
immediately
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16. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
16

17. Pros
❖ Supports development of high quality journal articles.
➢ Because publishing in peer-reviewed journals creates a de facto standard
❖ Prepare candidates for research careers
❖ It enables publication-focussed research culture.
❖ It allows candidates to engage with broader scientific community
❖ Continual review and criticism that students got, encourages a high level of discipline in a
student’s research conduct
❖ The process of serial publication allows the student to learn the importance of
‘self-permission to make mistakes’
❖ Candidates learn how to take an authoritative stance(stand) in the field of expert others.
❖ Also learn to assert their contribution to that field before they feel authoritative.
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18. Pros (cont.)
❖ The multiple project format allows for a closer relationship with practice.
❖ It involves working within a team framework
❖ It validates and confirms candidates’ work in process
❖ It teaches ability to accept critical comment
❖ It teaches ability to disseminate(distribute) findings within constraints of science
❖ Much tighter constraint leads to more conciseness.
❖ Obtain high publication rates
❖ Avoiding most of the rewriting that common in monograph
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19. Cons
❖ Prior publication of a chapter as an article is no guarantee that your examiners will just give it a tick
❖ No in depth, book length analysis of a given issue
❖ It is not entirely the student’s work as in a traditional thesis
➢ Because it includes co-authored articles
❖ There may be difficulty in conveying coherence between what is in effect a series of independent
published papers
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20. Cons (cont.)
❖ Avoiding repetition when giving context for all papers may be a challenge
❖ The cumulative argument can be lost
❖ There is a time delay while waiting for journal editors or co-writing supervisors
❖ Candidates may rely on what calls ‘safe spaces’ for publication, and approach the same
non-refereed journals again and again
❖ Unable to test multiple assumption compared to monograph
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21. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
21

22. Observe the
applicability of AT
Get the approval
Organize the process
according to the
publications
Present the timelineResearchWrite a paper
Accept
IntegratePresent the final thesis
Publish
YesPresent it for peer
review
No

23. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
23

24. Structure
1. Title Page
2. Declaration
3. Abstract
4. Acknowledgements
5. List of publications
6. Statement of contribution of others
7. Table of Contents
8. A critical review
a. Introduction
b. General discussion and conclusion
9. Publications/thesis chapters
10. General Conclusion
11. Appendices
12. Bibliography
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25. Declaration
Candidate certify that this thesis
❖ Does not incorporate any material previously submitted for a degree or
diploma in any institution of higher education
❖ Does not contain any material previously published or written by another
person except where due reference is made in the text
❖ Does not contain any defamatory material
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26. Abstract
❖ Summarise the main findings presented in each of the published papers or
manuscripts
❖ It should indicate how the included works are tied to a coherent intellectual
framework, and how, when considered together
❖ Demonstrate a significant new contribution to knowledge in the discipline or
field
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27. List of Publications
❖ It contains list of published articles with bibliographic citations
❖ If applicable, provide evidence of peer-review in an appendix
❖ For publications with copyright issues, include a statement that permission
regarding copyright has been obtained from the publishers
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28. Statement of contribution of others
❖ The purpose of this statement is to summarise and clearly identify the nature
and extent of the intellectual input by the Candidate and any co-authors
❖ The statement must be signed by the Candidate and the supervisor
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29. Critical Review
❖ Consists with full explanatory introduction, general discussion and conclusion
❖ Must be included to integrate the publications
❖ Written independently by the student
❖ Include an extensive annotated bibliography or literature review
❖ Constitute a comprehensive summary of the appended papers
❖ It should not provide new results, but may provide synthesis of new conclusions by combining results
from several of the papers
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30. Publications/thesis chapters
❖ Characteristics
➢ 50% papers should be published(Victoria university)
➢ Total (1-8)
➢ Average (3-5)
➢ Some papers are already published
➢ Other papers can be in review or unpublished
❖ Exact publications can be vary according to the
➢ discipline
➢ accounting for the significance or major contribution of the work
➢ the rank of the targeted academic journals
➢ expectations within the discipline, etc
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31. Where to publish ?
Ideally, the PhD candidate should target international
and highly ranked outlets for publication.
Journals

32. Why journals ?
❖ Frequently peer-reviewed (i.e. the paper will
carefully evaluated for errors and possibly
rewritten a couple of times)
❖ It produce high quality papers with deep
analysis.
❖ Useful Feedback from reviewers

33. General Conclusion
❖ This section should synthesise the key findings of the thesis and draw the
main conclusions, as a traditional thesis.
❖ It may also include sections such as Recommendations or Further Research
33

34. Appendices
❖ Include statements from co-authors, permission letters regarding copyright
❖ Evidence demonstrating some form of peer review of the publications
❖ Detailed descriptions of methods and additional data
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35. Additional Framing and Linking Materials
❖ Contextualise the research problem
❖ Justify the theoretical framework
❖ Review the relevant literature (especially that not covered in depth within the
Papers);
❖ Account in detail for the research design, including linking of the Papers to
the broader research problem and approach;
❖ Draw conclusions in relation to the overarching research problem or theme
about its contribution to knowledge, its limitations and future development
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36. Authorship of the Publications - APA
❖ Supervisors are NOT automatically the authors on all publications. Only supervisors who have
contributed sufficiently to an academic paper that is part of a PhD by publication are included as
co-authors on the academic paper.
❖ The candidate may be the sole author of the publication(s), OR, where the candidate was a joint
author
❖ Candidates are advised to fully reference previous publication of their own sole-authored work,
including graphs, tables and images that they themselves have generated.
36

37. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
37

38. This approach not applicable for
❖ All candidates
❖ All supervisors
❖ All disciplines
It does place additional demands on the candidate and supervisors to prepare
and submit material for publication
It requires
❖ “stronger that average” ability and motivation of a PhD candidate
❖ “stronger than average” support of the supervision panel from the point of
➢ Acceptance of the PhD application through to
➢ The thesis completion

39. Tips tie the thesis together
❖ The introductory chapter may have a final section entitled 'Summary/Synopsis/Structure'
➢ Which not only a catalogue
➢ But also gave abstract idea that chapter is about
■ “Ch 3 continues this theme”
■ “Ch 4 builds on the findings in ch 3”
❖ In the LR, you might refer to what chapter fills in what gap identified in the literature
➢ “To date no trials have been completely randomized. Chapter 2 presents the protocol of a
randomized trial, and Chapter 3 describes the results of that trial”
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40. Tips tie the thesis together (cont.)
❖ Add 'Synopsis' at the end of each chapter signaling the connection with what is next
❖ Add bridging section entitled ‘Preamble’, at the beginning of the chapter
❖ In the Discussion section, you will of course refer back to the various papers
❖ Use flowcharts
➢ To connect each chapter
➢ Represent research findings in each paper
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41. Change thesis format
❖ Candidates need approval before change it.
❖ This may occur because the planned schedule of producing publications and
getting them accepted for publication has not been achieved.
❖ Alternatively, it may be that many Papers have been written and accepted for
publication and supervisor/s and candidate decide to use thesis by
publication.
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42. Where to place the co-author contribution?
❖ Not every thesis has such a statement.
❖ When it included, it usually put with the List of Publications or before each
chapter.
42

43. Are there any copyright issues to consider?
If your thesis includes material that you have published elsewhere (e.g. journal
articles) you will need to get written permission from your publisher to do so.
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44. Do I have to be first author of all papers?
No, but most theses have at least one paper in which the doctoral candidate is
first author.
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45. List of tables and List of figures
❖ Usually a thesis does not include published tables/figures in the List of
Tables/Figures.
➢ Chapter 04 : table 4.5
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46. Pagination and Numbering ( Thesis and Articles )
❖ If the journal page numbers are in bottom, we can can put thesis numbering
at the top, or vice versa.
❖ Some researchers omits the thesis paginations in research articles
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47. How long should a literature review be?
❖ This depends on whether you include your
➢ Literature review in your introductory chapter
■ Long chapter because it needs to include more
➢ Have a separate (second) chapter for literature review
■ Introduction chapter should be much shorter
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48. What happens if more relevant literature comes to light after publication?
❖ Some writers just put the new literature into the introductory literature
review, and let the original article stand
❖ Others add an addendum to the literature review chapter with an update on
recent work on the topic.
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49. How can I reference myself?
Here are some examples of how writers reference their own work:
❖ In more recent work [2 refs], our group has described …. [Bowen, p. 66.]
❖ In a recent comprehensive systematic review, we found that none of these
factors has been investigated prospectively … (ref) [Pourkazemi p.105.]
❖ Previously, we reported…(ref); our aim in this study was to investigate
[Stoodley, p. 89]
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50. Reference list
❖ When all articles are in journal form
➢ There exists individual reference in each article
➢ Reference List at the end of the thesis contains only references from the
Introduction/Literature Review and Discussion/Conclusion (often numbered)
❖ When all articles are in manuscript form
➢ No reference list exists for each article
➢ Only has a one reference list at the end of the thesis
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51. Discussion Section
❖ Some researchers include their discussion chapter by chapter, or aim by aim.
➢ If you do so it’s difficult to understand the overall picture of the research to the readers
❖ Thus you should provide a single discussion chapter which covers the overall research
51

52. How many papers do I need?
❖ The answer is as many as you can, but not more than eight.
❖ The norm seems to be three, but sometimes four, papers in international peer
reviewed journals.
❖ At least one paper, but sometimes more, can be written with a supervisor.
❖ Don’t write all papers co-author with supervisor.
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53. Do we need to publish every chapter ?
❖ Not every chapter needs to be a published article
❖ We need to include a separate methodology chapter that sits alongside your
publications.
❖ It can be a mixture of published papers and more traditional ‘chapters’
53

54. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Comparion
3. Characteristics
4. Pros & Cons
5. Process
6. Structure
7. Important Notes
8. User Comments
54

55. ❖ In terms of the thesis, writing all the linking parts will need a lot of
work.
❖ AT needs to tell the story and include all the data & literature that was
not in the papers.
❖ I’ve got a feeling that the total time I will have spent on the papers, and
then pulling it into a thesis, will actually be significantly *more* than
just writing the thesis alone.[3]
“

56. Also papers are subject to strict word limits, so a lot of
data and literature gets left out.[3]
“

57. However, for mine, the greatest advantage is that I now
don’t have to sit down and write publications associated
with my thesis.
“

58. The only difficulty that I have had is that a lot of the background
sections in the articles are very similar meaning that a person who
reads my thesis will be reading the same thing four times and
means the thesis does not flow as well as a traditional thesis.
“

59. All publications included need to be different in order to justify separate
publications, but they must also be similar enough to integrate into a
coherent story.
“
If someone wanted to reject a PhD by Publication, it would often be easy
to argue that the publications are either not coherently integrated, or they
are integrated but too similar to justify separate publications.

60. Personally, I like to see research that is more practical in that it causes the
reader to reflect on the results and how they can be used within or on the
‘field’.
“
There is nothing inherently wrong with either route to obtaining a PhD.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both. What should be the
focus, is whether the candidate’s certificate validates a level of thought,
analysis, and methodological skill, that is requisite to being an
independent researcher and author.

61. I haven’t found a lot of information on this option
(2014)
“

62. References
1. Thesis by publication. (2018, January 10). Retrieved May 26, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis_by_publication
2. Thesis by publication. (2018, January 10). Retrieved May 26, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thesis_by_publication
3. The University of Sydney - LEARNING CENTRE. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from
http://sydney.edu.au/stuserv/learning_centre/thesis_pub.shtml
4. Journal, E. P. (2017, October 31). Compilation thesis or a Monograph? – Ece's PhD Journal – Medium. Retrieved May 26, 2018,
from https://medium.com/@EcePhDJournal/compilation-thesis-or-a-monograph-46d8ae3e03a9
5. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_is_better_a_conference_paper_or_journal_publication
6. The PhD and publication/by publication – a very peculiar practice? part one. (2013, April 18). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from
https://patthomson.net/2013/04/18/the-phd-and-publicationby-publication-a-very-peculiar-practice-part-one/
7. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_is_better_a_conference_paper_or_journal_publication
8. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from https://thesiswhisperer.com/2014/02/12/thesis-by-publications-youre-joking-right/
9. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from https://thesiswhisperer.com/2011/10/17/publications-in-your-phd/
10. (n.d.). Retrieved June 3, 2018, from http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp
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63. Thank you…!