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The words ‘ dissertation ’ and ‘thesis’ both refer to a large written research project undertaken to complete a degree, but they are used differently depending on the country:
The main difference is in terms of scale – a dissertation is usually much longer than the other essays you complete during your degree.
Another key difference is that you are given much more independence when working on a dissertation. You choose your own dissertation topic , and you have to conduct the research and write the dissertation yourself (with some assistance from your supervisor).
Dissertation word counts vary widely across different fields, institutions, and levels of education:
However, none of these are strict guidelines – your word count may be lower or higher than the numbers stated here. Always check the guidelines provided by your university to determine how long your own dissertation should be.
At the bachelor’s and master’s levels, the dissertation is usually the main focus of your final year. You might work on it (alongside other classes) for the entirety of the final year, or for the last six months. This includes formulating an idea, doing the research, and writing up.
A PhD thesis takes a longer time, as the thesis is the main focus of the degree. A PhD thesis might be being formulated and worked on for the whole four years of the degree program. The writing process alone can take around 18 months.
If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.
Caulfield, J. (2022, May 05). What Is a Dissertation? | 5 Essential Questions to Get Started. Scribbr. Retrieved 16 September 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/what-is-a-dissertation/
Other students also liked, how to choose a dissertation topic | 8 steps to follow, how to write a dissertation proposal | a step-by-step guide, what is a literature review | guide, template, & examples.
What is a dissertation, getting started, staying on track.
A thesis is a long-term project that you work on over the course of a semester or a year. Theses have a very wide variety of styles and content, so we encourage you to look at prior examples and work closely with faculty to develop yours.
Before you begin, make sure that you are familiar with the dissertation genre—what it is for and what it looks like.
Generally speaking, a dissertation’s purpose is to prove that you have the expertise necessary to fulfill your doctoral-degree requirements by showing depth of knowledge and independent thinking.
The form of a dissertation may vary by discipline. Be sure to follow the specific guidelines of your department.
Finding a topic for your thesis or dissertation should start with a research question that excites or at least interests you. A rigorous, engaging, and original project will require continuous curiosity about your topic, about your own thoughts on the topic, and about what other scholars have said on your topic. Avoid getting boxed in by thinking you know what you want to say from the beginning; let your research and your writing evolve as you explore and fine-tune your focus through constant questioning and exploration.
Get a sense of the broader picture before you narrow your focus and attempt to frame an argument. Read, skim, and otherwise familiarize yourself with what other scholars have done in areas related to your proposed topic. Briefly explore topics tangentially related to yours to broaden your perspective and increase your chance of finding a unique angle to pursue.
Critical Reading
Critical reading is the opposite of passive reading. Instead of merely reading for information to absorb, critical reading also involves careful, sustained thinking about what you are reading. This process may include analyzing the author’s motives and assumptions, asking what might be left out of the discussion, considering what you agree with or disagree with in the author’s statements and why you agree or disagree, and exploring connections or contradictions between scholarly arguments. Here is a resource to help hone your critical-reading skills:
http://writing.umn.edu/sws/assets/pdf/quicktips/criticalread.pdf
Conversation
Your thesis or dissertation will incorporate some ideas from other scholars whose work you researched. By reading critically and following your curiosity, you will develop your own ideas and claims, and these contributions are the core of your project. You will also acknowledge the work of scholars who came before you, and you must accurately and fairly attribute this work and define your place within the larger discussion. Make sure that you know how to quote, summarize, paraphrase , integrate , and cite secondary sources to avoid plagiarism and to show the depth and breadth of your knowledge.
A thesis is a long-term, large project that involves both research and writing; it is easy to lose focus, motivation, and momentum. Here are suggestions for achieving the result you want in the time you have.
The dissertation is probably the largest project you have undertaken, and a lot of the work is self-directed. The project can feel daunting or even overwhelming unless you break it down into manageable pieces and create a timeline for completing each smaller task. Be realistic but also challenge yourself, and be forgiving of yourself if you miss a self-imposed deadline here and there.
Your program will also have specific deadlines for different requirements, including establishing a committee, submitting a prospectus, completing the dissertation, defending the dissertation, and submitting your work. Consult your department’s website for these dates and incorporate them into the timeline for your work.
Accountability
Sometimes self-imposed deadlines do not feel urgent unless there is accountability to someone beyond yourself. To increase your motivation to complete tasks on schedule, set dates with your committee chair to submit pre-determined pieces of a chapter. You can also arrange with a fellow doctoral student to check on each other’s progress. Research and writing can be lonely, so it is also nice to share that journey with someone and support each other through the process.
Common Pitfalls
The most common challenges for students writing a dissertation are writer’s block, information-overload, and the compulsion to keep researching forever.
There are many strategies for avoiding writer’s block, such as freewriting, outlining, taking a walk, starting in the middle, and creating an ideal work environment for your particular learning style. Pay attention to what helps you and try different things until you find what works.
Efficient researching techniques are essential to avoiding information-overload. Here are a couple of resources about strategies for finding sources and quickly obtaining essential information from them.
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_in_literature_detailed_discussion/reading_criticism.html
https://students.dartmouth.edu/academic-skills/learning-resources/learning-strategies/reading-techniques
Finally, remember that there is always more to learn and your dissertation cannot incorporate everything. Follow your curiosity but also set limits on the scope of your work. It helps to create a folder entitled “future projects” for topics and sources that interest you but that do not fit neatly into the dissertation. Also remember that future scholars will build off of your work, so leave something for them to do.
Browsing through theses and dissertations of the past can help to get a sense of your options and gain inspiration but be careful to use current guidelines and refer to your committee instead of relying on these examples for form or formatting.
DASH Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard.
HOLLIS Harvard Library’s catalog provides access to ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global .
MIT Architecture has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.
Rhode Island School of Design has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.
University of South Florida has a list of their graduates’ dissertations and theses.
Harvard GSD has a list of projects, including theses and professors’ research.
Harvard University Digital Accessibility Policy
How-to-turn-your-dissertation-into-journal-articles.
Eva Lantsoght, Assistant Professor, Universidad San Francisco de Quito
August 06, 2015
Depending on your institution's guidelines, you will either finish your PhD by having a number of papers accepted for publication, or by writing a "big book"-style thesis.
This post is entirely aimed at those of us who spend months on end delivering a thesis of several hundreds of pages. We might be overly proud of having our baby finally sent out into the world, but then it will dawn upon us: the majority of researchers would prefer to read a 10-page paper about a more specific part of this research than plow through our 400 pages of labor. The only one who would ever want to read through it all and spend an entire week making sense of your thesis is a fellow PhD student….
And thus, for most of us "big book"-thesis-writing-and-publishing folks, we'll need to revisit all our material again after publication of the thesis, and turn it into a number of journal papers.
If you are lucky enough to get into a post-doc position that is fully research-oriented, you have all the time (or at least, you might think you have) to write your papers. If you venture out into the industry, you'll have to do it in your evenings and weekends.
Regardless of the time constraints , it's still extremely valuable to take the step of turning your dissertation into journal papers. Two years past my thesis defense, I'm reaching the end of this process (with a number of papers published, a number in review and a few more to write). Below are some of my observations on the process.
1. Plan for it
After you graduate, life is going to take over. You might be changing jobs, moving to a different place/city/country , and these papers might start to slip to the back of your mind. Take some time while your dissertation is still freshly printed, and ask yourself the following questions:
Then, start planning paper by paper . I’m keeping an overview in a Google docs spreadsheet with the papers, the journals I want to submit to, and the tentative self-imposed deadlines. My goal is to produce six new drafts per year, but some months are entirely filled with dealing with reviewers’ comments, delivering research reports with new work, or teaching duties. I typically give my co-authors (maximum) a month to send their feedback. The feedback is usually limited, so I might need just a morning to make a few changes, and then submit. I plan to start writing the next paper (or replying to reviewers’ comments and reworking the manuscript) whenever the draft of the previous one is done, so that I create a constant stream of writing, revising, sending to co-authors and submitting.
2. Enlist some good co-authors
Now that you have -hopefully- worked well with your thesis committee members, and implemented their advice to deliver the final draft of your dissertation, is there any part of your research that particularly benefited from their input? If you are planning to write a paper on this topic, consider inviting this committee member to be a co-author.
Writing with authors other than your supervisor will improve your writing, and is typically well-received in most fields. Publishing with different authors shows that you can work across research groups and universities and that you are ready to reach out into the world.
3. Remember that not all papers are born equal
Some papers will roll out from your dissertation in just a few writing sessions . For other papers you'll be sweating and sighing as you try to force a piece of research into a stand-alone narrative. Don't get mad at yourself or your work - just accept this fact as it is. And if the frustration becomes too much, head to the gym, grab some chocolate or do whatever typically relieves your stress.
Have you published several papers from the work in your dissertation? How did you organize this, and what advice would you like to share with me?
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If you’ve landed on this article, chances are you’ve got a dissertation or thesis project coming up (hopefully it’s not due next week!), and you’re now asking yourself the classic question, “what the #%#%^ is a dissertation?”…
In this post, I’ll break down the basics of exactly what a dissertation is, in plain language. No ivory tower academia.
So, let’s get to the pressing question – what is a dissertation?
Simply put, a dissertation (or thesis – depending on which country you’re studying in) is a research project . In other words, your task is to ask a research question (or set of questions) and then set about finding the answer(s). Simple enough, right?
Well, the catch is that you’ve got to undertake this research project in an academic fashion , and there’s a wealth of academic language that makes it all (look) rather confusing (thanks, academia). However, at its core, a dissertation is about undertaking research (investigating something). This is really important to understand, because the key skill that your university is trying to develop in you (and will be testing you on) is your ability to undertake research in a well-structured structured, critical and academically rigorous way.
This research-centric focus is significantly different from assignments or essays, where the main concern is whether you can understand and apply the prescribed module theory. I’ll explain some other key differences between dissertations or theses and assignments a bit later in this article, but for now, let’s dig a little deeper into what a dissertation is.
Okay, so now that you understand that a dissertation is a research project (which is testing your ability to undertake quality research), let’s go a little deeper into what that means in practical terms.
The best way to understand a dissertation is to view it as a process – more specifically a research process (it is a research project, after all). This process involves four essential steps, which I’ll discuss below.
The very first step of the research process is to find a meaningful research question, or a set of questions. In other words, you need to find a suitable topic for investigation. Since a dissertation is all about research, identifying the key question(s) is the critical first step. Here’s an example of a well-defined research question:
“Which factors cultivate or erode customer trust in UK-based life insurance brokers?”
This clearly defined question sets the direction of the research . From the question alone, you can understand exactly what the outcome of the research might look like – i.e. a set of findings about which factors help brokers develop customer trust, and which factors negatively impact trust.
But how on earth do I find a suitable research question, you ask? Don’t worry about this right now – when you’re ready, you can read our article about finding a dissertation topic . However, right now, the important thing to understand is that the first step in the dissertation process is identifying the key research question(s). Without a clear question, you cannot move forward.
Once the research question is clearly established, the next step is to review the existing research/literature (both academic and professional/industry) to understand what has already been said with regard to the question. In academic speak, this is called a literature review .
This step is critically important as, in all likelihood, someone else has asked a similar question to yours, and therefore you can build on the work of others . Good academic research is not about reinventing the wheel or starting from scratch – it’s about familiarising yourself with the current state of knowledge, and then using that as your basis for further research.
Simply put, the first step to answering your research question is to look at what other researchers have to say about it. Sometimes this will lead you to change your research question or direction slightly (for example, if the existing research already provides a comprehensive answer). Don’t stress – this is completely acceptable and a normal part of the research process.
Once you’ve got a decent understanding of the existing state of knowledge, you will carry out your own research by collecting and analysing the relevant data. This could take to form of primary research (collecting your own fresh data), secondary research (synthesising existing data) or both, depending on the nature of your degree, research question(s) and even your university’s specific requirements.
Exactly what data you collect and how you go about analysing it depends largely on the research question(s) you are asking, but very often you will take either a qualitative approach (e.g. interviews or focus groups) or a quantitative approach (e.g. online surveys). In other words, your research approach can be words-based, numbers-based, or both . Don’t let the terminology scare you and don’t worry about these technical details for now – we’ll explain research methodology in later posts .
Combining your understanding of the existing research (Step 2) with the findings from your own original research (Step 3), you then (attempt to) answer your original research question (s). The process of asking, investigating and then answering has gone full circle.
Of course, your research won’t always provide rock-solid answers to your original questions, and indeed you might find that your findings spur new questions altogether. Don’t worry – this is completely acceptable and is a natural part of the research process.
So, to recap, a dissertation is best understood as a research process, where you are:
Depending on your specific degree and the way your university designs its coursework, you might be asking yourself “but isn’t this just a longer version of a normal assignment?”. Well, it’s quite possible that your previous assignments required a similar research process, but there are some key differences you need to be aware of, which I’ll explain next.
While there are, naturally, similarities between dissertations/theses and assignments, its important to understand the differences so that you approach your dissertation with the right mindset and focus your energy on the right things. Here, I’ll discuss four ways in which writing a dissertation differs substantially from assignments and essays, and why this matters.
Unlike assignments or essays, where the general topic is determined for you, for your dissertation, you will (typically) be the one who decides on your research questions and overall direction. This means that you will need to:
This is very different from assignments, where the theory is given to you on a platter, and the direction is largely pre-defined. Therefore, before you start the dissertation process, you need to understand the basics of academic research, how to find a suitable research topic and how to source the relevant literature.
A dissertation is a long journey, at least compared to assignments. Typically, you will spend 3 – 6 months writing around 15,000 – 25,000 words (for Masters-level, much more for PhD) on just one subject. Therefore, successfully completing your dissertation requires a substantial amount of stamina .
To make it even more challenging, your classmates will not be researching the same thing as you are, so you have limited support, other than your supervisor (who may be very busy). This can make it quite a lonely journey . Therefore, you need a lot of self-discipline and self-direction in order to see it through to the end. You should also try to build a support network of people who can help you through the process (perhaps alumni, faculty or a private coach ).
We touched on this earlier. Unlike assignments or essays, where the markers are assessing your ability to understand and apply the theories, models and frameworks that they provide you with, your dissertation will be is assessing your ability to undertake high-quality research in an academically rigorous manner.
Of course, your ability to understand the relevant theory (i.e. within your literature review) is still very important, but this is only one piece of the research skills puzzle. You need to demonstrate the full spectrum of research skills.
It’s important to note that your research does not need to be ground-breaking, revolutionary or world-changing – that is not what the markers are assessing. They are assessing whether you can apply well-established research principles and skills to a worthwhile topic of enquiry. Don’t feel like you need to solve the world’s major problems. It’s simply not going to happen (you’re a first-time researcher, after all) – and doesn’t need to happen in order to earn good marks.
In your assignments, you were likely encouraged to take a broad, interconnected, high-level view of the theory and connect as many different ideas and concepts as possible. In your dissertation, however, you typically need to narrow your focus and go deep into one particular topic. Think about the research question we looked at earlier:
The focus is intentionally very narrow – specifically the focus is on:
By keeping the focus narrow, you enable yourself to deeply probe whichever topic you choose – and this depth is essential for earning good marks. Importantly, ringfencing your focus doesn’t mean ignoring the connections to other topics – you should still acknowledge all the linkages, but don’t get distracted – stay focused on the research question(s).
So, as you can see, a dissertation is more than just an extended assignment or essay. It’s a unique research project that you (and only you) must lead from start to finish. The good news is that, if done right, completing your dissertation will equip you with strong research skills, which you will most certainly use in the future, regardless of whether you follow an academic or professional path.
Hopefully in this post, I’ve answered your key question, “what is a dissertation?”, at least at a big picture-level. To recap on the key points:
In this post, I’ve gently touched on some of the intricacies of the dissertation, including research questions, data types and research methodologies. Be sure to check out the Grad Coach Blog for more detailed discussion of these areas.
Hello Derek
Yes, I struggle with literature review and am highly frustrated (with myself).
Thank you for the guide that you have sent, especially the apps. I am working through the guide and busy with the implementation of it.
Hope to hear from you again!
Regards Micheal
Great to hear that, Michael. All the best with your research!
Very useful and clear information.
Thank you. That was quite something to move forward with. Despite the fact that I was lost. I will now be able to do something with the information given.
That’s great, Pheladi. Good luck!
Thank you so much for your videos and writing research proposal and dissertation. These videos are useful. I was struggling, but now I am starting to write. I hope to watch your more videos to learn more about the dissertation.
Before this post, I didn’t know where to start my research, today I have some light and do certain % of my research. I may need for direction on literature review. Big thanks to you.
Very very good Derek
Thanks immensely Derek
You’re welcome 🙂 Good luck with your dissertation/thesis.
Thank you Derek for widening my scope on research, this can be likened to a blind man whose eyes can now see.
Remain bless sir🙏
You guys are doing really great… I am extremely grateful for your help… Keep going.. Please activate that research help for indian students as well I couldn’t access it being an indian.
Hello Derek,
I got stuck in the concept paper because I changed my topic. Now I don’t know where to pick up the pieces again. How can I focus and stay on track. I am getting scared.
Thank you so much Derek, I am a new comer, learning for the first time how to write a good research. These in information’s to me is a mind opener, I hope to learn more from you in the future, Thanks and God bless.
Thanks Guys this means so much to me
A pretty good and insightful piece for beginners like me. Looking forward to more helpful hints and guide. Thanks to Derek.
This is so helpful…really appreciate your work.
Great to hear that
On cybersecurity Analytics research to banking transactions
This was of great help to me and quite informative .
Thank you so much GradCoach,
This is like a light at the end of the tunnel. You are a lifesaver. Thank you once again.
hello, I’m so grateful for such great information. It appears basic, but it is so relevant in understanding the research process.
Your website is very helpful for writing thesis. A big well done to the team. Do you have a website for paper writing and academic publishing or how to publish my thesis, how to land a fully funded PhD, etc. Just the general upward trajectory in the academia. Thank you
I have learned a lot from the lectures, it was beneficial and helped me a lot in my research journey. Thank you very much
Thank you for your gifts of enlightenment to a person like me who’s always a student. May your ‘well’not dry out.
It’s quite a fun and superb, now I have come to believe that the way one teach can have an impact in understanding and can change one’s assumption and position about a subject or a problem, before I came here and learn I consider research methodology a hard thing because, I wasn’t taught by a mentor like this one. Thanks so much who ever have make this effort to make this something easy and engaging
I can’t imagine that world has achieved major aspects of every field of study
Thank you very much for all the valuable, wonderful and comprehensive amount of information… I highly appreciate your support, 100% I recommend you
This topic is intended for my MPhil. Work (The perception of parents on Technical and Vocational Education, the impact on educational policy). May you consider the suitability of the topic for me and refine if the need be. Thank you,
Hello here…
i have gone through the notes and it is interesting. All i need now is a pdf file that contain a whole dissertation writing inclusive of chapter 1 to 5 on motivation as a topic… thanks
Remarkable!!! You made it sound so simple
I got stuck in my writing because I need to change my topic. I am getting scared as I have a semester left 🙁
Thanks for such an educational opportunity and support
Thanks for your educational opportunity and support
Could you please share me with the App. to use for literature review
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Fair use, copyright, patent, and publishing options.
You are responsible for acknowledging any facts, ideas, or materials of others that you include in your work. You must follow the guidelines for acknowledging the work of others in the “Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others” (published in the Policy Notebook for the Cornell Community ) .
If you use any copyrighted material in the dissertation or thesis, it is your responsibility to give full credit to the author and publisher of work quoted. The acknowledgment should be placed in a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the paper or chapter. Additionally, you must determine whether use of the material can be classified as a “fair use” by performing an analysis of your use of each copyrighted item. The Cornell Copyright Information Center’s Fair Use Checklist ) is a helpful tool for performing this analysis. (See also, Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities , published by ProQuest, or The Chicago Manual of Style , published by the University of Chicago Press.)
If your use of material is not considered a “fair use,” you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Two copies of each permission letter must be submitted with the dissertation or thesis. ProQuest has specific requirements for the content of the permission letter. For these guidelines, consult the ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement form (published by ProQuest).
If you have already published or had accepted for publication part of your own dissertation or thesis material in a journal, depending on the terms of your publication agreement, it may be necessary to write to that journal and obtain written authorization to use the material in your dissertation.
The value of your dissertation extends well beyond your graduation requirements. It’s important that you make an informed decision about providing online access, via ProQuest and eCommons, to your work. This decision can expand the visibility and impact of your work, but it can also shape the options available to you for publishing subsequent works based on your dissertation.
ProQuest’s ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database indexes almost all dissertations published in the U.S. and provides subscription access online to the full text of more recent dissertations. ProQuest also sells print copies of dissertations, paying royalties to authors, when they exceed a minimum threshold. Authors retain copyright in the works they submit to ProQuest.
eCommons is a service of the Cornell University Library that provides long-term, online access to Cornell-related content of enduring value. Electronic theses and dissertations deposited in eCommons, unless subject to embargo, are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. When submitting to eCommons, you retain copyright in your work. Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses submitted to ProQuest are automatically submitted to eCommons, subject to the same embargo you select for ProQuest.
Electronic copies of dissertations in PQDT or eCommons may be made accessible immediately upon submission or after an embargo period of six months, one year, or two years. You may wish to consider an embargo period which helps address publishers’ interests in being the first to publish scholarly books or articles, while also ensuring that scholarship is accessible to the general public within a reasonable period of time. Your decision should be made in consultation with your special committee.
Creative Commons licenses provide authors with a straightforward and standardized means of prospectively granting certain permissions to potential users of the author’s material. Authors may request proper attribution, permit copying and the creation of derivative works, request that others share derivative works under the same terms, and allow or disallow commercial uses. Authors may even choose to place their works directly into the public domain. You will have the option of selecting a Creative Commons license when you upload your dissertation or thesis to ProQuest, and your choice will automatically be applied to the copy of your work in eCommons.
Cornell University Policy 1.5 governs inventions and related property rights. Inventions made by faculty, staff, and students must be disclosed to the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University (CTL). Theses and dissertations describing patentable research should be withheld from publication, in order to avoid premature public disclosure.
Use the delayed release (embargo) option if a patent application is or will be in process, noting the reason for the delay as “patent pending.” If you have any questions, please contact Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing at 607-254-4698 or [email protected] .
Copyright law involves many complex issues that are relevant to you as a graduate student, both in protecting your own work and in referencing the work of others. Discussion of copyright in this publication is not meant to substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys. A more detailed discussion of copyright law can be found in the publication from ProQuest entitled Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth D. Crews.
Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form and the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is not required to secure copyright; rather it is a legal formality to place on public record the basic facts of a particular copyright. Although not a condition of copyright protection itself, registering the copyright is ordinarily necessary before any infringement suits can be filed in court.
To register a copyright for your dissertation or thesis, register online or download printable forms . You may also request forms by mail from the Information Section, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20559, or contact them by telephone at 202-707-3000.
Doctoral candidates: You may authorize ProQuest to file, on your behalf, an application for copyright registration. This option will be presented to you as part of the submission process.
If supplementary materials (audio, video, datasets, etc., up to 2GB per file) are part of your thesis or dissertation, you may submit them as supplementary files during the online submission process. For help selecting long-lived file formats, note ProQuest’s guidance in their document, “Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission (Including Supplemental Files).” File formats for which ProQuest does not guarantee migration may still have a high likelihood of preservation in Cornell’s digital repository; please see the eCommons help page for further guidance.
Do not embed media files in the PDF version of your thesis or dissertation, as this can significantly increase the size of the file and make it difficult to download and access. Include a description of each supplementary file in the abstract of your thesis or dissertation. You may include an additional supplementary file containing more detailed information about the supplementary materials as a “readme” file or other form of documentation; this is particularly advisable for data sets or code. The Research Data Management Service Group ( [email protected] ) offers assistance in preparing and documenting data sets for online distribution.
ProQuest offers authors the option of making their graduate work discoverable through major search engines including Yahoo, Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books. If you chose the Search Engine option on their dissertation “paper” publishing agreement or within ProQuest’s PROQUEST ETD Administrator (electronic submission service), you can expect to have your work appear in the major search engines.
If you change your mind and do not want your work to be made available through search engines, you can contact customer service at [email protected] or 800-521-0600 ext. 77020. In addition, if you did not initially adopt this option but now want your works made available through this service, contact the customer service group to change your selection.
Please note that search engines index content in eCommons, regardless of the choice you make for ProQuest.
When creating a PDF version of your thesis or dissertation it is important to keep in mind that readers may use assistive technology such as screen readers to access your document. Follow best practices to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is accessible to everyone. These resources may be helpful:
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As a dissertation writer, you are extremely well positioned to produce a publishable journal article because you know the current scholarly conversations on your topic intimately and have figured out ways to intervene in them. In fact, it might seem that the journey from dissertation chapter to journal article ought to be a relaxing day trip: extract the chapter from the rest of the dissertation, delete any references to other chapters and to your new manuscript as itself a chapter, trim as necessary to fit the word limit of your chosen journal, and send it off.
You might round off the day by kicking back and rewarding yourself with an adult beverage. Such thinking is likely to feel intuitively correct because of a common way we conceive of the dissertation’s purpose: to demonstrate to already-certified members of your profession (aka your committee) that you have mastered the fundamental research skills of that profession by carrying out a well-designed and original research project.
But our experience as editors of scholarly journals has taught us that effective chapters and publishable journal submissions have important differences. Indeed, the cumulative effect of those differences makes the two modes closely related but ultimately distinct genres. Consequently, moving from chapter to article is an act not of extraction but of adaptation.
To be sure, the challenges of this generic adaptation are not as great as those involved in adaptations from one medium to another (e.g., Greta Gerwig directing Little Women ), but we believe that thinking about your task as more than an extraction-cum-copyediting will increase your chances for success. In what follows, we will focus on the nexus of writer, audience and purpose in each genre in order to highlight their differences and, thus, help you identify strategies for your adaptation.
To illustrate our points, we will refer to a hypothetical dissertation within our shared field of literary studies: an investigation of the uses of unreliable narration in the British and American modernist novel that seeks to contribute to conversations within the fields of narrative theory and modernist studies. While this one example won’t represent all dissertations in all fields, we hope our commentary on it will help you think through the opportunities and challenges of your own possible adaptations.
Audiences: In-House/Out in the Field
Attending to audience helps identify what are paradoxically the most subtle and most significant differences between the genres -- subtle because their effects are easy to miss, significant because they influence so many other properties of the two genres. You write your dissertation chapters for your committee members, and you write your journal articles for a much larger audience of scholars in your field, most of whom don’t know you from Adam. Since your committee members are representatives of your field, you have reasons to think that writing for them shouldn’t be different from writing for the audience of a scholarly journal. If your committee members judge your work highly, won’t readers for journal articles do the same?
As the adage has it, appearances are deceiving, and thus the answer is “not necessarily.” Your committee members do not apply the same standards to your chapters that they do to others’ journal articles, and readers for journals will not apply the standards of your committee members to your submissions. Understanding why opens up the differences between the two genres.
Let us return to the purpose of the dissertation: to demonstrate to already-certified members of your profession that you have mastered the fundamental research skills of that profession by carrying out a well-designed and original research project. In contrast, the purpose of a journal article is to make a contribution to scholarly conversations about significant issues in a given field that substantially alters the dimensions, directions or stakes of those conversations.
Again, the differences may appear insignificant, but thinking about them, first from your perspective as writer and then from the perspective of your committee members as readers, uncovers their importance. From your perspective, one of the main challenges of writing a dissertation is that you’ve never written one before. Consequently, you’re undertaking a task that you learn how to do only by doing it, a situation that puts you in the Kafkaesque position of being fully ready to write your dissertation only after you’ve finished it. What is true of the dissertation is also true of its individual chapters. It’s therefore unlikely that a simple extraction will be sufficient.
In addition, the criteria for assessing quality in each genre aren’t exactly the same. Your committee members apply three main criteria: 1) Does the chapter answer the so-what question and thus make a worthwhile contribution to the relevant scholarly conversations? 2) Does it demonstrate that you have acquired the skills -- from doing thorough research to analyzing your objects of study to marshaling these materials into a coherent argument -- to do publishable research? and 3) Does it fit well with the rest of the dissertation? For journal reviewers, the question of fit is off the table, and the demonstration of skills is simply a necessary condition. Thus, their main criterion is the answer to the so-what question, and they put an even greater premium on the significance of your answer.
Suppose the writer of our hypothetical dissertation seeks to adapt a chapter on Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms that traces the evolution of Frederic Henry’s narration from unreliable to reliable and concludes with a few paragraphs linking this evolution to Hemingway’s innovations with the genre of narrative tragedy. The writer’s committee has applauded the chapter for its insightful close readings of the narration, its move from the fine-grained analyses to a big-picture argument, and its fit with the larger dissertation because it shows how Hemingway adds a distinctive use of unreliability within the period.
But to make the work publishable, the writer would need to adapt the chapter so that it clearly identifies both its central question(s) and the significance of its response to the so-what question. Perhaps the writer would shift the focus so that the dominant question is about Hemingway’s generic innovation with narrative tragedy, creating the need to give more prominence to his handling of the plot. Perhaps the writer would decide to offer a direct comparison/contrast between Hemingway’s handling of unreliability and, say, William Faulkner’s. This shift would of course involve drawing on material from the chapter on Faulkner, but it would also mean deciding on whether to use that material primarily in the service of highlighting Hemingway’s technique or to give it equal standing and thus seek mutual illumination.
The writer’s choices about the central question(s) would also have consequences for how they make the case for the significance of their intervention. Guided by the need to establish that significance, the writer would adjust their treatment of work by other scholars, engaging more or less fully with those discussed in the chapter and even perhaps bringing others into the conversation.
Core Argument: Interdependence/Self-Sufficiency
Since an effective chapter is well integrated into the larger argument of your whole dissertation, it is interdependent with other chapters. Since a journal article, by contrast, is a stand-alone entity, you need to find strategies to move from interdependence to self-sufficiency.
A first step, as noted above, is to identify the presuppositions or ideas from other chapters you and your committee members bring to this one. A second is to identify the elements of the chapter that tie it to the rest of the dissertation. These elements may be extended passages or allusions to what comes before or after, or, indeed, things taken for granted because already discussed.
A third step follows closely from the second: examining whether those elements are crucial to your case for the specific contribution you want the journal article to make. If so, then you need to find a way to include them that will be clear to readers who are not part of your dissertation conversation. If not, you obviously need to delete them, but you should also ask whether deletion by itself will be enough. Perhaps it will reveal a hole that must be filled with other material so the adaptation results in a self-sufficient argument that makes a substantial intervention.
Suppose the writer of the hypothetical dissertation decides to do the comparison-contrast between Hemingway and Faulkner in order to provide mutual illumination. The writer would need to do at least the following: draw on material from the dissertation’s introduction that stakes out the writer’s position in the debates about unreliability, select and refashion material from both the Hemingway and Faulkner chapters to fit the new purposes of the essay, and cut back on the discussions of material not directly related to each author’s use of unreliability. As the writer made these revisions, they would be guided by their purpose of changing conversations about Hemingway’s and Faulkner’s handling of narrative technique.
Voice: Other Scholars’/Yours
What about the dissertation chapter whose contribution to the whole involves a recognizably distinct intervention in a scholarly conversation? Even then, there might be salient differences between the two genres. Journal articles need to let readers know within the first one or two pages what their scholarly intervention is, whereas dissertation chapters often spend many pages laying out what other scholars have said before turning to how they add to that conversation.
Why? Dissertations want you to give equal weight to two sometimes conflicting aims: 1) demonstrating you know the field and 2) making a contribution to it. In demonstrating you know what previous scholars have said (which might also, as an apprentice scholar, feel like paying necessary homage to the leading lights in your field), you are allowed to sideline your own voice for long stretches.
The case is different for journal articles. Even as it’s crucial for you to situate yourself within conversations among other scholars, your voice needs to ring out loud and clear from beginning to end.
In another article , we've recommended thinking of the introduction to a journal article as requiring a “hook and an I”: authors need to provide a scholarly context that allows readers to see how the author’s own intervention advances the field. We cautioned against ignoring one in favor of the other. In adapting a dissertation chapter, you’re more likely to have favored the hook, so you need to emphasize the “I.”
Beyond the introduction, journal articles need you to refer throughout to what other scholars have said concerning different points you make -- you need a hook line -- but you should keep your voice prominent as you play out that line. Strategies include shaping summaries of other scholars’ arguments to highlight your difference from them and using footnotes rather than the body of your essay to bring in work that is related to but not as directly pertinent to your argument. Dissertations allow you to sideline your own voice in other ways. Dissertation chapters often include a myriad of examples. One of us, Faye, has a friend in a history department who told her that she took great pains to include examples from different primary sources to support each claim she made. She carefully chose these examples to demonstrate to her committee members that she had visited many different historical archives, and they were duly impressed.
But journal reviewers of an extracted chapter would be far less impressed. They don’t need you to prove you have done the research. Instead, they need to understand what your argument is and how it offers a substantial answer to the so-what question. If you think of your examples less as a means to underline your argument and more as occasions to advance it, you will be better able to decide how many -- and which ones -- to use.
Scope: For a Chapter/For an Article
Dissertation chapters and journal articles often differ in the scope of their concerns and in the size of the claims they make about their respective arguments. Many dissertations produce their scholarly intervention more at the level of the whole project than at the level of individual chapters. Because chapters are not stand-alone pieces, they can have diverse functions -- some of which have little to do with making a scholarly intervention of the kind found in journal articles. Some chapters can be devoted to providing methodological or theoretical groundwork, others to extending a previous argument by treating more examples that support it. Indeed, when the dissertation makes its intervention through the cumulative weight of the whole, it may not have a single chapter that directly attempts to meet the criteria for journal articles.
Ah, you might think, in that case I’ll just condense my whole dissertation into an article-length piece. But the result is often that no aspect of the article gets sufficient time, leaving reviewers scratching their heads at the leaps in logic and turning up their noses at the inevitably superficial consideration of examples. Your dissertation does more, as a whole, than any journal article, but a single journal article does more than any individual chapter.
We advise a different strategy. Rather than shrink your dissertation to fit, isolate and expand. What are the smaller, original claims you make along the way to making the big one? Maybe you can flesh out one of those claims and clarify its significance by elaborating on the evidence that supports it and bringing in new evidence. Conversely, maybe you have a striking piece of evidence you use in your dissertation that can be analyzed to yield a substantial claim that you hadn’t yet considered.
Your dissertation is not a display case for a single fully formed diamond. It’s a storeroom of gems in various stages of processing, and you are the lapidary.
Fit: For the Dissertation/For the Journal
Finally, although the dissertation gives you the freedom to choose the scholarly conversations you want to respond to, submitting a portion of it to a journal requires finding a match between your choices and the scope of the journal. More often than not, finding that match will involve some adjustment of your chapter.
Suppose the writer of our hypothetical dissertation wanted to submit something to Narrative . Doing so makes good sense because unreliability, a narrative technique that has generated considerable scholarly debate, is a topic of interest to the journal’s readers. But the hypothetical chapter would need to be revised before it would fit with the journal’s mission, which is to publish work that sets up two-way traffic between narrative theory and interpretation.
Consequently, the writer’s submission would need to do more than analyze Hemingway’s uses of unreliability. It would need to link those analyses with one or more issues in the debate about unreliability and indicate how Hemingway’s practice warrants some revisions or extensions of particular positions in the debate, or even perhaps opens up new ways of thinking about unreliability.
We close with a personal anecdote about what we call Genre Conflation Syndrome, the more general condition underlying the assumption that chapters and articles belong to the same genre. Faye vividly remembers the comments an external reader gave her about what she thought was the clever opening of an article she had submitted to a journal. The opening subtly parodied the esoteric, jargon-laden voice of expertise that, in her view, scholars in writing programs often adopted in order to persuade faculty in other disciplines to listen to what they had to say -- a voice she argued in the rest of the article against adopting. The problem was that readers of the article, acting in good faith, put time into struggling to understand this parody, only to find out they needn’t have bothered. The external reader described feeling manipulated and disinclined to trust the author for the rest of the article (which the reader ultimately advised rejecting).
Faye was baffled: it had worked so well as the opening of a talk! She conflated the genres by assuming that talks are just like articles, just shorter and with fewer examples. It was only after Faye thought through the differences in audiences and purposes between talks and articles (e.g., that talks, paradoxically, have more room for an extended display of wit) that she was able to make the adaptations necessary to turn the talk into an article.
We hope our reflections here will enable you to successfully engage in the necessary generic adaptations as you move from chapter to article -- and that such success will inoculate you against any future bouts of Genre Conflation Syndrome.
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Obtaining theses & dissertations written at other institutions, citing dissertations and theses, databases focused on dissertations and theses, sources indexing dissertations and theses, print dissertation indexes and bibliographies.
We can help locate sources, create multimedia components, manage your data, cite sources, answer questions about copyright, and more.
Theses and dissertations can be a valuable source of information for research. They can offer the following benefits:
Want to borrow a thesis or dissertation written at another institution that isn't available in full text online ? Request it via ILLIAD , Tufts' interlibrary loan service. Choose the "Thesis" request form and provide as much descriptive information as you can. Not all theses or dissertations are available or loanable, but we'll try to find you a copy!
Some other ways you might be able to find a copy of an older dissertation:
If you can identify the author's institutional affiliation, visit that institution's webpage to see if they catalog or archive students' dissertations.
Contact the author. Some authors will post all or some of their dissertation on their website or have journal articles or other publications which draw heavily on this work.
Search the author's name and/or thesis title in full-text journal databases which include article references. These citations may provide clues as to how to locate the document.
Contact your subject librarian for assistance.
As with journal articles, books, and other sources, theses and dissertations must be properly cited in any document that references them. Most citation styles, including APA, Chicago, and MLA, provide specific instructions for formatting these citations. Citation Management tools, such as EndNote and Zotero, automatically format references for these sources in your selected citation style. More information is in the Citing Sources guide.
Although requirements for citing dissertations vary according by style, they generally seek to convey the following information: that the item is a dissertation (rather than an article or a book); the type of degree it resulted in (master's, PhD, etc); whether it was published; and which institution granted the degree. An example of a citation for a dissertation is presented here in four major citation styles:
The following sources focus primarily or exclusively on theses and dissertations; some provide direct access to full-text.
In the following subject-specific databases, the Advance Search option enables filtering by dissertation as the document type.
A number of indexes and bibliographies of dissertations have been published, primarily in print format. These often focus on specific historical eras, geographic regions, or topics.
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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:
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.
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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Bear in mind: With a dissertation, you have something to prove. With a book, you have something to say.
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.
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!
[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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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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
LAMBERT Academic Publishing
If you’ve recently completed your dissertation and you’re proud of the work you’ve done, you may be wondering how to share it with a wider audience. One option is to publish your dissertation as a book. While this process can be daunting, it can also be incredibly rewarding.
Here are some tips to help you get started:
Not all dissertations are suited for publication. Before investing time and effort into the publishing process, do some research to determine if there’s a market for your work. Look for books in your field that are similar to your dissertation and see how well they sell. If there’s demand for your topic, then it’s a good sign that your dissertation could make a successful book.
It’s rare that a dissertation can be published as is. Typically, you’ll need to revise and refine your work to make it more accessible and engaging for a broader audience. Consider hiring a professional editor to help you identify areas that need improvement.
There are several options for publishing your dissertation as a book. You can either self-publish , approach an academic publisher, or try a hybrid publisher. If you’re not sure which route to take, do some research to see which option is the best fit for you and your goals. You can check out Lambert academic publishing ’s fast and affordable online platform to publish your own book .
Each publisher will have their own submission guidelines, so make sure you read them carefully and follow them to the letter. This can include things like formatting, length, and style requirements.
Once your book is published, it’s up to you to promote it. Start building your author platform before your book comes out by creating a website, engaging with your audience on social media, and building relationships with influencers in your field.
Publishing a book can be a lengthy process, so be prepared to wait for your book to hit the shelves. But remember, the wait will be worth it when you see your dissertation transformed into a tangible book that can be shared with the world.
Publishing your dissertation as a book is a rewarding way to share your research with a wider audience and make an extra buck. By following these tips, you’ll be well on your way to turning your dissertation into a published work that you can be proud of.
Publishing your dissertation in a journal is a great way to share your research with a wider audience and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Here are some steps to help you publish your dissertation in a journal:
Before you start the submission process, it’s important to find a journal that is a good fit for your research. Look for journals that specialize in your field and have published articles on similar topics to your dissertation.
Each journal has specific submission guidelines, so be sure to review them carefully. Pay attention to requirements such as formatting, word count, and citation style.
While your dissertation has already been approved by your advisor, it may still require revisions to meet the standards of a journal article. Be prepared to revise and edit your dissertation to meet the journal’s requirements and to make it more concise and readable.
When submitting your dissertation to a journal, it’s important to include a cover letter that introduces yourself and your research. The cover letter should highlight the significance of your research, why it’s relevant to the journal’s audience, and how it contributes to the current body of knowledge in your field.
After you have completed the necessary revisions and written a cover letter, you can submit your dissertation to the journal. Be sure to follow the journal’s submission instructions carefully and provide all required materials.
Publish your dissertation as a book : show your dissertation has what it takes to make it to the big league. Build your dissertation’s trust. Making your dissertation an authority increases its chances of being published in a journal significantly.
The journal will likely have a peer-review process where your article will be reviewed by experts in your field. Be prepared to receive feedback and make revisions based on their comments.
In conclusion, publishing your dissertation in a journal requires careful research, attention to detail, and a willingness to revise and edit your work. By following these steps, you can increase your chances of success and share your research with a wider audience.
Lambert offers an easy and affordable publishing process that allows you to share your dissertation with a global audience. With no publishing contract required and professional editing and formatting services included, publishing your dissertation with us has never been easier. Plus, our worldwide distribution network ensures that your work will be seen by a wider audience. Don’t let your research go unnoticed – publish your dissertation with Lambert Academic Publishing today and take the first step towards sharing your findings with the world!
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I'm currently applying for PhD positions in the US, having completed a Master's degree in Engineering in the UK and then working in Industry for the past 13 years. I'm a bit confused as to the extent to which (if at all) a Master's thesis is considered to be 'published'?
To my knowledge, my Master's thesis was not officially published on the University website. However, I have seen some cases where Master's theses at some institutions are available online from the affiliated institution's website. To what extent are these 'available online' Master's theses considered to be published?
If they are not considered published then, if someone completes a Master's thesis and publishes it online, but doesn't follow-up by publishing it in a journal (perhaps they don't go on to do a PhD), then what is to prevent another academic taking those results and publishing them as their own? Is that considered 'fair game' in academia?
The background to this on my side is that my Master's thesis was a very successful project and was received very well at the time by the faculty in the Engineering school I studied in. It probably could have been turned into a research paper; however, given that I made the decision to start a career in Industry, I didn't push to publish the results in an academic journal at the time.
More recently, I have come across a paper that was published a few years later by researchers I am not familiar with at another institution, which seems very similar to my Master's thesis (I'd say ~75-80% the same content). Now, I am not accusing them of plagiarism - it's quite possible they may have discovered the same thing independently. However, I am just wondering, in general, to what extent a Master's thesis posted online is considered to be 'published' and how it is perceived in Academia if someone was to 'plagiarize' a Master's thesis.
I guess a follow-on question relating to my situation is: how much of this (if any) should I mention in my applications for PhD programs?
To what extent are these 'available online' Master's theses considered to be published?
In academia, published typically means included in conference proceedings or a journal by a publisher in some format (typically a printed book) that has an ISBN. A thesis is not published, under that definition. Nonetheless, an unpublished thesis needn't be private, e.g., it may appear online and it may be available in university library.
what is to prevent another academic taking [someone's Master's thesis] and publishing them as their own? Is that considered 'fair game' in academia?
Such behaviour isn't prevented, but it would destroy a career, so it is uncommon.
to what extent a Master's thesis posted online is considered to be 'published' and how it is perceived in Academia if someone was to 'plagiarize' a Master's thesis.
Such a thesis isn't published, but that's not the main issue: Academic fraud is intolerable and fraudsters will suffer severe consequences.
how much of this (if any) should I mention in my applications for PhD programs?
I don't see any reason to mention any of it. Do you? (Perhaps add a comment if you do.)
Let me clarify that published may be a bit ambiguous. When your thesis is accepted and your degree is awarded, it becomes part of the university’s archives. A few decades ago that meant a dusty copy in the university library. Nowadays it’s a publicly available repository that anyone can access. So in that sense, yes: your thesis was made public and has undergone peer review by your advisor and committee.
This is usually considered less prestigious than having your results published in a reputable journal or conference but it makes the results no less yours. Taking them and publishing them as one’s own is gross academic misconduct that’d cause serious damage to one’s career if found out.
Independent discovery is common, especially if you didn’t publish your results in a high profile venue. So someone else coming up with similar findings shouldn’t surprise you too much (great minds etc.).
I would not mention this in the CV as it’s not an achievement you can reasonably claim (someone thinking of a similar idea and publishing it is hardly a feather in your cap).
That said, it may be worthwhile to mention it if the other paper turned out to be impactful or published in a well respected venue. In that case I’d say (in the research statement): my thesis was about X; interestingly, Smith et al have independently discovered my approach, and recently published the result in Nature . Their paper has since been cited 1423 times according to favorite metrics site and has given rise to a whole research field studying the effects of X.
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Dissertations and theses may be considered scholarly sources since a dissertation committee of scholars closely supervises them, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work.
However, dissertations are still considered student work and are not peer-reviewed. Always clarify with your instructor or chair whether you can include and cite dissertations and theses in your research.
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When you use the Multi-Search, you may see dissertations and theses in your search results, even when you apply the “Peer Reviewed (Scholarly)” limiter to your search. This is because even though dissertations are not peer-reviewed (published in peer-reviewed journals), they are often considered scholarly because they were written for an academic audience. For more information on the difference between scholarly and peer-reviewed sources, see the FAQ: What’s the difference between a scholarly and peer reviewed journal?
Dissertations and theses have value as research material, and they are an important form of scholarly communication. Here are a few reasons why:
If your assignment requires you to use articles from peer-reviewed journals, then a dissertation is not a good fit as one of your sources. However, you can certainly comb through the References or Bibliography at the end of the dissertation to see if any of the sources they used might qualify for your research. You can then use the instructions in this FAQ to see if we have the full text for those articles in our library: How do I find a specific article in the library?
If your assignment calls for scholarly sources, a dissertation may be a great contribution to your resources. Remember that all sources should be evaluated to determine not just if they are scholarly, but whether they are relevant and current enough to be used in your research. You should check with your professor if you have any questions or concerns about your ability to use dissertations as sources for your research assignment.
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Exercises for developing and revising your book manuscript.
Katelyn E. Knox and Allison Van Deventer
240 pages | 1 halftone, 176 tables | 8 1/2 x 11 | © 2023
Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing
Reference and Bibliography
“ The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook not only succeeds but excels in guiding scholars through this process of revision. This pragmatic workbook walks an author through clear steps to identify the organizing principle of the book, write and revise the book’s central claims, and then ensure that the chapters actually function well together before the author sends the book to a press. Since scholars often only have one opportunity to convince a press to publish their book, working through this process before sending to editors is crucial—and this is an essential guide.”
Rebecca K. Marchiel, University of Mississippi
“Based on their years of helping academics revise their dissertations into books, Knox and Van Deventer have distilled their incredible depth of knowledge into a beautifully thought-out book that takes you step by step through the process of revising your dissertation. Too many writing books give vague advice without any practical guidance. This is not that book. From advice on crafting your book’s arc and organizing principle to drafting your book questions and producing chapter answers, this book takes all the guessing out of one of the most stressful tasks academics face. This is the best book I have seen on the topic.”
Wendy Belcher, author of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks
William Germano
Chris Mackenzie Jones
Jane Friedman
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Adapting a Dissertation or Thesis Into a Journal Article. Dissertations or theses are typically required of graduate students. Undergraduate students completing advanced research projects may also write senior theses or similar types of papers. Once completed, the dissertation or thesis is often submitted (with modifications) as a manuscript ...
Books. Motivated dissertation authors often seek to have their dissertations published in book form. As with journal articles, books that are based on dissertations need to be reworked. This usually takes the form of downplaying the methodology and literature-review sections, cutting down on the density of footnotes and references and generally ...
This infographic lists nine ways in which a thesis is different from a journal article. The idea is to help you understand how the two are distinct types of academic writing, meant for different audiences and written for different purposes. Feel free to download a PDF version of this infographic and print it out as handy reference.
A thesis is written to satisfy a requirement for a Master's degree. There is almost always something in the database record or the citation that says "thesis." ... If published as journal articles, these citations are similar to normal journal citations. EXAMPLE: ... These citations are similar to normal book or book chapter citations. EXAMPLE ...
Publishing your Dissertation (American Psychological Association) 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 ...
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. ... Finding relevant sources (e.g., books and journal articles) Assessing the credibility of your sources; Critically analyzing and evaluating each source; Drawing ...
Revised on 5 May 2022. A dissertation is a large research project undertaken at the end of a degree. It involves in-depth consideration of a problem or question chosen by the student. It is usually the largest (and final) piece of written work produced during a degree. The length and structure of a dissertation vary widely depending on the ...
The extant literature describes a number of approaches to convert dissertations into journal articles including revising dissertation chapters for publication as journal articles , converting a dissertation into a journal article , turning a dissertation into a publication, writing a journal article in twelve weeks , from qualitative ...
A thesis is a long-term, large project that involves both research and writing; it is easy to lose focus, motivation, and momentum. Here are suggestions for achieving the result you want in the time you have. The dissertation is probably the largest project you have undertaken, and a lot of the work is self-directed.
Below are some of my observations on the process. 1. Plan for it. After you graduate, life is going to take over. You might be changing jobs, moving to a different place/city/country, and these papers might start to slip to the back of your mind. Take some time while your dissertation is still freshly printed, and ask yourself the following ...
A dissertation (or thesis) is a process. Okay, so now that you understand that a dissertation is a research project (which is testing your ability to undertake quality research), let's go a little deeper into what that means in practical terms. The best way to understand a dissertation is to view it as a process - more specifically a ...
Whatever your dissertation's fate, it's common to publish some of it as journal articles. The question that scholars often ask: How much of a dissertation-to-book manuscript can be previously ...
If you have already published or had accepted for publication part of your own dissertation or thesis material in a journal, depending on the terms of your publication agreement, it may be necessary to write to that journal and obtain written authorization to use the material in your dissertation. ... Google Scholar, and Google Books. If you ...
In fact, it might seem that the journey from dissertation chapter to journal article ought to be a relaxing day trip: extract the chapter from the rest of the dissertation, delete any references to other chapters and to your new manuscript as itself a chapter, trim as necessary to fit the word limit of your chosen journal, and send it off.
Although requirements for citing dissertations vary according by style, they generally seek to convey the following information: that the item is a dissertation (rather than an article or a book); the type of degree it resulted in (master's, PhD, etc); whether it was published; and which institution granted the degree. An example of a citation ...
I published versions of two chapters as journal articles before the book came out. Another strategy is to take part of a chapter and expand it into a journal article. That way most of the chapter remains unpublished. (Note that if you are not planning to turn your dissertation into a book, definitely do turn as much of it as you can into articles.)
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.
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 ...
Write a cover letter. When submitting your dissertation to a journal, it's important to include a cover letter that introduces yourself and your research. The cover letter should highlight the significance of your research, why it's relevant to the journal's audience, and how it contributes to the current body of knowledge in your field.
In academia, published typically means included in conference proceedings or a journal by a publisher in some format (typically a printed book) that has an ISBN. A thesis is not published, under that definition. Nonetheless, an unpublished thesis needn't be private, e.g., it may appear online and it may be available in university library.
Dissertations and theses may be considered scholarly sources since a dissertation committee of scholars closely supervises them, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work. However, dissertations are still considered student work and are not peer-reviewed.
When you use the Multi-Search, you may see dissertations and theses in your search results, even when you apply the "Peer Reviewed (Scholarly)" limiter to your search. This is because even though dissertations are not peer-reviewed (published in peer-reviewed journals), they are often considered scholarly because they were written for an academic audience.
"The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook not only succeeds but excels in guiding scholars through this process of revision. This pragmatic workbook walks an author through clear steps to identify the organizing principle of the book, write and revise the book's central claims, and then ensure that the chapters actually function well together before the author sends the book to a press.
The TIB Portal allows you to search the library's own holdings and other data sources simultaneously. By restricting the search to the TIB catalogue, you can search exclusively for printed and digital publications in the entire stock of the TIB library.