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How to Write a Journal Article from a Thesis

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Table of Contents

You are almost done with your PhD thesis and want to convert it into a journal article. Or, you’re initiating a career as a journal writer and intend to use your thesis as a starting point for an article. Whatever your situation, turning a thesis into a journal article is a logical step and a process that eventually every researcher completes. But…how to start?

The first thing to know about converting a thesis into a journal article is how different they are:

Thesis Characteristics:

• Meets academic requirements
• Reviewed by select committee members
• Contains chapters
• Lengthy, no word limits
• Table of contents
• Lengthy research of literature
• IRB approval described in detail
• Description and copies of tools used
• All findings presented
• Verb tenses may vary

Journal Article Characteristics:

• Meets journalistic standards
• Reviewed by a panel of “blind” reviewers
• Word limits
• Manuscript format
• Succinct research of literature
• IRB described in 1 to 3 sentences
• Essential and succinct tool information
• Selected findings presented
• Verb tenses are fairly consistent

Converting your thesis to a journal article may be complex, but it’s not impossible.

A thesis is a document of academic nature, so it’s more detailed in content. A journal article, however, is shorter, highlighting key points in a more succinct format. Adapting a thesis for conversion into a journal article is a time-consuming and intricate process that can take you away from other important work. In that case, Elsevier’s Language Editing services may help you focus on important matters and provide a high-quality text for submission in no time at all.

If you are going to convert a thesis into a journal article, with or without professional help, here is a list of some of the steps you will likely have to go through:

1. Identify the best journal for your work

• Ensure that your article is within the journal’s aim and scope. How to find the right journal? Find out more .
• Check the journal’s recommended structure and reference style

2. Shorten the length of your thesis

• Treat your thesis as a separate work
• Paraphrase but do not distort meaning
• Select and repurpose parts of your thesis

3. Reformat the introduction as an abstract

• Shorten the introduction to 100-150 words, but maintain key topics to hold the reader’s attention.
• Use the introduction and discussion as basis for the abstract

4. Modify the introduction

• If your thesis has more than one research question or hypothesis, which are not all relevant for your paper, consider combining your research questions or focusing on just one for the article
• Use previously published papers (at least three) from the target journal as examples

5. Tighten the methods section

• Keep the discussion about your research approach short

6. Report main findings in the results

• Expose your main findings in the results section in concise statements

7. Discussion must be clear and concise

• Begin by providing an interpretation of your results: “What is it that we have learned from your research?”
• Situate the findings to the literature
• Discuss how your findings expand known or previous perspectives
• Briefly present ways in which future studies can build upon your work and address limitations in your study

8. Limit the number of references

• To choose the most relevant and recent
• To format them correctly
• Consider using a reference manager system (e.g. Mendeley ) to make your life easier

If you are not a proficient English speaker, the task of converting a thesis into a journal article might make it even more difficult. At Elsevier’s Language Editing services we ensure that your manuscript is written in correct scientific English before submission. Our professional proofers and editors check your manuscript in detail, taking your text as our own and with the guarantee of maximum text quality.

Language editing services by Elsevier Author Services:

How to Choose a Journal to Submit an Article

How to Submit a Paper for Publication in a Journal

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How to Convert Your Thesis into a Journal Article?

Table of Contents

“Congratulations, your Thesis has been accepted!”

Upon submitting your thesis, when you hear this statement, your heart must have felt complete feelings of joy and pride. You must be in a self-boasting mode where you finally feel that you have sent your baby to the outside world. However, as time passes by, you will gradually get to know that: the majority of the researchers only prefer to read a 10-15 page paper about the most revolutionary part of your research rather than digging through 500 pages of your book-style thesis.

Welcome to the harsh reality, now. After completing the gigantic task of writing, submitting, and defending your Ph.D. thesis, you get to know that it was not enough. The next pragmatic step you must adopt is converting a few parts of your thesis into a journal article.

You can easily create a few journal articles by scouring through your manuscript. While skimming your thesis manuscript, you will be able to discover that a few chapters can easily be segmented and converted into a journal article. These segmented chapters and the research material you gathered during the research phase can provide you with enough materials to create a few journal articles.

There is much confusion around the conversion of the thesis to a journal article. These confusions range from “what is the need for the conversion of the thesis to an article,” “whether it is legit to do so or not,” to “is converting a thesis to a journal considered a plagiarized source, specifically self-plagiarism?”

Even you must have got these questions. So, let me answer and clear off the doubts over these looming questions contesting within you.

Why Publish Articles from Thesis?

It is pretty well known that a research paper asserts much credibility to the author. So, the easiest way to create your first research paper is through your thesis or dissertation. Besides, you will come across many benefits once you have published the first article from your thesis. These can include:

1) Career Boost

A mere bullet point mentioning you have authored a journal article will be an outstanding achievement and addition to your CV. It generally takes a year or two to complete a thesis. Since you have already done the research, you do not need to conduct new research or collect facts. This way, you can save a significant amount of time and publish your research.

Also, like a cherry on a cake, you can create multiple research papers from your thesis. In this way, you will be way ahead of your peers as by the time they will be able to publish one or two articles, you will already be carrying multiple journal articles in your name.

2) Greater Outreach

What happened to your thesis after submission? Probably nothing more than becoming part of your institutions’ archives. It is the usual case with every thesis in most institutions worldwide. However, if you transform that into a journal article, it reaches a far greater audience, surpassing your institution's internal corridors.

3) Self-satisfaction

You have spent a lot of time and effort in creating your thesis. So why not reward your efforts by transforming your thesis into a journal article that can provide a more significant readership, credibility, and praise for your work. Just put in a last-mile effort and convert your thesis into a few journal articles; you can quickly achieve higher recognition and reputation for your work and even yourself. Also, it can help in enhancing your academic and research writing skills.

Is creating articles from a thesis or dissertation legit?

There are a lot of concerns and misconceptions that cloud scholars when it comes to publishing articles from theses. For example, scholars usually get thoughts like if journal publishers accept something that has already been a part of a thesis or dissertation or creating articles from a thesis might come under the purview of a duplicate submission, self-plagiarism, or copyright issues.

I will not say that these questions are entirely baseless or of fault, but publishing articles from a thesis varies in different contexts. What I can frankly say is that publishers are not entirely against publishing articles that have been generated from a thesis. Follow-through below mentioned reasons to understand this:

i) Theses are not formal publications

Most academic publishers do not consider theses or dissertations as formal publications. Theses are published at the institutional level only for internal scrutiny and a little circulation among fellow scholars.

However, if your institution has published your theses through its online channels, then it is prudent for you to inform the academic publisher about this. Staying transparent about the origin of your manuscript with your publisher is the best way to stay away from any unethical practices. The best solution here is to create a citation article for your thesis.

ii) No Copyright Issues

You are the copyright owner when it comes to your thesis. So, when you publish an article from your thesis, there will be no copyright infringement issues. You can register yourself as a copyrights owner if extra protective. In such a scenario, you can create as many articles as possible, and academic publishers will publish them without worrying over any copyright violation.

iii) Duplication and Self-Plagiarism can be easily eliminated

A journal article can be generated easily from a few thesis chapters. Therefore, a journal article that has originated from a thesis or a dissertation is a part of it and not a copy. Additionally, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process, bringing many differences between an article and your thesis. No one can charge you for duplicating your thesis for a journal article.

Similarly, you can avoid the traps of self-plagiarism by simply citing your thesis/dissertation in the journal paper. Moreover, you can take advantage of quote blocks in sections where you have directly used the same content verbatim as your thesis.

You should inform the publisher that the article has been scoured from your thesis in all of these cases. Moreover, you should furnish them with a copy of your thesis with all the information, such as where and when it was first published, etc. Staying transparent and open about these things with your editor can turn to your advantage as they may help you understand the procedures to be followed to avoid any ethics violations you may not know at that time.

Tips on How to convert your thesis to a journal article

Before mentioning the tips on generating a journal article from your thesis, it is crucial that you first understand a few contrasting aspects of a journal article and a thesis.

First and foremost, the audience or the readers are very different for both the journal article and the thesis. In the case of a thesis, the audience is the institutional committee that evaluates if your thesis is of quality or not. Whereas, for the journal article, the readers are the scientists or scholars of the same domain looking for theories backed with facts and evidence.

Additionally, a thesis is created to serve the educational purpose of achieving a degree. On the other hand, an academic paper/article is published to achieve professional goals like attaining credibility, reputation, and recognition in the academic domain.

A thesis is presented or the format is quite different from a journal article. Like everybody else, you too must have included all that you knew about the topic in your thesis. The purpose of a thesis is to present all the known facts and evidence to manifest your knowledge about a particular subject. Whereas, in the case of journals, you have to manifest your knowledge about the topic in a shorter and precise format.

While creating your first publication, you must be careful to ensure that it includes a concise literature review, calculated methods and methodology section, only the relevant findings and evidence, and a condensed discussion section.

You must draft your first paper after understanding your audience and their questions once they choose to read your article. Simply put, you must know your audience and the answers they will be expecting from your article.

To create your first article from your thesis, keep the above-discussed points in your thoughts and follow through the below-mentioned elements that you revise and amend as per the publication’s requirements.

1) Words limit

Quite pronounced and known to all that a journal article is of much shorter length than a thesis. While a thesis can be 8000-10000 words covering over 200+pages, a journal article can maximum go up to a few thousand words spanning over 5-7pages. Additionally, this length also varies from domain to domain and topic to topic.

Therefore, you must shorten each section very accurately. You need to trim the paragraphs so that the true essence should not get lost, and there should not be any redundancy, too. You must select the key important topics and include them in your academic paper.

2) Abstract

The abstract is the entry point of your academic paper. Therefore, you need to include and present the exciting points of the topic here but briefly. You need to curate it according to the instructions provided by your target journal. You must enquire and ensure whether they require a structured or unstructured abstract. Moreover, there is a growing trend of graphical and video abstracts.

3) Introduction

While writing the introduction, you must present the gaps in your chosen topic that led to the research. Next, you need to write a concise literature review to bring forth the past works and the new results that you aim to find out. In this section, you must specify the research problem and a background check over that topic.

You must have extensively provided details about your chosen methods and methodology in your thesis. However, you can not do the same here. You need to narrow it down to the methodology section, especially the experiments, surveys, and more you have adopted. You are not supposed to present a detailed discussion around the research methodology approach in the journal articles.

You must be aware that a thesis must contain the details of every result with considerable discussions, whereas a journal only contains the result of the main findings. Therefore, while creating the result sections, ensure that you include the results or the findings that directly answer the research question. Also, you must provide hard evidence to back your results. Moreover, strict adherence to the standards of reporting results has to be followed.

6) Discussion

The discussion section of a journal article is meant to provide a brief interpretation of the results to display your understanding of the topic. Ensure that you keep the discussion section of your journal article clear and cut to the point. Be aware that by providing a discussion section, you demonstrate your interest and speculations in the future direction the research topic will adopt.

7) References

Do not just copy-paste the reference or citation list from your thesis to the article. You need to provide the relevant reference and citations you sought when conducting the research. You must ensure that the reference list you are putting here should be relevant to the topic. Sometimes, the academic publishers limit the number of references you can include, so properly enquire beforehand only over the number of references.

Final Words

Publishing articles from the thesis is nowhere prohibited. In reality, if you discuss this idea with your peers, they will encourage you to do it. Just keep in mind the concept of thesis and journal articles, their differences, and the purpose each serves in a different context; you will be able to publish an article from your thesis easily.

The above tips are intended to provide you with a direction to publish articles from your thesis. If you feel overwhelmed by the publisher's requirements or get confused and seek answers, you can come over to the SciSpace (Formerly Typeset) Community. Just submit your questions there, and you will find answers pouring in from experts all over the world. Even now, if you feel that there are certain aspects that this article did not cover, feel free and post your question in the SciSpace Community, and I will make sure that you get your answers ASAP.

Considering you are searching for research platforms that streamline workflows, we highly recommend you take a look at SciSpace discover .

It helps you to find millions of peer-reviewed articles with an option to sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance along with easy citing feature with multiple citation format just by a click.

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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 for publication in a scholarly journal. Thus, the dissertation or thesis often provides the foundation for a new researcher’s body of published work.

Writers will first want to determine whether the work in their dissertation or thesis merits publication. If it does, we then provide guidance on how to adapt a dissertation or thesis for submission to a journal.

Adapting a dissertation or thesis into a journal article is covered in the seventh edition APA Style Publication Manual in Section 12.1

Deciding to submit a dissertation or thesis for publication

When deciding whether to publish the work in your dissertation or thesis, first consider whether the findings tell a compelling story or answer important questions. Whereas dissertations and theses may present existing knowledge in conjunction with new work, published research should make a novel contribution to the literature. For example, some of your original research questions might be suitable for publication, and others may have been sufficiently addressed in the literature already. Likewise, some of your results may warrant additional experiments or analyses that could help answer the research questions more fully, and you may want to conduct these analyses before seeking publication.

You may also want to consider such factors as whether the current sample size provides sufficient power to adequately inform the analyses and whether additional analyses might clarify ambiguous findings. Consultation with colleagues can help evaluate the potential of the manuscript for publication as well as the selection of an appropriate journal to which to submit it. For information on selecting and prioritizing a journal (and tips for avoiding predatory or deceptive journals), see Sections 12.2 to 12.4 of the Publication Manual .

Adapting a dissertation or thesis for publication

Once a decision is made to convert your dissertation or thesis into a manuscript for submission to a journal, you will want to focus attention on adapting it for publication. By attending to brevity and focus, writing style, relevant literature review and data analyses, and appropriate interpretation of the results or findings, you can enhance the fit of your manuscript for journal publication. Editors and reviewers readily recognize an article that has been hastily converted; careful attention when reformatting the dissertation or thesis is likely to increase the manuscript’s potential for serious consideration and eventual publication.

There are several steps writers seeking to prepare their dissertation or thesis for publication can take beforehand:

• Look at articles in the field and in relevant journals to see what structure and focus are appropriate for their work and how they are formatted.
• Request and consider the input of advisors, colleagues, or other coauthors who contributed to the research on which the dissertation or thesis is based.
• Review an article submitted to a journal alongside their advisor (with permission from the journal editor) or serve as a reviewer for a student competition to gain firsthand insight into how authors are evaluated when undergoing peer review.

The original research reported in a dissertation and thesis can then be reformatted for journal submission following one of two general strategies: the multiple-paper strategy or the conversion strategy.

Multiple-paper strategy

The quickest strategy for converting (or “flipping”) a dissertation or thesis into one or more publishable articles is to use a multiple-paper format when initially writing the dissertation or thesis. This involves structuring the dissertation or thesis used to fulfill the requirements for a degree as a series of shorter papers that are already formatted for journal submission (or close to it). These papers are usually each the length of a journal article, conceptually similar, and come from the same overarching project—but can stand alone as independent research reports. Consult your university’s editorial office to confirm that this is an approved format for your dissertation or thesis and to obtain the specific guidelines.

Conversion strategy

A second strategy is to reformat and convert a dissertation or thesis into a journal article after completing your dissertation or thesis defense to fit the scope and style of a journal article. This often requires adjustments to the following elements:

• Length: Brevity is an important consideration for a manuscript to be considered for journal publication, particularly in the introduction and Discussion sections. Making a dissertation or thesis publication-ready often involves reducing a document of over 100 pages to one third of its original length. Shorten the overall paper by eliminating text within sections and/or eliminating entire sections. If the work examined several research questions, you may consider separating distinct research questions into individual papers; narrow the focus to a specific topic for each paper.
• Abstract: The abstract may need to be condensed to meet the length requirements of the journal. Journal abstract requirements are usually more limited than college or university requirements. For instance, most APA journals limit the abstract length to 250 words.
• Introduction section: One of the major challenges in reformatting a dissertation or thesis is paring down its comprehensive literature review to a more succinct one suitable for the introduction of a journal article. Limit the introductory text to material relating to the immediate context of your research questions and hypotheses. Eliminate extraneous content or sections that do not directly contribute to readers’ knowledge or understanding of the specific research question(s) or topic(s) under investigation. End with a clear description of the questions, aims, or hypotheses that informed your research.
• Method section: Provide enough information to allow readers to understand how the data were collected and evaluated. Refer readers to previous works that informed the current study’s methods or to supplemental materials instead of providing full details of every step taken or the rationale behind them.
• Results section: Be selective in choosing analyses for inclusion in the Results section and report only the most relevant ones. Although an unbiased approach is important to avoid omitting study data, reporting every analysis that may have been run for the dissertation or thesis often is not feasible, appropriate, or useful in the limited space of a journal article. Instead, ensure that the results directly contribute to answering your original research questions or hypotheses and exclude more ancillary analyses (or include them as supplemental materials). Be clear in identifying your primary, secondary, and any exploratory analyses.
• Discussion section: Adjust the discussion according to the analyses and results you report. Check that your interpretation and application of the findings are appropriate and do not extrapolate beyond the data. A strong Discussion section notes area of consensus with and divergence from previous work, taking into account sample size and composition, effect size, limitations of measurement, and other specific considerations of the study.
• References: Include only the most pertinent references (i.e., theoretically important or recent), especially in the introduction and literature review, rather than providing an exhaustive list. Ensure that the works you cite contribute to readers’ knowledge of the specific topic and to understanding and contextualizing your research. Citation of reviews and meta-analyses can guide interested readers to the broader literature while providing an economical way of referencing prior studies.
• Tables and figures: Make sure that tables or figures are essential and do not reproduce content provided in the text.

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• Writing Tips

How to Turn Your Thesis into a Journal Article

4-minute read

• 11th September 2019

If you are writing a PhD thesis , you may be thinking about how to get your work published when you’re done. One option is to convert your thesis – or part of your thesis – into an academic journal article .

And if you want to do this, you’ll need to:

• Pick a journal with a scope that matches your research interests.
• Decide which parts of your thesis you want to use for the article.
• Think about whether to co-author the article with someone else.
• Check the journal publisher’s website for author instructions.
• Have the article proofread by an academic editor.

Let’s look at each of these steps in more detail to see how the process works.

1. Pick a Journal

To maximize your chances of publication, pick a suitable journal. The journal’s scope – i.e., the kind of work it publishes – is the most important factor here.

Specialist journals with a narrower scope may be more open to submissions from early career academics than larger, multidisciplinary journals (simply because there is more competition for Nature than, say, the American Journal of Potato Research ). But the most important thing is that your work fits the research interests and approaches of the publishing journal.

Other things to consider when choosing a journal include:

• Article rejection rate.
• Journal metrics (e.g., the impact factor ).
• Journal reputation (e.g., the turnaround times for acceptance/publication).

For more advice, check out the Think. Check. Submit. campaign.

2. Plan Turning Your Thesis into a Journal Article

A PhD thesis is, typically, a long, detailed account of your research. By comparison, a journal article will usually be more focused.

As such, part of turning your thesis into a journal article involves deciding what you will include. This could be a case of setting out your overall argument in clear, concise terms. Or it could be looking for parts of your PhD research that you could use for standalone articles.

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When planning your article, you will therefore need to:

• Have a clearly defined research question.
• Find the parts of your thesis that are most relevant to your question.
• Summarize the aims, methods, results, and outcomes involved.
• Rewrite key sections to make them self-standing.
• Tweak the article to fit the journal requirements.

The first step, then, is creating a paper outline with the factors above in mind.

3. Consider Co-Authorship

If anyone else made a significant contribution to your research, such as your PhD supervisor, you may want to ask them about co-authoring your article. As well as ensuring academic fairness – i.e., crediting them for the contribution they made – this has a couple of distinct advantages:

• You can benefit from their experience of publishing academic work.
• Having an established name with a good reputation in your field of study on the paper may boost your chances of publication.

Remember, though, anyone credited as an author on an article must have made a significant contribution . If they have not, you may want to mention them in a footnote or an “Acknowledgements” section instead.

4. Check the Author Instructions

Before writing your article, check the journal publisher’s website for author instructions. These should tell you all you need to know about:

• The journal’s submission guidelines (e.g., review by an ethics committee).
• The journal’s style requirements (e.g., word count, terminology)

Make sure to follow these guidelines when preparing your journal article.

5. Have Your Article Proofread

Finally, once you have drafted an article, have someone check it.

Asking a colleague is a good first step, as they may have feedback on content. But you’ll also want to ask a professional proofreader to review your document before submission, thus ensuring it is typo free.

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Eight top tips to help you turn your PhD thesis into an article

March 22, 2018 | 5 min read

By Laura Mesquita

Sharing insights from the latest Researcher Academy webinar

Many first-time authors use the research conducted as part of their PhD or even Master’s thesis as a basis for a journal article. While that’s a logical step, the requirements for a thesis differ from those of a paper in a peer reviewed academic journal in very significant ways. Ensuring that you are familiar with these can prove the difference between acceptance and rejection…

Elsevier’s  Researcher Academy opens in new tab/window  recently hosted a  live webinar opens in new tab/window  on turning your PhD thesis into an article. In this webinar, Dr. Adolfo Cuevas, Assistant Professor at Tufts University, Dr. Cecily Betz, Editor-in-Chief of the  Journal of Pediatric Nursing,  and Dawn Nahlen, Publisher at Elsevier, discussed eight golden tips to help you transform your thesis into a research paper for publication in a journal.

Apples and pears

Some of the differences between articles and theses are rather clear – consider word limits and the level of detail you should employ in your study. Others, however, are much less obvious. For instance, verbs in a thesis may be in the future “I will research”  and  in the past tense “I researched”. In journal articles, authors tend to describe a study that has already taken place and so tenses are much more consistent.

Some other key differences are listed below.

Tip 1. Identify the appropriate target journal

Make sure to read the aims and scope of journals you are interested in to be as certain as you can be that your paper falls within the journal’s scope. If your research falls outside of the aims and scope, look for a more suitable home for your paper – as submitting it there would be a wasted effort. Check each journal’s recommended structure and reference style for articles on its website, typically found in the “guide for authors”, to ensure that your paper is not desk rejected. You might find it useful to look at  Elsevier’s Journal Finder tool opens in new tab/window  when trying to identify a fit for your article.

Tip 2. Shorten the length of your thesis

Journal articles are typically much shorter than theses (the precise word limit will normally be stated in the guide for authors), so be sure to use a tighter framework and a more compact style. This will mean:

Treating your thesis as a separate, new work

Paraphrasing where needed to express the same idea in different ways

Selecting parts of your thesis to repurpose (not all of it) and focusing on the main points you want the reader to understand

Tip 3. Reformat the introduction as an abstract

Writing an  abstract opens in new tab/window  can be difficult. Lucky for you, you already have a pretty good place to start. While abstracts in journal articles are usually much shorter (100-250 words) than the average thesis introduction, the two have one thing in common: both should contain all the key elements to command the reader’s attention and encourage them to read further. Using your introduction and part of your discussion as a basis for your abstract can be a good starting point.

Tip 4. Modify the introduction

Your thesis may have more than one research question or hypothesis, which are not all relevant for your paper. Consider combining your research questions or focusing on a single one for the article. Unless otherwise suggested, try to keep the introduction short and to the point. It can also be very helpful to use previously published papers (at least three) from the target journal as examples – try to fit in with the usual “form” for articles in the journal.

Tip 5. Tighten the methods section

Often, there is no need for an overly descriptive methods section. While concerns surrounding reproducibility are becoming increasingly important, you may want to keep your methods section succinct and certainly remember your audience: your peers probably do not need every detail of tried and tested methods. A longer description of methods may be a requirement from your institute or funding body, and it is definitely warranted when innovative methods are deployed, but again: it’s a good idea to use papers previously published in the target journal as examples.

Tip 6. Report main findings in results

Be sure to present all the findings that are relevant to your research question(s) in the results section, before the discussion. If you conducted an exploratory analysis, be sure to provide at least a few concise statements on the findings.

Tip 7. Ensure discussion is clear and concise

A good starting point for a discussion section is an interpretation of your results: What is it that the reader will have learned from your research? Do not repeat your results in the discussion section, instead do the following:

Situate your findings in the literature

Discuss how your findings expand the perspective of the field

Briefly present ways in which future studies can build upon your work, and address limitations in your study

Tip 8. Limit number of references

Unlike your thesis, where you can cite those foundational yet potentially dated sources and anything else you may have learned from, journals do sometimes limit the number of citations. For this reason, it’s important to make sure:

To choose the most relevant (and recent) citations

That the citations are formatted correctly

Pro tip: consider using a reference manager system (e.g.  Mendeley opens in new tab/window ) to make your life easier. When you’re picking the most relevant citations or quickly reformatting them, you’ll be thankful you did.

The tips presented here are just a short preview of a truly enlightening 60 minutes with an Elsevier publisher, a thesis supervisor and author, and a journal’s Editor-in-Chief. Be sure to catch the  full webinar recording opens in new tab/window , entirely free, at the  Elsevier Researcher Academy opens in new tab/window .

Final tip of the day: following the event, in the  Researcher Academy Mendeley group opens in new tab/window , the webinar panelists answered the participants’ most burning questions from the Q&A – be sure to check it out!

Contributor

Laura Mesquita

Extracting a journal article from your thesis

Top tips from award-winning author.

What should you consider before and during the process of writing an article from your thesis?

We caught up with Marissa Rollnick, winner of a 2018  NARST  Distinguished Contributions to Science Education through Research Award, who gave us her advice for those starting out.

Turning your thesis into publications should mark the beginning of your publication career. It is important to publish work post PhD as this makes your research more accessible to others.

One of the most important points to note is that writing an article from a thesis is not simply a task of cutting and pasting. The purpose and format of a thesis or dissertation is very different from that of a journal article or book chapter. The primary audience for the thesis is the examiner, and the student needs to convince the examiner that they have mastered research techniques and understand the arguments they are making. This can make the thesis repetitive and full of detail. The wider audience for the article or book chapter will want to know about the arguments or findings and at the same time be convinced that the findings are authentic and trustworthy.

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Selecting articles from a thesis or dissertation depends greatly on the work itself. There may be new theories, methods or findings that are worth sharing and the supervisor’s role is to assist the student in formulating purposes for the paper. There are several steps involved:

Deciding on authorship

Planning the article, selecting a journal, writing the article.

Reviewing the article before submission

Anyone included as an author of a journal article must have made  a significant contribution to it . You may need to decide whether this includes your supervisor and agree the order of the authors’ names. Different disciplines have different authorship practices, but in the humanities the principal author is mentioned first.

A single paper in a journal should contain a central message that you want to get across. This could be a novel aspect of methodology that you have used in your PhD study, a new theory, or an interesting modification you have made to theory or a novel set of findings. Decide what this central focus is.

Then create a paper outline bearing in mind the need to:

Isolate a manageable size

Create a coherent story/argument

Make the argument self-standing

Target the journal readership

Change the writing conventions from that used in your thesis

Selecting a journal is a very important step in planning the article. The journal you select should target appropriate readership, be accredited and be accessible to your peers. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

Look at your own reference list. Which journals have you used?

Study the editorial policies of the relevant journals: some are more restrictive than others (e.g. content, research paradigm, article length)

Scan past editions. Are there any similar papers?

Is it a trusted journal? There are several marks of quality and reliability to look out for in a journal, and people may judge your ability to choose appropriate journals to submit to. The Think. Check. Submit. initiative provides tools to help you evaluate whether the journal you’re planning to send your work to is trustworthy.

When selecting your journal think about audience, purposes, what to write about and why. Decide the kind of article to write. Is it a report, position paper, critique or review? What makes your argument or research interesting? How might the paper add value to the field?

When writing the article consider your choice of ‘theoretical framework’ and ‘voice’. Be clear what your article is about, and what it is trying to do. Finally ask your supervisor /co-author to go through the article with the following in mind:

Use the criteria the reviewers will use.

Read and edit acting as a sympathetic friend and mentor.

Ask another colleague or friend who thinks differently to read it.

Get someone to edit it for language and spelling. Many authors use professional proof readers. This is not a sign of weakness as the editor has some distance from the article. This is particularly important if you come from a country where a different language to that of the journal is used.

Marissa Rollnick is professor emeritus in science education at Wits University of Education in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a doctorate in science education from Wits University and is a specialist in academic development and science education. Her professional career includes appointments as high school science and maths teacher, teacher educator (William Pitcher college, Swaziland and University of Swaziland), lecturer and professor in chemistry and chemistry education on access programmes and subsequently teacher education at Wits University and science education research at Wits University. She has had various visiting appointments at University of York, UK, Western Michigan University (Fulbright award), USA and University of Cape Town. She is currently also working at the Univerisites of Pretoria and Johannesburg.

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Research Guides

Submit and publish your thesis.

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

Turning Your Thesis into an Article

Creating an article from your thesis means more than just copying and pasting. The audience for the thesis is your committee whereas for an article it may be fellow researchers, professionals working in the field, policy makers, educators, or the general audience. Your article manuscript will need to be modified accordingly. This section is based on Extracting a journal article from your thesis from Taylor & Francis publishing tips for authors.

Plan the article

Identify the central message that you want to get across. This could be a new theory, novel methodology or original findings. Make sure that your article follows a coherent argument and targets the journal audience.

Decide on the kind of article you want to write - will it be a report, position paper, critique or review? What makes your argument or research interesting? How might it add value to the field?

Select a journal

Selecting the right journal means reaching the audience you intend for your article to speak to. To start identifying potential journals:

• Look at your own bookshelf / reference list. Where have authors published on similar topics?
• Search the library catalogue
• Consult Ulrich’s Web serials database  (subscription resource)
• For open access journals specifically - search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• For student journals - see the Directory of Student Journals at UofT
• Talk to your advisor, colleagues or  liaison librarians

Automatic journal finders can recommend a journal based on your manuscript title/abstract:

• Jane: the Journal/Author Name Estimator
• Enago Open Access Journal Finder
• Elsevier journal finder  

To further narrow down the list:

• Study the “Aim and Scope” or similar section on editorial policies on the website to evaluate the fit and any specific content requirements;
• Skim through past issues, abstracts, table of contents - are there similar papers that have been published?
• How will your paper be reviewed? The journal’s website should mention the details of peer review process;
• Check details of copyright / license agreements and whether publication before or after your thesis submission is allowed .

Is it a trusted journal or publisher?

How to identify a deceptive publisher? See the Deceptive Publishing Checklist created by U of T.

Write the article

You may choose to approach writing your thesis with an aim to publish it as an article or several articles, known as an integrated/publication-based/sandwich thesis. Alternatively, you can reformat and convert your completed thesis into an article to fit the scope and style of a journal article. In both cases it will be helpful to:

• Carefully read and follow “Author Guidelines” for instructions on on preferred layout, word limits, reference style
• Use the criteria the reviewers will use and make sure your article addresses them
• Request and consider the input of your supervisor, colleagues, or other contributors to the research on which your thesis is based
• Reach out to friends or colleagues to prood-read your manuscript prior to submission

Additional resources on converting your thesis into an article:

• Adapting a Dissertation or Thesis Into a Journal Article by APA
• Eight top tips to help you turn your PhD thesis into an article by Elsevier
• Extracting a journal article from your thesis by Taylor & Francis
• << Previous: Publishing Your Thesis
• Next: Turning Thesis into a Book >>
• Last Updated: Sep 15, 2023 3:23 PM
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How to turn your dissertation into journal articles

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:

• Which chapters or subchapters would serve as a good journal paper?
• Which journal should I submit my work to?
• How much time do I think I need for writing this paper?

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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6 Simple Steps to Convert a PhD Thesis Into a Journal Article

What can you do with your PhD manuscript after years of research, sweat, tears (at least that was my case) and revisions? Put it on your mom’s bookcase to proudly showcase to all her friends? Use it as a book stopper? As the world of academia involves attracting funds, research, and publishing, you may find yourself asking, is turning your dissertation into a publishable journal article possible? Yes, definitely yes!

The world has become more fast-paced and competitive, and academia is no different. Today, the concept of ‘publish or perish’ has led to a massive pressure to publish your academic work in order to succeed in the world of scholarly research. The advantages are clear, turning a thesis into a journal article is the best opportunity to present your work to a wider audience, which can get you the funds you need for further research and also act as a great marketing tool for job seekers. This constant pressure to publish can hurt quality, however, your PhD thesis has gone through multiple rounds of revisions by supervisors and reviewers to ensure it meets the high quality benchmarks required to earn your doctoral degree. So, converting a thesis to a journal article should be easy, right? Sometimes it is, but not always.

The good thing is that, in most cases, you will be able to publish more than one article from your thesis (I did so by avoiding plagiarism and without overlapping any of the content across the articles). However, there are a few things to consider. First, the legalities of publishing your thesis; most journals will have no issues with this but it is good practice to mention the work in the credits or in the cover letter. Second, the practicalities, which I will cover herewith. A journal article generally presents a rationale from which a research gap was identified, then how the study intends to fill it, the methods, results and discussion, and often a conclusion. This is also included in a PhD thesis. So why don’t we go straight from the degree approval to the submission page of a target journal? It all comes down to the length! PhD theses vary from subject to subject, but they are far longer than a journal article, probably over 10 times the length needed for an article. Here are a few best practices to help you convert your thesis into a journal article

Get the basics right . Does your PhD thesis cover more than one aspect of your research topic? Then each topic should be treated as an independent theme for a journal article. That is, each chapter could potentially be turned into separate journal articles once you make the necessary modifications to comply with structural guidelines (i.e., abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussions).

Focus on the specifics. When describing the methods, a PhD thesis requires all the specifics, but journal articles can make use of citations to reduce the word count, so effectively cite known approaches or standard laboratory procedures.

Paraphrase effectively . The content in a PhD thesis are expected to be thorough, but journal articles shouldn’t be wordy. So paraphrase content from your thesis; I normally discourage direct quotations, so write concise alternatives using your own words to express meaning.

Get some perspective. Discuss what you’re doing with your supervisors and other colleagues that contributed to the work. This may be obvious but they have walked the road longer than you and will be able to provide some great advice.

Consider writing a review article. The work done on understanding a research topic is remarkably time-consuming, and often covers a wide breadth of knowledge. This can be turned into a review article where you summarize the latest contributions to the field. I published one review from my PhD work considering that during the background review process, I decided to focus on a slightly different direction for my work, and it is today my best effort in converting my thesis to a journal article. One thing to remember is that although review articles do not report original research, they can analyze and often link various studies in an innovative way to promote future research.

Select your target journal carefully. We may all want to publish in a high-impact journal, but if the basics of your research are not well covered by the aims and scope of the journal, you will face a rejection even before your article is sent for review. Read the journal guidelines carefully to comply with all the requirements.

We hope these tips help you turn your PhD masterpiece into a publishable journal article. The work is sound, the background is comprehensive, so jump in. You are ready to step into the next level of building your publication list. Good luck!

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• 10-Point Manuscript Checklist to Ensure High-Quality Journal Submissions 
• How to Write a Research Paper Title
• Good Writing Habits: 7 Ways to Improve Your Academic Writing
• 4 Key Writing Styles and Examples of Academic Writing  

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How to Turn Your Thesis Into a Journal Article

In many cases, publishing thesis is often one of the requirements for graduate students to finish their academic program. Publishing research findings is one of the more important ways to share research data with the scientific community. However, the structure of it is different from that of a research article. In this article, we shall discuss how to turn your thesis to journal article.

Characteristics of a Thesis and a Journal Article

Differences Between a Thesis and a Journal Article

While both contain similar sections, you cannot simply publish your thesis research as a journal article. Converting it into a journal article has many steps. It is important to recognize that an article is much shorter than the thesis. However, turning your thesis into a journal article will not be a simple matter of copy and paste. You will need to use the data in your thesis as the starting point for writing your article.

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

The  many differences  between a thesis research and a journal article are as follows:

• A thesis meets academic requirements while a journal article meets journalistic standards.
• The abstract of an article is usually shorter than that of a thesis.
• The introduction in a thesis is used to show that you are familiar with the literature in your chosen field. In a research paper , the introduction is much shorter as it is assumed that your target audience is familiar with the necessary background to understand your work. The introduction to your paper will, therefore, focus more on setting the stage for the data/research output that you are about to present.
• The results section in a thesis will include all your findings. In a paper, this would be too much detail. The data in this section should be only what you need to support your research problem or hypothesis. Often, the results in former may represent two to three different papers.
• The discussion in your paper will be much more focused than in your thesis. It will be guided by the results presented in the paper. Finally, only citations of articles actually mentioned in your paper will be listed in the references section.

Turning Thesis Research to Journal Article

As a researcher, you need to publish your work to advance your career and make contributions to the research field. Now that the differences have been outlined, how do you actually write one?

1. Identify a Suitable Journal

You could start by  journal selection . Look at your reference list. Chances are at least some of the papers you read were published in journals whose scope would match your work. Selecting a journal also allows you to tailor the paper to the specific requirements of that journal. Ensure that your research article coincides with the aim and scope of the journal. Understand the journal’s guidelines, recommended manuscript structure, and reference style

2. Reduce Redundant Length of Your Thesis

An important aspect of turning your thesis research to journal article is focusing on the word count without deleting crucial information. In order reduce word count , extract the data that answers just one research question. This should result in a more focused information than your thesis research presented. Discuss results in context with your problem statement-that is the focus of your paper. Good language and structure are crucial – your paper may get rejected even though it contains valuable data if it is difficult to understand. Use your data to tell a coherent story and avoid sweeping conclusions your data cannot support. Ensure that your title matches the contents of your paper. Paraphrase the content without changing the meaning.

3. Modify Introduction as Abstract

Repurpose the introduction as an abstract by shortening your thesis introduction to 100-150 words. Remember to maintain key points of the introduction to hold the reader’s attention. Formulate the introduction and discussion of thesis as basis for the journal article’s abstract. Furthermore, consider combining multiple research questions or focus on just one for the journal article.

4. Focus on Relevant and Selective Information

Since the discussion, methods and methodology, and results section of your thesis is an in-detail explanation of your research, these sections must be kept short while writing in a journal article.  Familiarize yourself with the target journal’s standards by referring previously published papers and understanding their format. Most importantly, provide interpretation of main findings in the results section in concise statements or tabular formats. Avoid repeating your results in the discussion section. However, discuss how your findings expand and support previous perspectives of the research. Finally, mention how future studies can build upon your work and address limitations in your study.

5. Limit the Number of References

As your thesis is a work of several years put together, it involves numerous literature reviewing. However, while turning your thesis to journal article, you must include only limited references that are relevant to the research question addressed in the journal article. Focus on using most recent references. Consider using reference management tools such as Zotero, Mendeley, Quiqqa, etc. to make the referencing process easier and efficient.

It is an academic requirement that you publish your data for the benefit of the scientific community. Considering that the structure of journal article is different from the structure of a thesis, turning a thesis to journal article must be done following logical steps as mentioned above.

Did you ever have to convert your thesis to journal article? How did you plan it? What strategies did you use while reducing the word count of your thesis? Let us know in the comments section below! You can also visit our  Q&A forum  for frequently asked questions related to different aspects of research writing and publishing answered by our team that comprises subject-matter experts, eminent researchers, and publication experts.

I was Searching For This From So Many days. Thank you for Sharing

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

Are we also going to talk Code of Conduct in Research, as authorship is part of the conduct (ethics)?

Regards, Elvia

I guess you are referring to our upcoming webinar on Assigning Authorship & Contributorship | Tips for Researchers. We will be discussing the ethical dilemmas in authorship during the session.

We would request you to register and attend the webinar for additional insights on this topic.

Meanwhile, we would recommend you to share your queries with us on our FREE Q&A forum . In addition, you may download our FREE mobile app to stay updated on the latest resources in research writing and academic publishing.

What about the Topic? we need to rephrase the topic or keep it same with Thesis topic?

Hi Shahid, Thank you for your question. Your thesis topic would be a cumulative title for all the chapters described in your thesis. When you publish your thesis as a journal article, every chapter would be published as an individual article in most cases. You may or may not use the same title that you have used for that particular chapter in the thesis. Your thesis would have chapter names that are more suited to the overall objective of your thesis. On the other hand, your manuscript should ideally have a catchy and search-optimized title highlighting a general perspective. It may not be the same as your thesis title. However, if your thesis chapter title meets the requirement of the manuscript you intend to publish, you can go ahead with the same.

You could also go through our articles on writing good research paper titles: https://www.enago.com/academy/top-10-tips-on-choosing-an-attractive-research-title/ https://www.enago.com/academy/writing-a-good-research-title-things-to-avoid/ https://www.enago.com/academy/write-irresistible-research-paper-title/

Did you get a chance to install our FREE mobile app . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .

Hi Dr. Durga, Amazing article and I am sure it will surely help the writers to write more carefully and also plagiarised free.

Greeting from Enago Academy! Thank you for your positive comment. We are glad to know that you found our resources useful. Your feedback is very valuable to us. Happy reading!

i just read the article and also the comments section it’s so helpful. thank you so much for sharing it.. good work!

Thanks a lot for this informational blog which surely going to help the students pursuing the Phd. Nowdays due to assignment burden students started taking the help of professional academic experts. There are many writing services.

Thank you for the very useful article. I will definitely look into it.

Writing a book: needed advice and help at one point. I found enago academy in my search of Answers. You were a Great Help! I hope to use your services again, if I am stuck on correct writing principles! Thank You for being here. K.R. Plante

This helped me a lot; thank you for this informative article.

Thanks for writing such an informative blog which will surely be a great help for the students as well as the institutions

Great article! One question…. should I cite the thesis in the paper? If so, how do I do that efficiently since it would be all over the place?

good, insightful piece of text.

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How to Share Your Dissertation With a Broader Audience

By  Terry O'Banion

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At long last, you’ve finished your dissertation. But, unfortunately, for all the work you’ve put into it, it may only be read by members of your committee, your editor if you needed one and maybe your mother. Still, ideally, it contains original research that’s important enough to share with other people in your field.

The best way to do that is for you to write an article based on your research for an academic journal or some other venue. You might consider writing scholarly journal articles or more informal editorials, opinion pieces, blog posts and so on for the popular press, which also have value. The research articles carry more weight in academe, however, and are the focus of this essay.

The challenge of writing a research article is that you have had to follow a fairly distinctive formula in preparing the dissertation, and you must abandon that formula in writing the article. But if you believe that colleagues in your field will be interested in your research, you should consider writing an article soon after you pass the final doctoral defense. Waiting too long to write it encourages procrastination, may make your data out of date and may cause any committee member who might volunteer to review your article drafts to lose interest.

Another factor should compel you to write an article soon: as a new doctoral graduate, you have joined a special club of highly educated aspiring leaders in your field, and your committee members, program leaders and others will expect that you will add to the knowledge in your discipline by writing. You have a professional obligation to make this commitment to your mentors and colleagues a reality. And finally, you will have recently learned a great deal about good writing just by completing the dissertation, and it will be helpful for your future success if you continue to improve your skills by continuing to write.

In my own publishing experience, I have written 18 books, 24 monographs and reports, 28 chapters in other books, and more than 200 articles. I have also published three articles from my dissertation and have worked with more than 100 doctoral students in my career as a professor of higher education at the University of Illinois, the University of Texas at Austin, Nova University, Kansas State University and the University of California, Berkeley. I have always encouraged students to write an article or two based on their dissertations, and I am pleased to share what I’ve learned over the years in 10 guidelines.

• Determine if and why an article based on your research is worth publishing. Ask yourself: Is the topic of the dissertation relevant to the important issues in your field? Does your study address an issue in a creative and innovative way? Do your findings answer significant questions? If the conclusions and implications were implemented, would they make a difference in practice? One way to answer some of those questions is to ask a member or two of your dissertation committee to weigh in at the conclusion of your defense.
• Take some time to acquaint yourself with the primary publications in your field. You should have a good start because of the many journals you referenced in your dissertation and the reading you do as part of your work. Identify several journals that seem likely to publish on topics and issues related to the subject of your dissertation. Then, before you even begin thinking about how to write the article, read the guidelines the journal sets for potential writers—format requirements, standards for word length, suggestions for reference guides, abstracts required and the like. You can usually find them on the internet under the title of the journal.
• Trim down your research to a hard core of the most relevant findings. This can be challenging, because you spent so much time addressing all the components required in a dissertation that everything you wrote is important to you. But an article is a compressed version of your study featuring only the key points that will interest a journal editor or potential reader. Be clear whom your audience is for the article, and write in a tone suitable for that audience.
• Consider extracting more than one article from your study. In cases where you have more than one research question, you may be able to write several articles. Your literature review may also lend itself to another piece. In these situations, you may be able to use modified sections on methodology and other components in all the articles you write.
• Make good use of your dissertation abstract. If a journal’s guidelines require an abstract, you only need to modify the one you wrote for the dissertation to ensure it reflects the content of the article. If no abstract is required, you can still use the dissertation abstract—modified, of course—as the introduction to the article. In an introduction, you need to tell readers, as briefly as possible, the purpose and significance of the study so they will understand what to expect and will want to keep reading.
• Determine the most appropriate citations. In a dissertation, the section on a review of the literature is often the longest. In an article, you may include a brief section on the specific literature related to the points in your article, or you may sprinkle relevant quotes and citations throughout the piece.
• Include a section on methodology, but pare it down to the basic essentials. You worked hard on this chapter in your dissertation to make sure you could illustrate to committee members—especially the professor with strong research credentials—your understanding of research methods. In the article, make a case for the research methods you selected to frame the study, and be certain to include pertinent information on participants, sample size, surveys, site selection, interview processes and so on.
• Clearly state your findings and results. This is a key section, as it’s when you answer the reader’s “So what?” or “Where’s the beef?” question. You may use tables to illustrate your answer, but don’t overdo it. A narrative explanation of the findings, in lieu of a complicated table the reader has to interpret, works better.
• Finish with an analysis section where you make meaning for your audience. This is what you have learned and concluded about the topic at hand—accurate, focused, limited to the scope of the context and relevant to the profession. You probably don’t need a section on conclusions if this section is framed appropriately. And you do not need to suggest further research, which is a common element in dissertations but not in journal pieces.
• Be judicious with references. You will have many more references in the dissertation than you will need for the article, because you want to inform your committee that you have covered the subject thoroughly. In the article, you only need to cite references to information specifically in the article and may actually include references to new information not in the dissertation. Since you may have been working on the dissertation for a number of years, you probably know some relevant contemporary quotes and other information you can add. And if your subject is a hot topic, you can undoubtedly add new quotes and information that would make your article as up-to-date as possible.

Final Steps

You should now have a draft of your article, but you still have more to do. Ask a colleague who will be frank with you to review the draft and critique it. A professor on your committee would be an excellent choice as a reviewer. Or if you have colleagues who have published articles, ask one to review yours. Also ask a member of your communications staff to check it for clarity and correct grammar. Secure as much feedback as you can from reliable sources.

After making sure that you comply with all the guidelines of the journal you’ve selected, send the article on its way, but submit only one at a time. Some journals only ask you to send an email with the article attached; others will require you to submit the article through a more complicated process.

Be patient. You may hear from more informal venues in one or two weeks. The more formal and established journals will probably send your article to reviewers in the field, which will take longer. After receiving the reviewers’ critiques, if the editor thinks your article is promising, you will receive those critiques and be asked to edit your article to comply with the recommendations. If the critiques are reasonable to you, send your revised version back as soon as you can. If you think the critiques are not reasonable—and sometimes that’s the case—thank the editor and indicate you will not continue to revise your article.

The important conclusion to reach at this point: do not give up. If you followed the guidelines above, you began this process by determining with input from friends and professional colleagues that your article was worth publishing. So stay with it, and keep revising and sending it to other journals. And if, after a little while, you ultimately decide the effort is not going to achieve the outcome you want for this particular article, then start work on your next one.

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CONVERT YOUR PHD THESIS INTO JOURNAL ARTICLES

Researchers are under immense pressure to publish. Without publications your career will stagnate and you could find yourself unemployed and unemployable. This difficult situation is often described as “Publish or Perish.” A simple way to get early publications is to convert your PhD thesis into journal articles.

There is significant effort involved to publish PhD thesis work, but the vast majority of the work is already done. You reviewed the literature, planned and carried out the experiment, analyzed the data, and made conclusions. However, writing a thesis is different than writing a journal article. In this guide, we offer tips on how to convert your PhD thesis into journal articles.

Is this Self-Plagiarism?

Self-plagiarism is the reuse of one’s own work. Journals are very active in preventing this type of academic fraud. Logically you are wondering whether converting your thesis into journal articles is indeed self-plagiarism.

Though each journal will have their own specific take on this, generally this is not considered self-plagiarism. In most cases, the copyright for a thesis remains with you, the author. Additionally, the journal articles will be substantially different from your thesis. You may combine chapters, update the literature cited, change the scope to reflect the journal’s audience, and significantly rewrite the text.

It is best practice to cite your thesis, where appropriate, in your journal articles. Also, be up front with the editor when you submit your paper and tell them that you converted portions of your PhD thesis into the article. They can offer guidance.

Experimental Chapters

A good place to start your conversion is to look at each experimental chapter – the chapters describing your methods and research findings. Often, each experimental chapter can be a standalone research article. Reread each experimental chapter and determine if there is enough data to be a research article. If not, try combining experimental chapters together until you have a good enough ‘story’ to be a research article.

Next, you will need to convert these thesis chapters in the actual research articles. Journals have a rigid structure that must be followed. Typically:

Introduction Materials and Methods Results Discussion Conclusions

Journals also have strict word limits, therefore it is likely that you will need to cut out a lot of text during the conversion. Update the introduction and discussion with relevant information and citations to the target audience of the journal. Often, thesis chapters can include very basic information. Know your audience and write for them. Also remember to be concise.

If you are combining experimental chapters, remove redundancies, especially in the materials and methods, results, and discussion. Convert text into figures and tables where you can. Update existing figures and tables to conform with the journal guidelines and to include combined data from the multiple chapters. Be mindful of any figure and table limits of your target journal.

Literature Review

An often overlooked place to convert your thesis into journal articles is the literature review chapter. A lot of effort went into researching the relevant literature for your thesis work. Your academic supervisors and thesis committee members benefitted from reading your literature review, and other researchers in your field can too. You can turn this chapter into a standalone research article – a review article.

First, determine which portions of your literature are relevant. For example, if your thesis focused on a novel experimental method to measure X, then it could make sense to write a literature review about all techniques that measure X – including yours.

Next, pull out the relevant portions of your thesis and use them to form an outline for your literature review article. Modify the text to match your target audience (the journal audience). You will likely identify gaps in your outline. Research the current literature and fill them.

A PhD thesis can have many different reference sources, such as journal articles, books, conference proceedings, and dissertations. Be sure to update your references to include mainly peer-reviewed journal articles.

Publications are usually all that matters to advance your career as a researcher. A good place to start publishing is to convert your thesis into journal articles. By following this guide, you can take your experimental chapters, and your literature review and turn them into published journal articles.

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The sengi team is led by dr. brad hall, a vision scientist and expert medical writer. a regular peer reviewer for several medical and ophthalmology journals, dr. hall has authored a multitude of articles personally, is a successful grant writer, medical writer, and master of the art of simplifying data and statistical analysis. since launching in 2015, sengi has provided medical writing and biostatistics analysis expertise to smbs and researchers around the world that lacked the necessary means to share their scientific breakthroughs outside of the lab. sengi’s work has enabled these companies to put advanced technology into the hands of those who need them most..

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• Knowledge Base
• How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

How to Write a Thesis Statement | 4 Steps & Examples

Published on January 11, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on August 15, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan.

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . It usually comes near the end of your introduction .

Your thesis will look a bit different depending on the type of essay you’re writing. But the thesis statement should always clearly state the main idea you want to get across. Everything else in your essay should relate back to this idea.

You can write your thesis statement by following four simple steps:

• Start with a question
• Write your initial answer
• Develop your answer
• Refine your thesis statement

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Table of contents

What is a thesis statement, placement of the thesis statement, step 1: start with a question, step 2: write your initial answer, step 3: develop your answer, step 4: refine your thesis statement, types of thesis statements, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about thesis statements.

A thesis statement summarizes the central points of your essay. It is a signpost telling the reader what the essay will argue and why.

The best thesis statements are:

• Concise: A good thesis statement is short and sweet—don’t use more words than necessary. State your point clearly and directly in one or two sentences.
• Contentious: Your thesis shouldn’t be a simple statement of fact that everyone already knows. A good thesis statement is a claim that requires further evidence or analysis to back it up.
• Coherent: Everything mentioned in your thesis statement must be supported and explained in the rest of your paper.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

The thesis statement generally appears at the end of your essay introduction or research paper introduction .

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts and among young people more generally is hotly debated. For many who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education: the internet facilitates easier access to information, exposure to different perspectives, and a flexible learning environment for both students and teachers.

You should come up with an initial thesis, sometimes called a working thesis , early in the writing process . As soon as you’ve decided on your essay topic , you need to work out what you want to say about it—a clear thesis will give your essay direction and structure.

You might already have a question in your assignment, but if not, try to come up with your own. What would you like to find out or decide about your topic?

For example, you might ask:

After some initial research, you can formulate a tentative answer to this question. At this stage it can be simple, and it should guide the research process and writing process .

Now you need to consider why this is your answer and how you will convince your reader to agree with you. As you read more about your topic and begin writing, your answer should get more detailed.

In your essay about the internet and education, the thesis states your position and sketches out the key arguments you’ll use to support it.

The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its many benefits for education because it facilitates easier access to information.

In your essay about braille, the thesis statement summarizes the key historical development that you’ll explain.

The invention of braille in the 19th century transformed the lives of blind people, allowing them to participate more actively in public life.

A strong thesis statement should tell the reader:

• Why you hold this position
• What they’ll learn from your essay
• The key points of your argument or narrative

The final thesis statement doesn’t just state your position, but summarizes your overall argument or the entire topic you’re going to explain. To strengthen a weak thesis statement, it can help to consider the broader context of your topic.

These examples are more specific and show that you’ll explore your topic in depth.

Your thesis statement should match the goals of your essay, which vary depending on the type of essay you’re writing:

• In an argumentative essay , your thesis statement should take a strong position. Your aim in the essay is to convince your reader of this thesis based on evidence and logical reasoning.
• In an expository essay , you’ll aim to explain the facts of a topic or process. Your thesis statement doesn’t have to include a strong opinion in this case, but it should clearly state the central point you want to make, and mention the key elements you’ll explain.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:

• It gives your writing direction and focus.
• It gives the reader a concise summary of your main point.

Without a clear thesis statement, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say.

Follow these four steps to come up with a thesis statement :

• Ask a question about your topic .
• Write your initial answer.
• Develop your answer by including reasons.
• Refine your answer, adding more detail and nuance.

The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction .

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Netflix: Current Valuation Already Reflects Continuous Positive Momentum, Hold Confirmed

• Netflix once again saw strong subscriber growth. However, most of the new users have paid sharing accounts.
• We've slightly raised our EBITDA forecasts due to a reduction in other gross cash expenses and minor changes in revenue forecasts.
• The Company will stop disclosing the number of paid accounts in FY2025. We believe the company is reaching the upper limit of TAM penetration in developed markets.
• Cloud gaming could potentially benefit Netflix, adding $23 per share to our price target. However, current gaming efforts remain financially immaterial.
• We're neutral on NFLX after the latest earnings release and on current market valuations, and we maintain our Hold rating.

Investment Thesis

Despite these positive results, we expect growth to slow due to high penetration in developed regions, particularly North America, where Netflix ( NASDAQ: NFLX ) has almost reached a plateau. The company's decision to stop disclosing paid subscriber numbers in FY2025 signals its recognition of this saturation. In addition, Netflix's potential entry into the cloud gaming market, while an upside opportunity, remains speculative without a clear go-to-market strategy. Given these factors, we believe that Netflix's current market valuation reflects a fair assessment of its growth prospects and challenges.

Q2 FY2024 earnings summary, revenue forecast update

We've been covering Netflix in Seeking Alpha since 2022. Our previous article can be found here . The 2Q 2024 report is generally in line with our expectations, with EBITDA slightly ahead of the forecast and FCF below due to elevated content spending.

• Revenue amounted to $9 559 mln (+16.8% YoY) vs. our forecast of $9 504 mln and consensus of $9 530 mln which was slightly above our expectations.
• The company's adjusted EBITDA amounted to $6 454 mln (+21.2% YoY) vs. our forecast of $6 123 mln, which also met our estimates. Advertising and development expenses are growing at a lower rate than we expected, which caused a 5% deviation.
• Free cash flow for the period totaled $1 213 mln versus our forecast of $1 503 mln due to deviation in the forecast of content investments for the period from actual figures.

The company continued to boost the number of subscribers (net inflow amounted to 8.04 mln accounts), while ARPU dynamics continue to be mixed:

• In North America, the figure climbed to $17.17 (+7.3% YoY). Ad-supported subscription versions remain a strong driver of financial results amid a strong recovery in marketing budgets.
• On the global market, the indicator amounted to $9.22 (-2.6% YoY). The strengthening of the dollar against global currencies and especially the devaluation of the Argentine peso put pressure on the average subscription price. Nevertheless, we see Netflix considering currency exchange rates in pricing and assume that the indicator will return to a healthy growth rate in the coming year.

We have made minor adjustments to the revenue forecast to reflect the more significant effect of currency exchange rates, as well as subscriber and ARPU dynamics in the regions. We almost unchanged our revenue forecast in 2024, revising it upwards from $38 836 mln (+15.2% YoY) to $38 844 mln (+15.2% YoY), but slightly revised it downwards in 2025, from $44 287 mln (+14.0% YoY) to $44 210 mln (+13.8% YoY).

Invest Heroes

The management has shared its guidance for Q3 2024. The company sees next quarter's revenue at $9 727 mln (+13.9% y/y) and operating margin of 28.1%. The company's projections are generally consistent with our forecasts.

OPEX Outlook & EBITDA projections

From a cost perspective, we have made a few changes to the forecast:

• We have revised downwards our forecast for other gross cash costs from $6 222mln (+13% YoY) to $6 100mln (+11% YoY) for 2024 and from $8 201mln (+32% YoY) to $7 501mln (+23% YoY) in 2025. We see that despite the expansion of the target audience, content library and available regions, the cost growth rate remains below expectations.
• We have revised upwards our content investment forecast from $16 497 mln (+31.4% YoY) to $17 035 mln (+35.7% YoY) for 2024 and from $17 049 mln (+3.3% YoY) to $17 383 mln (+2.0% YoY) in 2025, in line with management's expectations . Although the business has already entered the value stage, Netflix plans to maintain the target level for the amount of content it produces.

We have therefore revised upwards our forecast for adjusted EBITDA from $24 892 mln (+15.7% YoY) to $25 113 mln (+16.8% YoY) for 2024 and from $27 503 mln (+10.5% YoY) to $27 877 mln (+11.0% YoY) for 2025.

Due to the downward revision of forecast for other gross costs, we have revised downwards our forecast for adjusted EBITDA from $24 202 mln (+12.5% YoY) to $24 892 mln (+15.7% YoY) for 2024 and from $27 052 mln (+11.8% YoY) to $27 503 mln (+10.5% YoY) for 2025.

As a result of the increase in the content investment forecast, the free cash flow forecast was revised downwards from $6 544 mln (-6% YoY) to $6 048 mln (-13% YoY) for 2024, but upwards from $8 053 mln (+23% YoY) to $8 096 mln (+34% YoY) for 2025.

Penetration rates are coming to ceiling levels. What's next?

As mentioned in the Q1 FY2024 shareholder letter , Netflix will stop reporting paid subscribers in FY2025 and will only report regional revenue streams. We believe that the main reason why the company wants to stop reporting is the slowdown in growth in developed markets. In particular, in North America, NFLX has reached a total penetration rate of almost 25%. And when Netflix started to monetise sharing accounts, the penetration rate increased after a period of stagnation.

FRED, Company data

We believe that the company will still be able to maintain customer growth in developed markets, but has almost reached a plateau in developed UCAN & EMEA, as most of the sharing audience has already been converted into subscribers.

However, Netflix is considering entering the cloud gaming market in the future. We've made a rough estimate of the potential financial upside from the gaming division, depending on the ARPU ($7.50 - $15/month) and the cross-selling rate of paid subscribers (15% - 30% of total). On average, the gaming division adds $23/share to the current price target.

Currently, Netflix only uses gaming as a user retention feature (free downloads from the Apple Store, mobile games, etc.), so the segment remains immaterial to the company's financials. The projected upside should only be considered as an option, as there's no clear path in terms of go-to-market strategy and monetization.

We're evaluating NFLX target share price based on FTM EV/EBITDA multiple.

We set the target price of the shares at $602 due to:

• upward revision of the forecast for adjusted EBITDA in 2024-2025;
• shift in FTM estimate (previously we included EBITDA guidance for the next 12 months, from Q2 2024 to Q1 2025, now the forecast period shifts to Q3 2024-Q2 2025).

Based on the new assumptions, we are maintaining the rating for the company at HOLD.

Despite several healthy earnings reports in a row and dominating the global streaming market, we believe Netflix has almost reached its full potential. Although there is still room for growth in emerging markets, it may be difficult for Netflix to grow in developed markets after the shift to paid sharing. Current share prices are fair, and we believe investors could focus on other market opportunities.

To manage your position, we suggest keeping an eye on Netflix's financial statements and industry research (JustWatch, Nielsen, Parrot).

This article was written by

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

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