How to publish articles from a thesis for a complete novice

[allegretto]

I recently finished and was awarded my PhD in Modern Languages. I would now like to use it to publish some articles in journals but really don't know where to start. I know this is a skill I should have already acquired, but for various reasons (distance learning student, two babies while studying, imposter syndrome blah, blah) I never got round to it. Could anyone give me any pointers (websites, advice?) on what I should be doing?

Here are a few questions I have_

• do I approach a journal with a completed article or with an idea?
• can an article only be sent to one journal at a time?
• my examiner suggested rewriting the thesis as a book rather than as articles. Is this better? Does it have to be one or the other? (I am not sure I could face it at the moment but if I leave it the data will all be out of date).
• I work in a university in a non -research role (so not even sure this is going to be of any use to me in the future but don't want to lose out just in case!) Should I include the name of the university where I work now, or where I did the PhD.

Thanks for any insights!

I'm in English/History, but I'm pretty sure some of these are the same anywhere.

1. Completed article. Each journal will have info for how it wants its submissions, tucked away on the website - most will want an abstract; most will specify the conventions for references; some will give an indication of the length. The journal will also have a blurb about what it sees as its own specific area, so tailor your article to that blurb so it's clear how it fits in.

2. Yes, always one journal at a time. Many journals ask you to confirm on submission that the piece isn't under consideration elsewhere.

3. A book is important for REF, but if you're not keen to go on in academia I would think it doesn't matter either way - it's what you care about. You can do both, though - it's quite common for someone to publish an article or two, which are the same material as parts of a forthcoming book. What you don't want to do, though, is to pick out and journal-publish so much good stuff from the book that it's not very exciting to publishers any more.

4. I don't understand this question. Include where?

There's a good book by William Germano, called 'Dissertation to Book'. It's very short, and it is US-centric with a couple of irritating points that don't make sense for the UK market, but it's excellent in terms of telling you about publishing conventions and talking about how to rewrite the thesis into a book (or whether to do that, or to do journal articles). I love it.

Thank you, that's really helpful. For no. 4 I meant in the biographical information you supply along with the author's name e.g. Dr Allegretto, University of...

Oh, I see. You include the university you're at, but if you were submitting a book proposal, you'd usually have a long covering bit which will include the thesis title. So you'd include the awarding institution there.