Publishing during a PhD

[ringstrawpot]

I'm about half-way through a humanities PhD. I'm writing a theoretical monograph. I'd be grateful for advice relating to publishing.

1. I want to start publishing but am struggling to work out how: my research builds through my chapters (meaning their individual full value only becomes clear at the end) and does not include any novel empirical research (although it refers to the studies of others). I also haven't yet reached my final conclusion, so can't even use this.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? What did you do?

1. I'm aware of how long it takes to get anything published (or even hear that an article isn't going to be published). Did others work on multiple papers to up the odds? Or just focus on one and wait for an answer?

1. I have an MA dissertation which got a very good grade, based on long-form interviews. This was 2+ years ago now though so I'm presuming this data is out of date if I wanted to convert it into a new paper?

I'd be grateful for advice: my situation is a little unique so I don't really have contacts in real-life to ask.

I'm in social sciences and I've nearly always (bar two articles) published using empirical data so bear that in mind...

As a PhD student, I'd work on writing one paper at a time and focus on impact and contribution to the field. Remember quality over quantity - one four-star publication is much better than four one-star publications.

That's not to say you should only publish one paper during your PhD, you might have other ideas in mind. But write one at a time and concentrate on embedding and evidencing originality, significance and rigour - these are the criteria papers are judged on for REF.

Once you have submitted that first one, you could then start on the next one while you wait for an answer. But this, of course, needs to be balanced with writing your PhD as well.

I'm not too familiar with the thesis structure you're talking about of a building argument, no empirical data etc. But if you find that you have a lot to say but not enough for a full monograph, or you don't want to wait until after your PhD to get going on a monograph, then publishing companies do shorter book versions (25-50K words) which could work well. Here's Palgrave Pivot as an example: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/campaigns/palgrave-pivot

Most definitely think about publishing your MA dissertation. Data two years old isn't out of date at all as long as you're not talking about a rapidly changing field or population. I'm currently writing two papers - one based on data from 2020, one based on data from 2019. I would get in touch with your MA supervisor about it, but do some legwork before approaching them - scope out some potential journals and even potentially put a draft together in the right format (i.e. journal word length, standard sections etc.). Again, this needs to be balanced with writing up the PhD.

I would also talk to your PhD supervisor about your thoughts/plans for publications. S/he should be able to give you more specific advice.

Thank you so much!!

I agree with all that @KStockHERO has written.

One additional thing: This might not work in your field, but in my (social science) department, many PhD students spend most of their first year reviewing literature, and often submit this as a review-paper to a journal. I don't know if that is something that could work for you?

I got my lit review published partway through my doctorate. Could you think about that as an option?
It is helpful to get something published on the way through as it establishes that your work is publishable.

The lit review is a good idea. Is the basic goal of that a summary piece (topic A is looked at by X) or a ‘finding the gap’ exercise (this needs to be researched further…)? Or both?!

From what you say, it sounds as though you’re not ready to publish anything, if you can’t conceptualise the argument of your thesis as a whole. Focus on writing your thesis.

Do you regularly attend conferences and get involved with scholarly associations in your area? How are you testing your work in progress? These are ways to prepare material for publication. Research doesn’t happen in isolation.

I did a systematic review which pulled together key lit from across the topic and helpfully highlighted the gaps in existing lit that I then focused my data analysis on. I would talk with your supervisors about writing an article, they should be willing to support and guide and, crucially, should be the people to best judge if you're at the stage of having enough to get a decent article from.

I know the argument and I know what I want to say, but I haven’t yet written all the chapters / had them checked by my supervisor. So I can’t yet publish on the whole thing since it could contain an error I haven’t yet seen or mean previous chapters need reworking. And without the final chapters the previous ones are more like building blocks (albeit providing novel ideas) rather than theories in their own right. So I’m struggling to see what I can publish from it during the PhD process. Does that make sense?

I have started attending conferences and in relevant groups. My situation is a bit unique: I am registered at a foreign uni but have had to move back to the UK for personal reasons and so am needing to build all my connections here.

Yes, I think the MA dissertation if it makes a contribution to the field and a review piece would be a good starting point. But your supervisors should be giving you advice.

Do you know anyone who can give you feedback on the dissertation and how best to turn it into an article? I used to be a journal editor and we did get sometimes what were obviously MA dissertations not sufficiently worked up to article standard. So you do need to be clear about the contribution of the work and how to turn it into an article. Don’t just tweak around the edges and send off.