As a postgraduate student, you might have opportunities to publish your work either during your thesis or once your programme is completed.
Publication is often seen as the next step in your academic career if you intend to follow this path.
Depending on disciplinary conventions, these publications can be as part of a team which might include your supervisor, or as the sole author of the publication.
As you start to consider publishing your work, you will have to consider a range of questions.
It might be important to consider disciplinary norms to answer the question about format. You could try to use a dissemination/ publication strategy. You could use the Publication Planner provided by jobs.ac.uk as a starting point.
You might want to read our guide on publishing your research.
Our Intellectual Property policy states that student retain intellectual property rights on their work. However, there might be some exceptions, for instance if the work was commissioned by the university. You also need to consider whether the thesis was sponsored or funded by a funder with a claim on the intellectual property.
If you do not own the copyright to all the content, you might not be able to include that content in a publications without seeking permission. For instance, if you have included third-party images, graphs, maps, diagrams, etc. You will need to seek permission. Most publishers will state that it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission for third-party material. You can refer to the section of the guide on using third-party material for your thesis. Even if you have obtained permission to include the items in your thesis, you will need to seek a new permission to include it in a further publication.
In addition, if you are planning to apply for a patent based on your work, you should delay any communication about your research until the patent has been awarded.
You will need to seek advice from your supervisors or peers on the process of turning a PhD into a book or an article. A book can take several years but might be expected in your field. An article can be quicker. However, publishers will rarely accepted material taken straight out of a PhD without some substantial adaptation. This is because the publication will have a different purpose to a PhD. Your thesis was written for the purpose of the examination and obtaining a degree.
The choice of publication type, venue and publisher will influence the way in which you need to adapt your thesis. For instance, journals will have specific topics and subject areas that they publish in. Book publishers might have specific book series that your work could fit into. In all cases, you will need to respect word count given by the publishers or editors, think about the audience you will be writing for (this can range from specialised to generalist or interdisciplinary audiences).
In addition to thinking about how much work a submission for publication might entail, you need to think about how you will balance this requirement against other commitments such as looking for a job, completing post-doctoral work, teaching or other professional activity, family.
If you need to rework your thesis, you might need to think about whether you can still access your data for that new purpose and if you have sufficient permissions from participants to use the data for publication. See our guidance on Research Data Management.
You might be worried that having your thesis Open Access might mean that you cannot get the work published.
It will be important to check the publishers' policy on prior publication.
Students often ask for an embargo on their thesis, because they intend to publish their work. If publishing all or part of your thesis is an important next step for you, you should contact your intended publisher early to understand their position and provide evidence if you need to apply for an embargo on that basis.
Many publishers are members of the Committee on Publications Ethics (CoPE).
This means that they should have clear policies to stating what "counts as prepublication that will preclude consideration. What constitutes plagiarism and redundant/overlapping publication should be specified." CoPE Policy on Intellectual Property
CoPE' s position is that:
'Generally, a thesis consists solely of unpublished work and if the author owns the copyright, they may subsequently publish thesis material regardless of whether the thesis is freely available via a university’s or research institution’s repository or has a licence allowing reuse (such as a Creative Commons licence). If any part of the thesis has coauthors, they must be in agreement with the decision to submit it for publication. The thesis should be acknowledged as the source of the work and cited in the publication.'
If your thesis is by publication, the advice is different as the work was already published:
'A second type of thesis (thesis by publication) consists, in whole or part, of papers that have already been published in academic journals. Such papers cannot be republished as original work, and secondary publication can occur only with the express permission of both the original journal/publisher and new journal. If the prior publication is covered by a Creative Commons licence, the conditions of that licence should be followed.'
Some publishers will states clearly whether they consider open access PhD theses as prior publications. You should check the information on their website or contact them if you are unsure.
"We understand that authors and institutions appreciate clarity on publisher policies on prior publication and how these might sit alongside institutional requirements for authors to deposit their e-theses.
To avoid any doubt, Elsevier does not count publication of an academic thesis as prior publication. You can find further information on our policy regarding prior publications here >> or view the summary below.
Elsevier Policy on prior publication
Elsevier welcomes submissions from authors and will consider these for publication where work has not previously been published and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Elsevier does not view the following prior uses of a work as prior publication:
For more details see their website Clarification of our policy on prior publication
Further information for each journal can be found in individual journal's Guide for Authors.
"Most dissertations and theses posted in institutional archives
Excerpts or material from your dissertation that have not been through peer review will generally be eligible for publication. However, if the excerpt from the dissertation included in your manuscript is the same or substantially the same as any previously published work, the editor may determine that it is not suitable for publication in the journal."
See Sage's website for more details on prior publication policy
"The following types of “prior publication” do not present cause for concerns about duplicate or redundant publication (see also the information in these guidelines on preprints):
For more information, see the Wiley Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics. The section on 'Duplicate or redundant publication"