how to convert a Ph.D. thesis into journal article
Journal Publication guide

How to convert a Ph.D. thesis into a journal article

Publishing a research paper is an important part of any researcher. Most of the researcher faces difficulties while writing a research paper from their thesis. So, here we will discuss how to convert a Ph.D. thesis into journal article.

How to convert a Ph.D. thesis into journal article?

Turing your thesis into a research paper could be the start of your publishing career. So writing a research paper from the thesis is not just copy and paste. You need to understand the audience of a thesis and research paper is different.

Why do you need to convert a Ph.D. thesis into journal articles?

Let us know why you need to convert it.

Better career enhancement

Writing a thesis is a long term process. Publishing a research paper will enhance your career. The research paper will bring you larger visibility of your research work.

So you need to convert your thesis into a research paper to get ready to publish in a journal.

Recognition

As we discussed publishing a research paper brings larger visibility of your research work. This also brings recognition.

Publishing a paper in a good and reputed International journal brings a good reputation.

Difference between a thesis and a journal article.

Both the thesis and Journal article represent the research work you have done but here are some of the major differences.

  Thesis Journal
Used for Completing your academic degree. Professors/Academic committees read to evaluate your research work. Enhancing your career. Bring career recognization. Mostly used by researchers, scientists, or scholars who are doing research on the same field.
Length Generally long, having 20000 words or 50 to 100 pages. Generally short around 6000 words or in between 5 to 10 pages depends on the particular journal’s format
Discussion and representation In details of the discussion. This demonstrates the details procedure, data, results Etc. Precise and clear representation of results. Clear discussion of key findings and directly address the research objective.

Several differences and importance are there of publishing a research paper and thesis. So now let see how to turn your dissertation into journal articles.

Also read: Manuscript structure: How to convey your most important ideas through your paper

How to turn your dissertation into journal articles?

Most of the research papers follow a common structure known as IMRAD. The structure follows the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion and conclusion. Here are the steps you can follow

Step-1

  • Complete the Pre-righting procedure: Before writing the journal you need to complete the thesis writing.
  • Collect or highlight all the important information from the thesis.
  • Make sure all tables, data presentation and images are in the proper format.

Step-2

  • Search and select the journal where you want to publish your paper.
  • Get the paper writing information/sample paper of that journal.
  • Start with the Introduction of the paper. Make sure that the introduction must be very precise and to the point. 
  • Your thesis may contain more than a research gap and question but in the journal, you need to present one only.
  • The literature review must be short and only contain the major points.

Step-3

  • Research method: You need to restrict yourself while writing the methods and include a more controlled discussion of the research approach and methodology.
  • A comprehensive discussion of the research approach and the detailed experiment procedure is not required to be written.

Step-4

  • Results: The thesis may contain all the results but the journal paper only contains the result which is very important.
  • Highlight those results which are the most important so that it will be easy to understand by the reader.
  • Use figures, graphs, and tables to represent your result.
  • You may include the Secondary findings as to the supplementary information.

Step-5

  • Conclusion and references:  A poor conclusion may harm even the best work, while a good one can leave a great aftertaste and make the reader want to examine the subject further.
  • You need to remind the audience what your research is about.
  •  The conclusion of the research paper should be within 150 words.
  • The conclusion is the summary of the paper so do not write your points again in the conclusion.
  • Do not write any personal opinion about the research you have done.
  • Write the references according to the journal’s format. Try to include and cite the most recent journal papers and articles.
  • Write the abstract of the paper at the end of the paper writing. Most people do the mistake while writing the abstract at the beginning.
  • But you must write the abstract at the end of the paper. The position of the abstract must be before the introduction part.

Manuscript editing services

You can also take the help of manuscript editing services. Manuscript editing services are the most essential services for an author to get your paper published in top journals. 

Final words

Writing a research paper is easy if you follow the above steps. We hope you liked the discussion about how to convert a Ph.D. thesis into journal articles