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Publishing a Master’s Thesis: A Guide for Novice Authors

Robert g. resta.

1 Swedish Cancer Institute, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA USA

Patricia McCarthy Veach

2 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN USA

Sarah Charles

3 Jefferson Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA USA

Kristen Vogel

4 Center for Medical Genetics, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL USA

Terri Blase

5 Department of Maternal Fetal Medicine, Advocate Christ Medical Center, Oak Lawn, IL USA

Christina G. S. Palmer

6 Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA

7 Department of Human Genetics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA

8 UCLA Semel Institute, 760 Westwood Plaza, Room 47-422, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA

Publication of original research, clinical experiences, and critical reviews of literature are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field, delivery of genetic counseling services, and professional development of genetic counselors. Busy clinical schedules, lack of time and funding, and training that emphasizes clinical skills over research skills may make it difficult for new genetic counselors to turn their thesis projects into publications. This paper summarizes and elaborates upon a presentation aimed at de-mystifying the publishing process given at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Education Conference. Specific topics include familiarizing prospective authors, particularly genetic counseling students, with the basics of the publication process and related ethical considerations. Former students’ experiences with publishing master’s theses also are described in hopes of encouraging new genetic counselors to submit for publication papers based on their thesis projects.

Introduction

Scholarship is important for growth of a profession and for clinical care. For these reasons, the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) endorses scholarly activities through Practice Based Competency IV.5 (American Board of Genetic Counseling 2009 ). Boyer ( 1990 ) describes four types of scholarship (Scholarship of Discovery, Scholarship of Integration, Scholarship of Application, and Scholarship of Teaching), all of which are endorsed by ABGC and required of accredited genetic counseling training programs. The first three types of scholarship, which involve generating new knowledge or applying existing knowledge to an important problem, are the basis of the ABGC’s requirement that students in accredited programs engage in scholarship and complete a scholarly product. The ABGC defines a scholarly product to include: a master’s thesis, an independent research project, a literature review/case report, a formal needs assessment, design and implementation of an innovative patient, professional, or community educational program, and/or preparation of a grant proposal.

The purpose of this article is to encourage students to disseminate their scholarly work (except grant proposals) through a journal publication. This article was developed from an Educational Breakout Session (EBS) at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Education Conference and draws upon the experiences of a past editor and current assistant editor of the Journal of Genetic Counseling ( JOGC ), a student mentor, and recent genetic counseling graduates who successfully turned their student thesis projects into peer-reviewed publications.

Engaging in scholarship is important for increasing genetic counselors’ self-knowledge, but dissemination of scholarship is essential for the growth of the genetic counseling field. McGaghie and Webster ( 2009 ) identify a wide range of types of scholarly products that promote broad dissemination of information, including peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g., original research, case reports, review articles), book chapters, books or monographs, edited books, essays, editorials, book reviews, letters, conference reports, educational materials, reports of teaching practices, curriculum description, videos, simulations, simulators, and web-based tutorials. As evidence of the importance of disseminating scholarship to the field of genetic counseling, dissemination of scholarly products is actively promoted by the NSGC, the major professional organization for the genetic counseling profession. A prominent example of NSGC’s commitment to dissemination is the JOGC , a professional journal devoted to disseminating peer-reviewed information relevant to the practice of genetic counseling. The success of this journal over nearly two decades is a strong indicator of the value genetic counselors place on publishing journal articles as an essential product of scholarship.

Individuals who have completed a master’s thesis or equivalent should consider publication. This “call to publish” student work is based on evidence that a large proportion of students engage in a scholarly activity with publication potential. A recent survey of 531 genetic counselors suggests that 75% of respondents fulfilled their scholarly activity requirement via a master’s thesis (Clark et al. 2006 ). Among this group, 21% classified their thesis as “hypothesis driven” and 20% classified it as a “descriptive study.” Although the research may be relatively small scale given the time and resource constraints of short training programs (≤2 years), it nonetheless offers a rich and varied source of information about the practice of genetic counseling that could be shared with the broader community through publication. Yet Clark et al. ( 2006 ) found that only 21.6% of respondents who completed a master’s thesis had submitted a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It appears that many students do not submit their research for professional publication, perhaps due to a combination of time constraints, lack of mentoring and support, unfamiliarity with the publication process, lack of professional confidence, and fear of rejection (Clark et al. 2006 ; Cohen et al. 2008 ; Driscoll and Driscoll 2002 ; Keen 2006 ). Because this is one aspect of scholarship that has received limited attention, guidance regarding the details and vicissitudes of the publication process, and acknowledgement that master’s theses can be successfully published, are needed.

Of course, one might question why students should or would publish the results of their graduate work. The answer is complex, without a “one size fits all,” because scholarship can be intrinsically and/or extrinsically motivated. McGaghie and Webster ( 2009 ) describe intrinsic motives as including sharing knowledge, career advancement, status improvement, collegial approval, personal pleasure, and response to challenge; extrinsic motives include academic pressure, commitment to patient care, practice improvement, and promoting the use of new technologies. Although the reasons genetic counselors publish articles have not been empirically evaluated, Clark et al. ( 2006 ) (i) concluded that a substantial number of genetic counselors consider active involvement in research (a form of scholarship and precursor to publication) to be a core role, and (ii) found that respondents endorsed a range of intrinsic and extrinsic motives for their involvement in research. These reasons included interest in the subject, contributing to the field, personal development/satisfaction, diversifying job responsibilities, job requirements, lack of existing research on a particular topic, and career advancement. It is reasonable to infer that these reasons would extend to publication as well.

The work that culminates in a master’s thesis provides the basis for a professional journal article. However, writing a professional journal article differs from writing a master’s thesis. This article, therefore, provides practical ideas and considerations about the process for developing a master’s thesis into a peer-reviewed journal article and describes successful case examples. Research and publication occur in stages and include many important topics. Previous genetic counseling professional development articles have partially or comprehensively addressed the topics of developing and conducting a research project (Beeson 1997 ), writing a manuscript (Bowen 2003 ), and the peer-review process (Weil 2004 ). This paper expands on previous articles by describing the publication process and discussing publication ethics, with emphasis on aspects pertinent to publishing a master’s thesis. It is hoped that this article will encourage genetic counselors to publish their research.

The primary audience for this article is genetic counselors who are conducting a master’s thesis or equivalent or who completed a thesis in the last few years which remains unpublished. The secondary audience is other novice authors and affiliated faculty of genetic counseling training programs. Although the focus of this paper is on journal publications which are subject to a peer-review process (e.g., original research, clinical reports, and reviews), some of the basic information applies to a variety of publishing forms.

The Publication Process

Publish before it perishes.

Like produce and dairy products, data have a limited shelf life. Research results may be rendered marginal by new research, social changes, and shifts in research trends. For example, a study of patient reluctance to undergo genetic testing due to concerns about health insurance discrimination conducted in December 2007 would have been obsolete when the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (Pub.L. 110–233, 122 Stat. 881, enacted May 21, 2008) was enacted 5 months later. Or studies of whether patients think they might undergo testing if a gene for a particular condition were identified become less relevant once the gene is actually mapped and sequenced.

The hardest part about writing is actually writing. Making the time to sit down and compose a report of research findings is a very difficult first step. As noted in the three case examples, this is particularly true for a recent graduate whose time is occupied with searching for a new job, moving to a new city, and learning the details of a new job. However, the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes, and the greater the risk that your data will grow stale. If you do not write it, the paper will likely not get written. The three case examples identify strong mentorship, ongoing communication with co-authors, constructive criticism, and commitment to publication by every author as key elements for successfully preparing a manuscript. The following sections describe basic processes for preparing a paper. See also Table  1 for helpful references about technical aspects of manuscript preparation.

Table 1

Selected Resources For Manuscript Preparation

Choosing a Journal

Research delivered to an inappropriate audience is ignored. Many journals publish genetic counseling research—as demonstrated by the three case examples—and therefore, choosing the right journal is critical (Thompson 2007 ). The first step is to decide who the audience should be. Is it important to reach genetic counselors? Medical geneticists? Or is the audience outside of the genetic counseling community? Some genetic counseling research is of interest to researchers in patient education, decision-making, or the social sciences. Clinicians such as surgeons, radiology technicians, psychologists, and family practice physicians might benefit from a greater understanding of genetic counseling and how it interfaces with their specialties.

The next step is to decide whether the journal is interested in the type of research conducted. For example, does the journal publish articles mostly on medical and clinical issues? Does it publish qualitative research? A description of the scope, aims, and types of research that are published is located in the “Instructions to Contributors” section on the web page of most journals. A look at the journal’s editorial board might also provide a good idea of a journal’s theoretical approaches, philosophical orientation, and research interests. Another strategy is to contact the journal’s editor or a member of the editorial board prior to submitting a manuscript to discuss the appropriateness of the manuscript for the journal. Many editors welcome such pre-submission contact since it reduces their workload of reading inappropriate manuscripts.

A journal’s “impact factor” may be important to some authors when considering where to publish a manuscript. The impact factor is a—perhaps imperfect—statistical measure of a journal’s importance. The impact factor was developed in the early 1960s by Eugene Garfield and Irving Sher and is technically defined as A/B, where A = the number of times articles published in that journal were cited and B = the number of citable articles published by the journal (letters and editorials are not usually citable articles) (Garfield 1994 ). An impact factor of one indicates that on average, articles published in the journal were cited once by other authors.

A journal’s impact factor can vary greatly from year to year, and its practical utility is widely debated (Andersen et al. 2006 ; Chew et al. 2006 ; Greenwood 2007 ; Ha et al. 2006 ; The PLoS Medicine Editors 2006 ). Genetic counselors often publish small studies and case reports. The journals that might publish such papers usually have impact factors of ten or less. Thus the impact factor may be a less important consideration for many genetic counselors when deciding where to publish.

A publisher’s copyright policy may also influence the choice of where to publish. The majority of publishers own the copyright (United States Copyright Office 2008 ) and authors do not have the right to copy, re-use, or distribute their own publications without buying reprints, which can be a significant source of income for publishers. Some journals, like the Public Library of Science (PLoS), are completely Open Access and make all articles fully available online. Other journals have Delayed Open Access, which makes articles publicly available after a specified period of time, often a year or two. Many journals, such as the JOGC , promote Hybrid Open Access in which authors, for a fee, can make their articles publicly available. Some journals will make select articles publicly available, usually those that attract media attention. For grant-funded research, consider the requirements of the funding source; some granting agencies require that the research results be made publicly available at some point.

Peer Review

Peer review is the process in which two or three experts evaluate a manuscript to determine whether it is worthy of publication. Peer review is the backbone of scholarly publishing; no research manuscript gets published until a team of reviewers and journal editors vets it. Ideally, reviewers are objective, constructively critical, open-minded, fair, and insightful. Some journals blind the reviewer to the author’s identity, in hopes that the authors’ reputations or professional relationships will not influence the review. Some journals will let authors suggest reviewers or request that certain people not review a manuscript. A journal’s peer review policies may be another important consideration in choosing where to submit a manuscript.

In practice, peer review is not always ideal (Benose et al. 2007 ; Curfman et al. 2008 ; Hames 2007 ; Wager et al. 2006 ). Nonetheless, no better or viable alternative has been proposed. Reviews may sometimes appear to be arbitrary, unfair, and poorly performed. Reading such reviews can be very difficult and frustrating, even for experienced authors. However, it is a reviewer’s job to be critical, and there may be elements of truth in even the most negative reviews. Some editors may be willing to send a manuscript to another reviewer if an original reviewer produces a harshly critical or poorly thought out critique. Some journals have a formal appeals process if a manuscript is rejected or an author feels a review is inaccurate, inappropriate, or biased. However, sometimes it is simply easier to submit the manuscript to a different journal. Case # 2 describes a successful example where submitting a manuscript to a different journal led to publication.

The manuscript rejection rate varies widely across journals, but about half of all manuscripts are rejected or require significant revisions (Armstrong et al. 2008 ; Hall and Wilcox 2007 ; Liesegang et al. 2007 ). About half of rejected manuscripts are published in other journals (Armstrong et al. 2008 ; Hall and Wilcox 2007 ; Liesegang et al. 2007 ). Even among articles that are accepted for publication, the vast majority will require significant revisions. All three case examples describe manuscripts that underwent significant revision. Thus, prospective authors should not be disheartened if a manuscript is rejected or needs extensive re-writing; this is the rule rather than the exception . Many editors are willing to work with authors who have questions about specific comments or how best to incorporate the reviewers’ suggestions. Busy journal editors would rather answer questions up front than have to laboriously edit a revised manuscript and send it back for further revisions.

Peer review, and the subsequent manuscript revisions, along with the number of manuscripts submitted to the journal, are probably the most critical bottlenecks in determining how long it takes before a manuscript appears in print. Typically, a year or more may pass from the time of submission to the publication date. The three case examples include their timeframes to highlight the need for perseverance and patience with the publication process.

The clearest way for authors to respond to editors’ and reviewers’ comments is to prepare a table that lists each comment and how the authors addressed them, item by item. Some reviewers’ comments may be inaccurate or simply unrealistic (e.g. “The authors should re-do the entire research study...”); these can be discussed in the table or in the cover letter that accompanies the table. Additional information about the peer-review process can be found in Weil ( 2004 ).

Acceptance!

Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the publisher or the journal editor will send a copyright transfer statement that spells out ownership of the article. This statement must be signed and returned in short order before the manuscript will be published. The corresponding author will receive page proofs, usually electronically, which must be read by the author for accuracy and returned fairly quickly (usually 2–3 days). Many publishers are reluctant to make significant changes in the page proofs, and they may charge for substantial revisions. Thus, the version of the manuscript that is submitted to the journal before the page proofs are generated should be very close to what the author wishes to see in print. Usually at this time publishers will offer the author the option to purchase reprints to allow the author to share the publication with other researchers, co-authors, and colleagues. Some journals will provide a limited number of free reprints or a complimentary copy of the issue of the journal in which the paper appears. The steps in the publication process are summarized in Table  2 .

Table 2

Steps in the Publication Process

a ∼50% of manuscripts are rejected or require significant revision before being accepted for publication

Ethics of Publishing

“Scholarship (like life) is not always fair or precise.” (Thompson 1994 )

Manuscript preparation and submission for publication can be complicated by ethical issues. Many authors may not be aware of these ethical conundrums, let alone have a plan for addressing them. Ethics is not a stagnant concept. As research methodologies and research questions evolve, new ethical issues in publishing arise. This section contains a description of several issues broadly relevant to the publishing practice of genetic counselors, particularly as students or recent graduates. However, it is important for genetic counselors-as-authors to keep abreast of ethical issues relevant to their own work.

“Ethics” are principles that govern the behavior of individuals or groups (Merriam-Webster 1974 ). Ethical codes of conduct exist in order to preserve the integrity of a profession, ensure the public’s welfare, and protect scholars. Ethical issues particularly relevant to writing for publication, include: (1) authorship determination, (2) disclosure and conflicts of interest, (3) plagiarism, (4) subject confidentiality, (5) accuracy of information, and (6) publishing in multiple sources.

Authorship Determination

Consider the following situation: A student conducted an excellent study for her master’s thesis project. At the beginning of the project, her supervisor promised her that she would have first authorship on any manuscripts based on the project. However, when the time came to write the paper, the student procrastinated. Finally, after the supervisor repeatedly “nagged” her, she submitted a draft to her, but it was very poorly written. The supervisor decided the only way to salvage the paper was to totally rewrite it herself. Now the supervisor thinks that she deserves to be the first author. Is this ethical? Does it matter if the project was the student’s master’s thesis rather than a project in which she was voluntarily involved? Are there guidelines that might be implemented in advance to handle this kind of situation?

This complex situation may be all too familiar for many supervisors and students. It raises issues about valuing contributions to the publication process, the power differential between supervisors and students, determining when renegotiation of authorship is warranted, and setting expectations and priorities up front. Whenever manuscripts are authored by more than one individual, order of authorship should be negotiated as early in the process as possible. Only individuals who have actually contributed to the work should be listed as authors. Their order should indicate “...the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status” (Shadish 1994 ) (p. 1096). In the sciences, the first and last authors typically are the individuals that made the greatest contributions to the project (Laflin et al. 2005 ). Many journals require a listing of each author’s contribution to the manuscript in order to make sure each person meets the journal’s requirements to be listed as an author.

Student authors pose a special situation. Doctoral students usually are the first authors of papers based on their dissertation research (Nguyen and Nguyen 2006 ). Authorship order is less clear for masters’ projects because masters’ students may lack sufficient knowledge and skills to conduct a project and prepare a manuscript of publishable quality without considerable input from their supervisor (Shadish 1994 ). Thompson ( 1994 ) recommends that when there is any question as to who made the primary contribution, the student should receive higher authorship. His recommendation helps to protect the person who has less power in the situation. Often students are involved in studies that are not based on their own master’s or doctoral research, but rather are connected to an existing research program, such as case examples 1 and 2. In those situations, some authors contend that their involvement should be creative and intellectual in order to warrant authorship; otherwise, student input can be credited in an acknowledgement section (Fine and Kurdek 1993 ; Holaday and Yost 1995 ; Thompson 1994 ).

Negotiating authorship is an important step that should begin in the initial stages of a project. This step usually involves assessing and agreeing upon each person’s tasks, contributions, and efforts. The amount of supervision required for an individual’s contributions is usually considered as well (Fine and Kurdek 1993 ). Sometimes renegotiation of authorship order is necessary due to unexpected changes and/or substantial revision of the manuscript. The key is to remember that authorship is negotiated. Questions to consider throughout this negotiation process include: Who had the original idea for the basis of the publication? Who designed and conducted the study that generated the data? Who will write most of the first draft of the paper? Is the study part of someone’s research lab? Students should maintain early and on-going communication with their co-authors about their investment of time and efforts and the outcomes of those efforts (Sandler and Russell 2005 ). However, scholarly contribution is more important than actual time and effort expended when determining authorship. For more information regarding authorship determination, it may be useful to review guidelines for discussing and clarifying authorship order (Gibelman and Gelman 1999 ) or developing individualized contracts for research collaboration (Stith et al. 1992 ). These guidelines also may be useful for initiating discussion of authorship as part of the curriculum in genetic counseling training programs.

Take another look at the authorship scenario. At the time of the original negotiation of authorship, it is likely that the supervisor (and other parties) believed the student warranted first authorship due to her creative contributions and time allotted to the study. In most authors’ minds, first authorship is equated with substantial contribution to writing the manuscript, usually the first draft, so it is important the student understand this is part of the responsibilities of being first author. Typically students have no experience writing a journal article, and so some procrastination is likely. In this scenario, the authorship dilemma may have been averted by having in place a plan to mentor the student, providing support, and delineating a specific process for writing the first draft of the manuscript.

Manuscripts invariably undergo substantial revision as co-authors and reviewers weigh in, so it is not unusual that the supervisor would revise the student’s first draft. This activity does not prima facie warrant a change in authorship order. However, by developing a specific plan to support the student’s writing, it may minimize the extent of the supervisor’s revisions. It is possible, though, that the student’s procrastination and poor writing should initiate a renegotiation of authorship order because the level and nature of her contributions to the work may be changing. The supervisor and student should discuss the reasons for changing authorship order; the supervisor should not unilaterally make this change without discussion. Keep in mind that the bar for changing authorship should be much higher if the paper is based on the student’s master’s thesis than if it is based on a project in which she was voluntarily involved. It is also important to inform students early in the process that most research is a collaborative effort, requiring time, energy, and sometimes funding, and therefore their collaborators have expectations that their contributions will be rewarded through publication. Developing an a priori policy for renegotiation may often reduce misunderstandings and minimize conflict.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Consider the following situation: A student conducted a study to evaluate a new program that her clinic is offering to its patients. She interviewed ten patients who participated in the program about their experience. Nine of these patients were in general agreement about the value of the program, while the 10th patient was quite negative about her experience. The student’s impression of this patient is that she is a generally negative person. The student believes that the patient came into the program expecting not to like it. Furthermore, the student is concerned her clinic will lose funding for this program if she reports this patient’s responses. The student decides to exclude her data from the paper. Is this decision ethical? Why or why not?

One ethical issue raised in this scenario involves determining when it is appropriate to exclude data points. Data collected from research can be messy, and it is not unusual for some data points to be excluded from analyses. However, there must be an explicit methodology for excluding data points or subjects, and this information usually is reported in the manuscript. Examples for exclusions include: missing data (e.g., a participant did not complete a majority of the items on a questionnaire); measurement error (e.g., the recorded measurement of a biological process or part of the anatomy is simply impossible); small sample sizes (e.g., an insufficient number of individuals from a minority group participated in the research resulting in numbers too small for meaningful analysis). In the scenario described above, the rationale provided for excluding the 10th patient’s experience is not sufficient to warrant exclusion. Instead, it appears that exclusion of this individual is based on a desire to promote the new program in the student’s clinic. In order to eliminate this form of conflict of interest, one could consider involving a clinic outsider in the analysis and interpretation of the data. By including a clinic outsider in the project, editor and reviewer concerns about the integrity of the data, analyses, and conclusions will be allayed.

Most journals provide another “safeguard,” by requiring a statement about possible conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest statement requires the author to acknowledge in writing the nature of any circumstances that might bias the process and/or outcome of their work. For example, any project and published report that might result in direct financial gains for an author(s) should be disclosed to a journal’s editor and to the readership. Examples of possible conflicts of interest include conducting a study of the effectiveness of a genetic test funded by the company that developed and is marketing the test, or a program evaluation study whose outcome would determine the continuation of the investigators/authors’ jobs.

Plagiarism is a familiar concept to most people. Everyone generally understands the importance of “giving credit where credit is due.” Yet, the National Science Foundation estimates that the prevalence of plagiarism may be as high as 50% (Roig 2001 ). Probably many of these incidents are unintentional and/or occur because the authors were unaware of some of the nuances regarding plagiarism. Although there is some variability within and across disciplines about the specific behaviors that constitute plagiarism, there is general agreement about two broad types (Roig 2001 ): cryptamnesia -an individual thinks their idea is original when it actually was presented by someone else previously; and inappropriate paraphrasing —an individual uses another person’s published text without properly citing that use, and/or using their statements with little or no modification. Specific examples of inappropriate paraphrasing include: (1) publishing another person’s work as one’s own; (2) copying part of another author’s paper and claiming it as one’s own; (3) copying text from another source without using quotations marks and without citing that source in the text; (4) paraphrasing text from another source without providing an in-text citation; (5) summarizing material from another source without clearly connecting the summary to that source; and (6) using copyrighted materials without author/publisher permission (East 2006 ; Lester and Lester Jr. 1992 ).

Additional types of plagiarism include ambiguous use of citations. For instance, an individual includes a citation in a paragraph but does not clearly indicate which content in the paragraph is from the cited work. Another type of plagiarism is self-plagiarism . Self-plagiarism occurs when an individual includes published work of their own for which they do not own the copyright (e.g., reprinting a table from one of their previously published papers); repeating verbatim text from a previously published article. Permission to reprint material from the publisher must be obtained.

Plagiarism is a serious ethical breach which can result in a legal penalty. Strategies for avoiding plagiarism include limiting the use of direct quotes; avoiding the use of secondary sources—it is always better to read and cite an original source when available; and restating ideas in one’s own words while providing in-text citation of the work that contains the original ideas (East 2006 ; Lambie et al. 2008 ; Lester and Lester Jr. 1992 ). When in doubt regarding the originality of one’s words, it is best to cite the source(s) on which they are based. In this regard, it may help to bear in mind that readers will assume all words in the paper are the author’s unless the source(s) are cited.

Subject Confidentiality

Published papers must be written in a way that no subjects can be recognized by others without their written consent (Gavey and Braun 1997 ). Given the unique nature of genetics, family members may also need to provide written consent (McCarthy Veach et al. 2001 ). When possible, identifying information should be removed or disguised (e.g., use of pseudonyms) and data based on multiple subjects should be reported in aggregate (group) form. Institutional review boards (IRBs) play a critical role in assuring protection of subject confidentiality. Many journals require authors to indicate either in the paper or a cover letter that they have obtained institutional review board approval to conduct their animal or human subjects study. In some cases, an ethics board may have been consulted regarding ethical dilemmas reported in a clinical paper and this should be acknowledged in the paper.

Accuracy of Information

Authors are responsible for rigorously checking the accuracy of their facts, data, and conclusions. However, despite one’s best efforts, substantial errors sometimes are not discovered until after a paper is published. In that case, the corresponding author should contact the journal immediately and ask that an erratum be published. On a related note, authors have a professional responsibility to make data sets reported in published papers available to other professionals. This practice allows for verification of the findings and conclusions, and it also makes possible research replications and extensions of the original study. The length of time for retaining research records depends on institutional policy and sponsor policy, so it is important to be aware of how these policies apply to the research generated by a master’s thesis. Often institutional review boards require researchers to state how long they will maintain a data set, and the researchers must adhere to that time frame.

Another accuracy issue concerns modifying and reporting the use of published material (e.g., an interview protocol, psychological instrument, curriculum) without clearly describing the precise nature of the modifications. Interpretation of findings and their comparison to other studies using the “same” instrumentation may be severely compromised when an author fails to report modifications. Further, professional courtesy suggests that permission be sought from the author before changing her or his material. Also, use of published material requires crediting the author(s) of that material by including relevant citations.

Publishing in Multiple Sources

In the sciences, a manuscript should not be under review by more than one journal at a time. It is, however, acceptable to submit material for presentation at a conference prior to its actual publication in a journal, as the authors in case examples 1 and 3 did. Some conferences publish proceedings , and some journals will not publish work that is already published in a Proceedings unless the two papers differ substantially. When in doubt, it is good practice to contact a journal’s editor to determine the journal’s policy. Journals typically only publish original work, but on occasion there may be interest in reprinting an article. Reprinting a previously published paper requires written permission from the owner of the publication copyright. As a matter of courtesy, one should also seek the corresponding author’s permission, even if the author does not own the copyright.

Examples of Success

The benefits of sharing knowledge within the medical community and with the public via publication have been delineated. The publication of original work contributes to the advancement of the genetic counseling field overall, and at the individual level, authorship establishes a level of professional credibility, enhancing opportunities for future employability, funding and job satisfaction. The opportunity to develop a genetic counseling master’s thesis into a manuscript should therefore not be overlooked. Below are the personal accounts of three recent graduates who successfully transformed their individual master’s theses into published manuscripts. These examples were not systematically ascertained, and as such, do not necessarily represent all experiences with trying to publish a master’s thesis. These stories provide “first-hand accounts” of the authors’ experiences and, while acknowledging the challenges, demonstrate commitment to publishing their own projects throughout their careers. Table  3 contains a list of helpful hints gleaned from these cases.

Table 3

Helpful Hints for First Time Authors

Case 1: Consider Writing Your Thesis and Journal Article Concurrently

As a result of personal determination, and above all, strong mentorship, I was able to turn my master’s thesis work into a manuscript published in Patient Education and Counseling , titled “Satisfaction with genetic counseling for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations among African American women” (Charles et al. 2006 ). My work was a small component of an existing research project being conducted within a university academically affiliated with my genetic counseling training program. The project was an evaluation of the overall effects of “Culturally Tailored vs. Standard Genetic Counseling Protocol” among African American women.

I started by reviewing previous publications this group of researchers had produced and using these as a guide for my first draft, followed by multiple revisions. Approximately 17 months elapsed between first submission and publication. We submitted the manuscript in its original form in May 2005. We received the reviewers’ comments later that summer, and submitted revisions five months later. The article was accepted in that same month, published online five months later and in print seven months after the online version appeared. Shortly after graduating from my program I submitted an abstract of the work to NSGC for presentation at the 2005 Annual Education Conference, and subsequently learned that it was selected for the NSGC Beth Fine Student Abstract award.

My experience may be unusual because I worked on the manuscript and thesis project concurrently. Composing separate but related documents while still juggling second year genetic counseling student responsibilities was certainly a challenge. Preparing a comprehensive thesis project is a very different task than manuscript composition, the latter of which is more focused and narrow in scope. Challenges posed by this concurrent approach included ensuring that text requirements and deadlines specific to each document were met, as well as incorporating and addressing the reviews of both the training program and peer-reviewers. The main benefits of this approach were that I was still in school and therefore geographically close to my mentors, which facilitated ongoing communication throughout the process, and that the manuscript was under review by a journal before I started my new job.

Factors contributing to the successful publication of this project include mentorship, accountability, and commitment to publication by every author. Supportive, constructively critical, and well published, my mentors had high standards and knew the process. Frankly, I did not want to disappoint them. I found setting deadlines and meeting them, along with the accountability of in-person meetings (as opposed to email), to be effective approaches. Finally, publishing the project was a stated goal of the authors at the initiation of the project. I will not claim that the process was easy, but the goal is certainly attainable and worthwhile.

Case 2: You Need Not Publish Every Thesis Finding—Pick The Most Interesting and Relevant

As is the case for many graduate students, the first time I attempted to publish was after I completed my thesis. My thesis concerned the development of a minority research recruitment database and was the result of my graduate research on underserved populations.

Following graduation, I started my first job as a genetic counselor in a new city. During the overwhelming process of adjusting to “my new life,” my thesis advisor asked me to submit a manuscript to the American Journal of Public Health in response to a call for abstracts on genetics topics. Unfortunately, the deadline was only one week away. I scrambled to cut down my lengthy thesis to a reasonable length and submitted it, knowing that it was not my best work given the time constraint. Needless to say, it was rejected.

I decided that before resubmitting the manuscript to a different journal, I would need to take a different approach to the paper, more or less starting over. While my research results were interesting, they were limited in their application. I decided to publish instead on the success of our research initiative, as other researchers could learn from our process. Since I was changing the focus of the manuscript, I had to do an additional literature search and produce much of the writing from scratch. Most of this work had to be completed in my free time. While it was difficult to stay motivated, working on my manuscript when first starting a job was manageable as my caseload was lightest in the beginning. After several weeks of hard work, I submitted the manuscript to Health Promotion Practice .

About one month later, the editor contacted me and asked me to resubmit my manuscript with revisions. Three different reviewers provided feedback. Initially, it was overwhelming to read through their comments and frustrating, particularly when the reviewers contradicted each other. Despite my frustration, with my co-authors’ guidance I forged ahead and resubmitted, only to have the editor and reviewers ask for additional revisions. There were comments from the same three reviewers, however, far fewer in number. Still, I was beginning to think they would never accept the manuscript. I once again called upon my co-authors for guidance and was able to address the reviewers’ comments and resubmit the manuscript once again.

This time when I heard from the editor, the manuscript was finally accepted. What started out as a 120 page thesis ended up being published as an eight page paper (Vogel et al. 2007 ). It took approximately 8 months of writing and revising before the manuscript was finally accepted and an additional year before it came out in print. While the entire process was a true test of patience and determination, it was ultimately worth it. The experience gave me the foundation to carry on my research career and continue to publish successfully.

Case 3: Expectations and Mentorship are Crucial

I defended my thesis, received my Master’s degree, and was about to move back to the Midwest to start my new job as a genetic counselor, but my long “To-Do” list had one remaining item: Publish master’s thesis. I started the initial master’s thesis process with the expectation from one of my thesis advisors, and now a co-author, that research is not “put down and set aside” until published. I never questioned the process; if I was going to work with this advisor, I would be publishing. I was excited to undertake this challenge and impressed by my thesis advisor’s dedication, mentorship, and desire to see our hard work recognized. Nearly two years later, I could proudly say that this expectation, held by all of my thesis advisors and me, was accomplished. The manuscript, published in the JOGC , describes qualitative research regarding communication of genetic test results within a family (Blase et al. 2007 ).

In the beginning, I was unfamiliar with the publication process, but because of the support and guidance of my advisors, I began to learn the process, and so the frustrations and uncertainties were minimal. I also had a great working relationship with my co-authors that included communicating regularly and setting and meeting deadlines. After deciding the JOGC was the most appropriate venue for my research, I spent a good deal of time reducing and reformatting the 80 page thesis to a 20–25 page manuscript to meet the journal’s guidelines. Given the page constraints, this process necessitated determining which data to focus on and re-framing some information to appropriately fit the readers of my selected journal. Conversations with my advisors were instrumental in this phase.

There was nothing quick about publishing my master’s thesis. I graduated in June 2005, received an email shortly thereafter from one of my advisors about how to begin constructing a first draft of a manuscript, and began working on the manuscript in July 2005. I submitted the manuscript to JOGC in May 2006 and subsequently was informed by the editor that based on the reviews, revisions were required before the manuscript could be considered for publication. In September 2006, after two rounds of revisions, my manuscript was accepted, and by June 2007 it was published in the journal.

Although ultimately I was successful in publishing my master’s thesis, the process had its moments of frustration. I remember getting my first round of comments from the reviewers; I thought I was never going to get to the point of publication. My co-authors supported and encouraged me by explaining that revisions are truly part of the process. I was overwhelmed by the reviewers’ list of questions and changes after my initial submission, followed by additional reviews and revisions. Not only did I have to figure out how to keep the manuscript a priority in light of my new job, but I had to weed through and address the reviewers’ comments, and the suggestions of each co-author. The guidance of my thesis advisors, now co-authors, helped me navigate this process.

I have gained much through this experience. The process has opened doors for me including opportunities to work with other professionals with impressive publishing experiences, as well as speaking and poster presentation opportunities at national conferences. I also have greater confidence about the publishing process. What seemed like such a daunting and impossible task is now an attainable outcome. Although my master’s thesis was my most recent publication, the thought of taking on the publication process again is not nearly as intimidating as I once thought.

Publication of original research, clinical experience, and literature reviews are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field and to the delivery of genetic counseling services. Publishing also promotes personal growth by counting toward maintenance of ABGC-certification as well as establishing the author as a credible and respected authority both within and outside the genetic counseling field. This professional recognition in turn can lead to employment opportunities, speaking engagements, research funding, and career advancement.

Submitting a manuscript for publication also can be an intellectually challenging, emotionally trying, and time-consuming task. But similar to life’s other difficult tasks, the rewards and satisfaction are commensurately great—to see your name in print, have your work cited by other authors, and know that you have contributed in a meaningful way to the practice and understanding of genetic counseling. Transforming a master’s thesis into a journal article is an obvious first step in developing and sustaining a commitment to publishing for our genetic counseling profession. Common themes in the three success experiences include the importance of mentorship and clear expectations for publishing, recognition of the length of the process and concomitant need for perseverance in the face of revisions, awareness of personal and professional benefits in terms of presentations at national meetings, awards, and motivation to continue publishing. Hopefully the information provided in this article will help to de-mystify the publishing process, promote consideration of ethical issues in publishing, and stimulate genetic counseling students and new graduates to embrace a “Publish for Success” philosophy.

Acknowledgments

This paper was developed from an Educational Breakout Session (EBS) sponsored by the Jane Engelberg Memorial Fellowship Advisory Group at the 2008 NSGC Annual Education Conference.

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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How to Write a Dissertation | A Guide to Structure & Content

A dissertation or thesis is a long piece of academic writing based on original research, submitted as part of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.

The structure of a dissertation depends on your field, but it is usually divided into at least four or five chapters (including an introduction and conclusion chapter).

The most common dissertation structure in the sciences and social sciences includes:

• An introduction to your topic
• A literature review that surveys relevant sources
• An explanation of your methodology
• An overview of the results of your research
• A discussion of the results and their implications
• A conclusion that shows what your research has contributed

Dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay , building an argument by analysing primary and secondary sources . Instead of the standard structure outlined here, you might organise your chapters around different themes or case studies.

Other important elements of the dissertation include the title page , abstract , and reference list . If in doubt about how your dissertation should be structured, always check your department’s guidelines and consult with your supervisor.

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Table of contents

Acknowledgements, table of contents, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review / theoretical framework, methodology, reference list.

The very first page of your document contains your dissertation’s title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo. Many programs have strict requirements for formatting the dissertation title page .

The title page is often used as cover when printing and binding your dissertation .

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The acknowledgements section is usually optional, and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you.

The abstract is a short summary of your dissertation, usually about 150-300 words long. You should write it at the very end, when you’ve completed the rest of the dissertation. In the abstract, make sure to:

• State the main topic and aims of your research
• Describe the methods you used
• Summarise the main results
• State your conclusions

Although the abstract is very short, it’s the first part (and sometimes the only part) of your dissertation that people will read, so it’s important that you get it right. If you’re struggling to write a strong abstract, read our guide on how to write an abstract .

In the table of contents, list all of your chapters and subheadings and their page numbers. The dissertation contents page gives the reader an overview of your structure and helps easily navigate the document.

All parts of your dissertation should be included in the table of contents, including the appendices. You can generate a table of contents automatically in Word.

If you have used a lot of tables and figures in your dissertation, you should itemise them in a numbered list . You can automatically generate this list using the Insert Caption feature in Word.

If you have used a lot of abbreviations in your dissertation, you can include them in an alphabetised list of abbreviations so that the reader can easily look up their meanings.

If you have used a lot of highly specialised terms that will not be familiar to your reader, it might be a good idea to include a glossary . List the terms alphabetically and explain each term with a brief description or definition.

In the introduction, you set up your dissertation’s topic, purpose, and relevance, and tell the reader what to expect in the rest of the dissertation. The introduction should:

• Establish your research topic , giving necessary background information to contextualise your work
• Narrow down the focus and define the scope of the research
• Discuss the state of existing research on the topic, showing your work’s relevance to a broader problem or debate
• Clearly state your objectives and research questions , and indicate how you will answer them
• Give an overview of your dissertation’s structure

Everything in the introduction should be clear, engaging, and relevant to your research. By the end, the reader should understand the what , why and how of your research. Not sure how? Read our guide on how to write a dissertation introduction .

Before you start on your research, you should have conducted a literature review to gain a thorough understanding of the academic work that already exists on your topic. This means:

• Collecting sources (e.g. books and journal articles) and selecting the most relevant ones
• Critically evaluating and analysing each source
• Drawing connections between them (e.g. themes, patterns, conflicts, gaps) to make an overall point

In the dissertation literature review chapter or section, you shouldn’t just summarise existing studies, but develop a coherent structure and argument that leads to a clear basis or justification for your own research. For example, it might aim to show how your research:

• Addresses a gap in the literature
• Takes a new theoretical or methodological approach to the topic
• Proposes a solution to an unresolved problem
• Advances a theoretical debate
• Builds on and strengthens existing knowledge with new data

The literature review often becomes the basis for a theoretical framework , in which you define and analyse the key theories, concepts and models that frame your research. In this section you can answer descriptive research questions about the relationship between concepts or variables.

The methodology chapter or section describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to assess its validity. You should generally include:

• The overall approach and type of research (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, experimental, ethnographic)
• Your methods of collecting data (e.g. interviews, surveys, archives)
• Details of where, when, and with whom the research took place
• Your methods of analysing data (e.g. statistical analysis, discourse analysis)
• Tools and materials you used (e.g. computer programs, lab equipment)
• A discussion of any obstacles you faced in conducting the research and how you overcame them
• An evaluation or justification of your methods

Your aim in the methodology is to accurately report what you did, as well as convincing the reader that this was the best approach to answering your research questions or objectives.

Next, you report the results of your research . You can structure this section around sub-questions, hypotheses, or topics. Only report results that are relevant to your objectives and research questions. In some disciplines, the results section is strictly separated from the discussion, while in others the two are combined.

For example, for qualitative methods like in-depth interviews, the presentation of the data will often be woven together with discussion and analysis, while in quantitative and experimental research, the results should be presented separately before you discuss their meaning. If you’re unsure, consult with your supervisor and look at sample dissertations to find out the best structure for your research.

In the results section it can often be helpful to include tables, graphs and charts. Think carefully about how best to present your data, and don’t include tables or figures that just repeat what you have written  –  they should provide extra information or usefully visualise the results in a way that adds value to your text.

Full versions of your data (such as interview transcripts) can be included as an appendix .

The discussion  is where you explore the meaning and implications of your results in relation to your research questions. Here you should interpret the results in detail, discussing whether they met your expectations and how well they fit with the framework that you built in earlier chapters. If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data and discuss any limitations that might have influenced the results.

The discussion should reference other scholarly work to show how your results fit with existing knowledge. You can also make recommendations for future research or practical action.

The dissertation conclusion should concisely answer the main research question, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of your central argument. Wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you did and how you did it. The conclusion often also includes recommendations for research or practice.

In this section, it’s important to show how your findings contribute to knowledge in the field and why your research matters. What have you added to what was already known?

You must include full details of all sources that you have cited in a reference list (sometimes also called a works cited list or bibliography). It’s important to follow a consistent reference style . Each style has strict and specific requirements for how to format your sources in the reference list.

The most common styles used in UK universities are Harvard referencing and Vancouver referencing . Your department will often specify which referencing style you should use – for example, psychology students tend to use APA style , humanities students often use MHRA , and law students always use OSCOLA . M ake sure to check the requirements, and ask your supervisor if you’re unsure.

To save time creating the reference list and make sure your citations are correctly and consistently formatted, you can use our free APA Citation Generator .

Your dissertation itself should contain only essential information that directly contributes to answering your research question. Documents you have used that do not fit into the main body of your dissertation (such as interview transcripts, survey questions or tables with full figures) can be added as appendices .

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Managing the Dissertation Writing Process

Materials from workshop.

• Slides:  https://z.umn.edu/dissworkshopslides
• Revision Memo:  https://z.umn.edu/revisionmemo
• Dissertation Analysis handout (PDF)
• "How to Read like a Writer" (PDF) by Mike Bunn (in  Writing spaces : readings on writing Vol 2 )

Finding Dissertations

• Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window Collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Each year hundreds of thousands of works are added. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.
• Google Scholar (Setup connection to get to PDFs) Use Google Scholar to find articles from academic publishers, professional societies, research institutes, and scholarly repositories from colleges and universities. If you are using from off-campus access, change the "Library Settings" to University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Look for the "FindIt@U of M Twin Cities" links in your Google Scholar search results to access full text and PDFs. View this tutorial to learn how to go from a general idea to a very precise set of results of journal articles and scholarly materials.
• University Digital Conservancy at the University of Minnesota A digital archive of M.A. and PhD theses at the University of Minnesota. The collection in this institutional repository can also be searched by keyword, date, authors and majors.

Sample of project management tools

Tool considerations:

• Devices -- “apps” vs. Laptop 
• Collaboration
• Fewer features vs. lots of features
• Learning curve
• Security/privacy 

More Options

• Open Project:  https://www.openproject.org/
• Redbooth:  https://redbooth.com/
• Notion:  https://www.notion.so/
• Freedcamp:  https://freedcamp.com/
• Smartsheet:  https://www.smartsheet.com/
• Click up:  https://clickup.com/
• Kanboard:  https://kanboard.org/

Student Writing Support from the Center for Writing

Student Writing Support (SWS) offers collaborative one-to-one writing consultations to help student writers develop confidence and effective writing strategies. SWS offers three kinds of consultations:

• walk-in consultations in 15  Nicholson Hall
• appointments in  Zoom
• appointments in  SWS.online

Our writing consultants will listen to your goals and concerns, read and respond to your written work, pose questions that help you clarify and articulate your ideas, and affirm the experiences and abilities you bring to your writing. We value your life experiences and languages, and we seek to provide a supportive space for you to share and develop your voice.

Sample of online books

• Restarting stalled research by Paul C. Rosenblatt ISBN: 9781483393551 Publication Date: 2016 Written for researchers and graduate students writing dissertations, this unique book offers detailed advice and perspective on many issues that can stall a research project and reveals what can be done to successfully resume it. Using a direct yet conversational style, author Paul C. Rosenblatt draws on his decades of experience to cover many diverse topics. The text guides readers through challenges such as clarifying the end goal of a project; resolving common and not-so-common writing problems; dealing with rejection and revision decisions; handling difficulties involving dissertation advisers and committee members; coping with issues of researcher motivation or self-esteem; and much more.

Get materials we don't own or from our print collection (Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery)

• InterLibrary Loan & Digital Delivery Interlibrary Loan (ILL) & Digital Delivery offers access to materials needed for courses and research, including materials not currently available within the University of Minnesota Libraries, AND digital copies of articles and book chapters from our print and microform collections. Free for currently-affiliated University students, faculty, and staff.

Citation managers

What is a citation manager.

A citation manager is a software tool used to create personalized databases of citation information and notes. They allow you to:

• import and organize citation information from article indexes and other sources,
• export your citations into Word documents or other types of publications,
• format citations for your papers and bibliographies using APA and many other styles, and
• include your own notes.

Choosing a citation manager

• Guide to Citation Managers at UMN
• Wikipedia's comparison of reference management software

Browse scholarly journals available from the UMN Libraries on your tablet device, iPhone, or via the web using BrowZine .

• Read journal articles on your preferred device. 
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Revising Your Dissertation for Publication

While a dissertation’s in-depth research and analysis can provide a strong foundation for a book, the dissertation itself is not a book and will not be published by an academic press without substantial revisions. Some acquisitions editors are interested first books, especially if they bring new perspectives and fresh ideas to a field, while others do not often publish first books. If you are considering submitting your dissertation for publication, we recommend that you contact editors at university presses that publish in your subject area for guidance on revising your work. Many editors prefer to be involved in the early stages of this process so they can advise you on how to structure the book and your arguments to create a publishable book. Editors generally require changes in the length, content, tone, and style of a dissertation in order to produce a book that will appeal to buyers in the academic market. Read more about submitting a proposal in our Scholarly Publishing Guide .

Below are selected resources to help you revise your dissertation for publication as a book or journal article(s).

Advice from publishers

• Harvard University Press
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Rowman & Littlefield
• Taylor & Francis
• University of North Carolina Press
• Yale University Press
• Publisher Policies on using content in both a thesis or dissertation and an article (from MIT Libraries)
• From Dissertation to Book by William Germano (Lauinger Library, 4th Floor, PN162 .G37 2013)
• Revising Your Dissertation, Updated Edition : Advice from Leading Editors (updated edition, 2008) edited by Beth Luey (online; GU NetID and password required)
• From Dissertation to Book , Duke University (February 27, 2018)
• From Dissertation to Book ( full transcript ), Harvard University (December 17, 2010)
• How To Turn Your Dissertation into a Book , Yale University (April 6, 2016)
• From Dissertation to Book by Leonard Cassuto (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2011)
• From Dissertation to Published Book (lanugageandphilosophy.com report on an American Comparative Literature Association workshop)
• Give It a Rest by Laura Portwood-Stacer (Inside Higher Ed, August 6, 2019)
• The Stages of Revising a Dissertation into a Book by Amy Benson Brown (Journal of Scholarly Publishing, vol. 52 no. 2, 2021, p. 127-140) (GU NetID and password required)
• Turning Your Dissertation into a Book (University of Washington)
• Publishing your Dissertation (American Psychological Association)

Patterns of dissertation dissemination: publication-based outcomes of doctoral theses in the social sciences

• Open access
• Published: 29 February 2024
• Volume 129 , pages 2389–2405, ( 2024 )

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• Anastasiya-Mariya Asanov   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3080-4213 1 ,
• Igor Asanov   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8091-4130 1 ,
• Guido Buenstorf   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2957-5532 1 ,
• Valon Kadriu   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0006-1101-5349 1 &
• Pia Schoch   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0006-9471-4590 1  

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Dissemination of knowledge through the publication of findings is a cornerstone of the academic research system. Doctoral dissertations document the findings made by early-stage researchers during their doctoral studies. However, prior research suggests that dissertations may not be effective in disseminating these findings to the broader community of researchers. We study how knowledge documented in doctoral dissertations is disseminated. Specifically, we investigate which dissertation characteristics and institutional factors are related to the number of journal publications based on these dissertations and the number of citations that these publications receive. Our analysis uses a random sample of doctoral dissertations from German universities in economics, political science, and sociology. We find that “cumulative” dissertations—dissertations consisting of a number of separate articles—are turned into three times more publications which receive three times more citations than monographic dissertations. We also find explorative evidence that dissertations written in English and empirical dissertations have higher publication-based outcomes. We conclude that a policy allowing doctoral candidates to write their dissertations in a cumulative format provides them with an opportunity to share the results of their research through publications in peer-reviewed journals.

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Introduction

Doctoral candidates contribute in many ways to the productivity of their universities—for example, as research and teaching assistants (Kifor et al., 2023 ; Larivière, 2012 ; Rodríguez-Montoya et al., 2023 ). However, their primary task and the key prerequisite for being awarded a doctoral degree is to make a research contribution to the respective discipline, which is documented in the doctoral dissertation. Moreover, dissertations turn into published papers serving dissemination of the acquired and documented knowledge. Yet, not many factors are known that determine the success of knowledge dissemination from dissertations (Mayir et al., 2017 ; Paglis et al., 2006 ; Rojko et al., 2020 ).

Depending on the country and discipline, it takes about 3 to 6 years for a doctoral candidate to fulfil all requirements for the doctoral degree, including submitting a comprehensive dissertation of 100 to 400 pages and to graduate (Günauer et al., 2013 ; Siegfried & Stock, 2001 ). Prior evidence indicates that dissertations contain high-quality research. For example, one review (McLeod & Weisz, 2004 ) shows that the methodology in experiments from dissertations was stronger, while the mean effect size reported in dissertations was smaller than in the published articles in the same field, suggesting the dissertations were less susceptible to overestimating the effect size than the published articles. Despite this, compared to journal publications, the citation rate of dissertations in the scientific literature has declined over time (Larivière et al., 2008 ). Less than 12% of the dissertations produced by UK doctoral candidates have at least one citation on platforms like Scopus, Microsoft Academic, or Google Books (Kousha & Thelwall, 2020 ).

Even though dissertations themselves are not cited much in the academic literature, one might expect that the research and data that dissertations are based on contribute to publications in peer-reviewed journals. However, research shows that only about 25–29% of dissertations in psychology, counseling, and social work (Evans et al., 2018 ; Maynard et al., 2014 ; Osborn et al., 2023 ) ended up with at least one article derived from them published in a peer-reviewed journal. Similarly, only around 40% of electronic theses and dissertations in engineering produced at a South African university received at least one citation, and only 16.8% of them were converted into research outputs such as books, journal articles, or conference proceedings (Bangani, 2018 ). Studies of medical theses dissemination show similarly low publication rates of 17% in France (Salmi et al., 2001 ), 17.6% in Peru (Arriola-Quiroz et al., 2010 ), and 23.8% in Finland (Nieminen et al., 2007 ). Finally, 53.2% of dissertations in Turkish language education are turned into journal publications (Karagöz & Şeref, 2021 ).These prior findings indicate that substantial resources are dedicated to producing high-quality research that is documented in doctoral dissertations but often not disseminated to the broader community of researchers. Yet, little is known about how universities can enhance dissertation-based research dissemination. Several studies have explored individual factors associated with the research productivity of doctoral candidates. Paglis et al. ( 2006 ) found no significant association between advisor mentoring and research productivity, which was defined as the total number of conference papers, journal publications, book chapters, and grant proposals accepted. Rojko et al. ( 2020 ) did not find a significant difference in the average publication performance of doctoral candidates before and after the implementation of the Bologna reform in Slovenia.

Other research has explored differences in the extent of doctoral dissertation dissemination. For example, making doctoral dissertations available through open-access repositories at universities resulted in higher citation counts (Ferreras-Fernández et al., 2013 ). Mayir et al. ( 2017 ) did not reveal an association between the publication rate and citation counts of dissertations in surgery and the type of study on which a dissertation was based (e.g., randomized study, case study, cross-sectional study). Closest to our study, Smaldone et al. ( 2019 ) compared the number of peer-reviewed publications based on dissertations from the Columbia University School of Nursing that were written in a monographic or an article-based (i.e., “cumulative”) format. The study found that article-based dissertations were associated with larger numbers of publications in peer-reviewed journals. Similarly, a survey of Australian students and alumni (Thomas et al., 2016 ) from instructional technology programs found that those who chose an article-based dissertation format reported receiving more citations on their dissertations.

In this study, using a random sample of German dissertations, we investigate dissertation characteristics and institutional factors that may be related to higher research output. We quantify research output as the number of papers based on the dissertation that are published in peer-reviewed journals and the number of citations from these papers.

We aim to answer the following four questions: First, do rates of publications based on dissertations and their citations differ between economics, sociology, and political science; second, do monographic and “cumulative” (article-based) dissertations differ in publication and citation rates; third, do dissertations from universities with and without an established graduate school or graduate academy differ in publication and citation rates; and fourth, do dissertations from universities that were successful in the German excellence initiative differ in publication and citation rates.

Materials and methods

Pre-analysis plan.

Prior to conducting the empirical analysis underlying the present paper, we specified in a pre-analysis plan the process of sampling, data collection, a set of outcomes and explanatory variables, a set of control variables, a set of hypotheses, and the empirical strategy. We store the pre-analysis plan and a replication package at Open Science Framework: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/U7M2A .

We selected a sample of 1500 doctoral dissertations from 2004 to 2006 and 1500 doctoral dissertations from 2012 to 2014, drawn randomly from the German National Library’s database of all dissertations published in Germany during those years. We determined the desired sample size and sampling strategy based on statistical power calculations before data collection to have a representative sample of dissertations for the sampling frame years. We focused on dissertations classified under the fields of Economy (“Wirtschaft”), Politics (“Politik”), and Social Sciences (“Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie, Anthropologie”). To ensure accuracy, our team manually classified the dissertations in the sample, particularly distinguishing between those in economics and those in management sciences, which are both classified as “Wirtschaft” in the database. After this classification process, we were left with a total of 1840 dissertations from 73 German universities. Given 1840 dissertations (observations) across 73 universities (clusters) with observed intra-university (-cluster) correlation (ICC) of 0.04 for the main outcomes, assuming a conventional significance level of 5% and 80% of statistical power, the minimum detectable effect (MDE) size is 0.19 of a standard deviation. Thus, we have sufficient statistical power even to detect a correlation of about 0.1 ( r ), which can be considered a small effect size given empirically observed effect sizes in observational research in economics (Ioannidis et al., 2017 ).

Outcome variables

We were interested in two primary outcomes—the number of publications based on the doctoral dissertation and the total number of citations from these publications. Relevant publications were identified as follows. Initially, our team of research assistants, under the supervision of the research team, exhaustively searched for one peer-reviewed publication of each author in various sources (the author’s personal website, the author’s university page, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and WISO) and recorded the author identifiers. To ensure the correct person was found, we verified that the author’s publication lists contained the dissertation as well. Author identifiers were then matched with the Scopus database, and the list of publications was cross-referenced with the dissertation itself to identify which publications were based on the dissertation. The identification of dissertation-based publications was conducted manually by research assistants based on a formalized algorithm created by us, which entailed comparing titles, abstracts, and, if necessary, the introductions of the dissertation and each publication. Research assistants were encouraged to leave comments regarding uncertainties, which were then resolved by a member of the research team. To additionally ensure accuracy, the research assistants’ work was systematically and independently double-checked at random by senior researchers, i.e., a random sample of 30% dissertations was extracted to check for potential mistakes. In both instances—resolving an uncertainty and double-checking a random sample of dissertations—the senior researchers followed the same formalized protocol: check whether the title, abstract, and if necessary, introduction match. To determine whether the paper and a dissertation match, the algorithm required to compare the topic and the object of the study, the study sample, the method and the location of the study. When there was a significant overlap in these categories between the paper and a dissertation/dissertation chapter, the paper was classified as a match. After independent double-checking, the rate of agreement between research assistants’ and senior researchers’ classification was 94%.

Most of the publications from Scopus matched to the dissertations were classified as journal articles. We base our analysis on these observations. However, some of the Scopus items classified as conference proceedings, reviews, book chapters, notes, etc., were (later) also transformed into journal articles. Therefore, two senior researchers independently re-classified these cases manually (agreement between researchers in this classification was more than 95%). We performed a robustness check based on the dataset including these cases (Online Appendix S12 ).

Explanatory variables

We pre-specified four explanatory variables:

Cumulative dissertation

A “cumulative” doctoral dissertation is a dissertation written in a specific format. In addition to introductory and concluding chapters, it includes three or more chapters written in the format of journal articles. Writing cumulative dissertations is a recent and still relatively uncommon practice at German universities. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, only 13% of doctoral candidates in 2021 pursued a cumulative dissertation, with the remaining doctoral candidates opting for the traditional monographic dissertation format. For doctoral candidates in law, economics, and social science, the share of cumulative dissertations in 2021 was 18% (Bildung & Kultur, 2021 ). Cumulative dissertations have been suggested to address the low rates of dissertation citations observed in the past (Francis et al., 2009 ; Larivière et al., 2008 ). We accordingly hypothesize that cumulative dissertations have a higher number of publications and citations (hypothesis 1.1).

Graduate academy

Graduate academies are specialized institutions within universities that offer comprehensive support and guidance to doctoral candidates from all academic disciplines. The first graduate academies in Germany were established in 2000 and have since become an integral part of most German universities (Bundesbericht Wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs, 2017 ). In addition to offering general support and advice, graduate academies typically provide additional quality assurance measures and offer specialized training and mentorship programs for doctoral candidates. These programs are designed to enhance the academic and professional skills of doctoral candidates and to help them succeed in their respective fields.

We hypothesize that dissertations written at universities with established graduate academies have higher numbers of publications and citations (hypothesis 1.2.a).

Graduate school

The traditional format of doctoral education at German universities relied on on-the-job training under the supervision of an individual doctoral advisor. The adoption of the graduate school model in Germany originated from the establishment of the first Research Training Groups (“Graduiertenkollegs” in German), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the mid-1980s.

In Research Training Groups, a team of professors and post-doctoral researchers jointly provide guidance and supervision to a number of doctoral candidates, all working on dissertations within the group’s common thematic focus. In addition to on-the-job learning opportunities, research training groups offer specialized training programs to enhance doctoral candidates’ academic and professional skills. Research Training Groups emphasize the training of early-career researchers subsequently embarking on academic careers (DFG, 2010 ). In the 2000s, they provided the template for graduate schools funded by the German Excellence Initiative.

We classify both the Research Training Groups funded directly by the German Research Foundation and the graduate schools funded by the Excellence Initiative as graduate schools. We hypothesize that dissertations written at universities with a graduate school in the respective discipline have a higher number of publications and citations (hypothesis 1.2.b).

Excellence university

The Excellence Initiative is a large-scale funding program that was jointly established by Germany’s federal government and the individual federal Länder in 2006. Its objective was to promote the best German universities to top positions in international university rankings and increase collaboration between German universities and the non-university research sector. The Excellence Initiative encompassed three funding lines: graduate schools, clusters of excellence funding thematically focused research centers connecting universities and research institutes or businesses, as well as university-wide development strategies (“future concepts”). Success in the Excellence Initiative entailed substantial resource and reputation effects on the respective universities. In particular, winning universities in the funding line for development strategies were often considered “excellence universities” (Buenstorf & Koenig, 2020 ; Möller et al., 2016 ).

There is mixed evidence of the changes in universities that received Excellence Initiative funding. Some evidence shows a decrease in the number of citations per researcher at universities funded in the first round of the Excellence Initiative compared to universities that did not receive funding (Menter et al., 2018 ). Other evidence points out that universities funded for their development strategy attracted students with higher GPAs—the effect remained for three years after the funding was awarded—and that students perceived these universities as having higher quality (Fischer & Kampkötter, 2017 ). Based on these findings, we hypothesize that dissertations written at excellence universities have a higher number of publications and citations (hypothesis 1.3).

Control variables

We collected control variables available from the dissertations, the German National Library portal, and the university websites for each dissertation in the sample. We used the post-double-selection Lasso procedure (Belloni et al., 2014 ) to select relevant control variables from the set of available control variables. This machine learning procedure relies on a two-step method to identify control variables for inclusion: (1) fitting a lasso regression to predict the outcome variable and (2) fitting a lasso regression to predict the explanatory variables of interest. The union of the variables selected by the procedure is included in the regression. The post-double-selection Lasso procedure reduces the risk of omitted variable bias, while at the same time avoiding overfitting in the presence of many potential control variables (Belloni et al., 2014 ). It is popular in many social sciences (Kreif & DiazOrdaz, 2019 ) and in medical research (Dukes & Vansteelandt, 2020 ), but has not yet been widely adopted in the scientometric literature despite the abovementioned advantages. The full list of control variables is available in Table S1 in the Online Appendix.

We pre-specified that a set of available control variables used in the post-double-selection Lasso procedure will consist of variables with less than 20% missing values. Most variables like language, university and field were retrieved from the German National Library portal and have no missing values. Some explained and controlled variables that could only be obtained from the dissertation text have missing values as 23 dissertations could not be obtained. The analysis included these variables due to a very low missingness rate.

Empirical strategy

We use the following main regression to estimate the relationship between publication-based outcomes and the format of the dissertation (cumulative or monographic), as well as the presence of graduate academies, graduate schools, or excellence funding:

where \(Y_{ij}\) is the publication-based measure for dissertation i in university j ; \(CD_{ij}\) is a binary variable equal to 1 if dissertation i at university j is in a cumulative format; \(GS_{ij}\) is a binary variable equal to 1 if dissertation i comes from a university j with an established graduate school in economics/sociology/political science; \(GA_{ij}\) is a binary variable equal to 1 if dissertation i comes from a university j with an established graduate academy; \(EU_{ij}\) is a binary variable equal to 1 if dissertation i comes from an excellence university j ; \(Controls_{ij}\) is a vector of control variables selected through the post double-selection Lasso procedure (Belloni et al., 2014 ). We cluster at the university level. \(f\) stands for a general functional form in regression analysis. We mainly use negative binomial regression as the number of papers and citations (publication-based measures) is prone to have a skewed distribution and to be overdispersed. We also estimate the Poisson regression model following Azoulay et al. ( 2019 ) and a simple linear regression as robustness checks. We performed control variables selection based on the post-double Lasso procedure for each hypothesis tested to see the sensitivity of the results with respect to the second stage of the procedure. In addition, we estimated negative binomial regressions including (i) the full set of institutional variables collected, (ii) the full set of individual author-dissertation variables collected, and (iii) the union of them as additional robustness checks. All estimations were done with R software version 4.0.3. except we had to use STATA for the robustness check regressions with full sets of controls (to ensure model convergence with many controls).

Additional outcome variables

While we hypothesize that cumulative dissertations convert into more journal publications that receive more citations, monographic dissertations may get more citations themselves. We test this conjecture and supplement the main pre-specified analysis using the methodology developed by Donner to estimate the number of citations the dissertations received (Donner, 2021 ). We followed the algorithm he described and searched for citations to the dissertations in Google Books (using Webometric Analyst) and Scopus and combined the results (Table S4 in the Online Appendix).

Specifically, we used a snapshot of the Scopus data from April 2022. In the first step, we restricted the cited reference data to the publication years of our dissertation sample ± 1 year. In the second step, we looked for exact matches with our dissertation sample regarding the author’s surname and initials and the dissertation publication year being around ± 1 year. Lastly, we compared the dissertation title to the Scopus cited item title and cited source title after standardizing them to the length of the shorter title. We calculated the similarity using the Optimal String Alignment (OSA) method and divided the result by the length of the standardized dissertation title, which led to outcomes between 0 and 1 (with 0 being an exact match and 1 being no match). If the outcome was between 0.00 and 0.25, we deemed the citation valid. After manually checking some dissertations at random, we observed that some authors were occasionally stored in the reference data with their full first name instead of their initials, so we also considered those cases.

Furthermore, we considered names containing German Umlaute (ä, ö, ü) by turning those into a, o, u, and ae, oe, ue. As we focus on the dissertations, we do not include the non-dissertation cited source titles containing words like “Journal”, and “Conference”. Following Donner’s ( 2021 ) approach, we applied the same approach to find indexed Scopus source publications matching with our dissertation sample. Lastly, to make sure that we do not have false-positive matches, we sampled 100 citations from the 2376 citations found and manually checked in the actual publications if the references list contains matched dissertations. We did not find any mismatch.

After obtaining the dissertation citations from Google Books and Scopus, we searched for the overlap between both sources. We found 18 citations present in both citations retrieved from the Google Books database and the Scopus database and removed them from the Google Books citations. We then combined the citations from both sources as described in (Donner, 2021 ).

We provided the analysis on combined Scopus and Google Books citations in line with the pre-specified empirical strategy above, being interested in whether monographic dissertations receive more citations. Finally, we manually collected Google Scholar citations, which have been used before to estimate the scholarly impact of dissertations (Kousha & Thelwall, 2020 ), and applied the above empirical strategy to assess if the results also hold for Google Scholar citations.

Our data shows that 26% of the dissertations in economics, 11% in sociology, and 7% in political sciences end up with at least one publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Additionally, the average number of papers based on the dissertations is 0.52 for economics, 0.18 for sociology, and 0.1 for political science. The corresponding citation counts of papers resulting from these dissertations are 14.63, 8.74, and 1.28, respectively (Table  1 ). We also observe that variance exceeds the mean on both primary outcomes—overdispersion for the number of papers and citations from these papers—suggesting that the negative binomial is the preferred specification.

Interestingly, we observe a considerable increase in the number of publications for dissertations in economics during the years 2012–2014, as shown in Fig.  1 .

Share of cumulative dissertations and average number of publications based on the dissertations per field over time

Results based on tests of the pre-specified hypotheses

Results based on tests of the pre-specified hypotheses with and without control variables selected by the double-lasso selection algorithm (Belloni et al., 2014 ) can be found in Table  2 . We find that cumulative dissertations are associated with a significantly higher number of journal articles than monographic dissertations ( p value < 0.00001). Furthermore, the total citation count of papers based on cumulative dissertations is also significantly higher than for monographic dissertations ( p value = 0.06).

On average, cumulative dissertations turn into three times as many publications as monographic dissertations (Table  2 \({\text{Model }}2:{ }\beta_{CD} = 1.13;e^{{\beta_{CD} }} = 3.1\) ), even if we account for a large set of controls algorithmically selected by double lasso. Moreover, the average total citation count of the papers from the cumulative dissertations is more than three times as high as for monographic dissertations (Table  2 \({\text{Model }}4:{ }\beta_{CD} = 1.11;e^{{\beta_{CD} }} = 3.03\) ). In addition, we observed a notable increase in the share of cumulative dissertations in economics during the second period, followed by a higher number of publications, as shown in Fig.  1 .

Our analysis indicates that dissertations from universities with established graduate academies are initially associated with a higher number of publications in peer-reviewed journals. This association becomes insignificant with the inclusion of algorithmically selected control variables and we do not observe any significant difference in citation counts with or without control variables. We also investigated whether the presence of graduate schools in the respective discipline or recognition as an excellence university was related to the publication-based outcomes. However, we did not find statistically significant difference at any conventional level of significance in the number of publications or citation counts between dissertations from universities with or without graduate schools and universities with or without excellence status.

Out of all journal publications for which the year of publication is known, 62.2% were published in the years after the dissertation defense, and 37.8% were published in or before the year of the defense. We re-ran Model 2 from Table  1 separately for publications from the years before and after the defense (Table S2 in the Online Appendix). The significantly positive relationship between cumulative dissertations and the number of publications holds for publications both before and after the defense.

One might expect that, while cumulative dissertations are turned into more journal publications that receive more citations, monographic dissertations receive more citations themselves. We scrutinize this conjecture using the same empirical strategy as before on the following two outcome variables: (a) dissertation citations in Google Books and Scopus constructed following (Donner, 2021 ) and (b) Google Scholar citations.

We find a significantly negative relationship between cumulative dissertations and the number of dissertation citations. On average, a cumulative dissertation receives 36% fewer citations in Google Books and Scopus (Table  3 \({\text{Model }}2:{ }\beta_{CD} = - 0.45;e^{{\beta_{CD} }} = 0.64\) ). In other words, monographic dissertations receive only 1.5 times more citations in Google Books and Scopus than cumulative ones. We also find a significantly negative relationship between cumulative dissertations and Google Scholar citations. The average number of Google Scholar citations is 63% lower for cumulative dissertations than for monographic dissertations (Table  3 \({\text{Model }}4:{ }\beta_{CD} = - 0.99;e^{{\beta_{CD} }} = 0.37\) ), which implies less than a threefold increase in Google Scholar citations for monographic dissertations compared to cumulative ones. Finally, we do not see a stable association between dissertations from excellence universities and the number of dissertation citations.

We assess our results using Poisson and linear regressions as robustness checks. All results hold with these alternative specifications, both for primary outcomes (Tables S4 and S5 in the Online Appendix) and dissertation citations (Tables S6 and S7 in the Online Appendix).

In addition to estimating the regressions with covariates selected by the post-double Lasso selection procedure, we also estimate regressions with all institutional (Kifor et al., 2023 ; Rojko et al., 2020 ) and/or individual author-dissertation factors (Larivière, 2012 ; Mayir et al., 2017 ; Maynard et al., 2014 ; Paglis et al., 2006 ) as robustness checks (Tables S8 , S9 , S10 and S11 in the Online Appendix, columns 1–3). The results remain robust to the inclusion of these control variables. They are also robust to the inclusion of covariates selected at the second stage of the post-double Lasso algorithm for each pre-specified explanatory variable, except for the association between graduate academy and the number of papers (Tables S8 , S9 , S10 and S11 in the Online Appendix, columns 4–7). Thus, we consider the association between the number of papers and the presence of a graduate academy non-robust.

In summary, our findings suggest that cumulative dissertations are turned into more publications in peer-reviewed journals and receive more citations to these peer-reviewed publications. In contrast, monographic dissertations receive more citations as separate works.

Explorative results

We also exploratively examine the variables selected as control variables by the double-lasso procedure. Of the dissertations in our sample, 33.4% were written in English, with the rest being written in German (except for four dissertations in French, two in Italian, and two in Spanish). With 45.1%, the share of dissertations in English is highest in economics, while in sociology and political science, the shares were 18% and 16.6%, respectively.

Our findings indicate that dissertations written in English have significantly higher publication-based outcomes. On average, English dissertations turn into almost twice as many published papers as other dissertations (Table  2 \({\text{Model }}2:{ }\beta_{English} = 0.94;e^{{\beta_{English} }} = 2.56\) ). In addition, the average citation count for papers based on English dissertations is more than three times as high as that for dissertations in German and other languages (Table  2 \({\text{Model }}4:{ }\beta_{English} = 1.07;e^{{\beta_{English} }} = 2.92\) ). These results are consistent with other research comparing publication and citation levels of dissertations written in English versus the local language (Nieminen et al., 2007 ; Donner, 2021 ).

Empirical dissertations comprise 34.6% of our sample, with economics having the highest share at 48%, followed by sociology at 21.2%, and political science at 6.4%. We defined a dissertation as empirical if it contained hypothesis-testing statistical procedures, including moments of statistical distribution (mean, median, variance, etc.), regression coefficients, standard errors, p values, t values, or z values. Empirical dissertations had 50% more publications than other dissertations (Table  2 \({\text{Model }}2:{ }\beta_{Empirical} = 0.45;e^{{\beta_{Empirical} }} = 1.57\) ) and more than three times as many citations to these papers (Table  2 \({\text{Model }}4:{ }\beta_{Empirical} = 1.21;e^{{\beta_{Empirical} }} = 3.35\) ). Furthermore, our analysis shows an upward trend in the share of dissertations written in English and in the share of empirical dissertations (see Fig.  2 ).

Share of dissertations in English and share of empirical dissertations per field over time

The algorithm also selected control variables denoting online dissertations, the number of pages, and the field of the dissertation as control variables, but these variables are not consistently associated with significantly different publication-based outcomes in our analysis. Finally, we inspected control variables that were not selected by the algorithm but that we included in additional robustness estimations (with the full set of institutional variables collected, the full set of individual author-dissertation variables collected, and the union of them). We do not observe any associations between these additional control variables and publication-based outcomes that are robust across model specifications. Notably, we do not observe gender differences in publication-based outcomes of dissertations across model specifications.

In this study, we investigated how publication-based outcomes of social science dissertations in Germany are associated with dissertation characteristics and institutional factors. Consistent with our hypothesis specified in a pre-analysis plan, we observe that cumulative dissertations lead to a higher number of publications in peer-reviewed journals as well as a higher number of citations from these publications. We also find that the share of cumulative dissertations increased over time in economics. Our analysis does not suggest that the citation advantage enjoyed by publications based on cumulative dissertations is offset by a lower number of citations to the dissertations themselves. While we found that monographic dissertations receive more citations than cumulative ones, their implied advantage in direct citations is smaller than their disadvantage in publication-based citations. We thus conclude from our analysis that results of social science dissertation research documented in cumulative dissertations tend to be disseminated more extensively than results documented in monographic dissertations.

As dissertations are not randomly allocated into cumulative and monographic formats, the patterns we observe in our data cannot be interpreted as causal effects. Indeed, our analysis suggests that publication and citation outcomes for dissertations are affected by dissertation characteristics and institutional factors and that controlling for these variables helps explain some of the differences in outcomes. Regarding institutional factors, we do not see any robust significant difference in publication-based outcomes of dissertations from universities with or without graduate academies, graduate schools in the respective discipline and recognition as “excellence universities”.

Going beyond the hypothesized associations that were specified in our pre-analysis plan, we explored how differences in control variables selected by the double-lasso procedure (Belloni et al., 2014 ) are related to publication and citation outcomes. These exploratory analyses indicate, first, that dissertations written in English are associated with significantly more publications in peer-reviewed journals and higher citation counts compared to those written in German or other languages. Second, empirical dissertations in our sample also had higher publication-based outcomes compared to other types of dissertations. Overall, shares of dissertations in English and empirical dissertations seem to be increasing over time. In a nutshell, it appears that dissertations written in English or empirical dissertations increase in number and tend to particularly contribute to the dissemination of knowledge produced by doctoral students in German universities.

Various factors, however, like author characteristics and institutional conditions can affect the choice of dissertation language and topic. Moreover, we did not hypothesize in the pre-analysis plan if dissertations written in English or empirical dissertations are associated with higher publication-based outcomes, barely allowing us to post-hoc speculate about the cause of the higher publication-based outcomes of the dissertations with these characteristics. Thus, we interpret these findings as indicative and encourage further empirical work to probe into their robustness in other settings.

It is hard to distinguish the causal effect of the dissertation features and institutional factors on the publication-based outcomes as this study is based on observational data. More research can be done in the future to identify causal effects and extrapolate the results for other countries. Additionally, automatic, or alternative formal matching algorithms between publications and dissertations could be used to cover more research fields, languages or countries (e.g. Donner, 2022 ; Echeverria et al., 2015 ; Heinisch & Buenstorf, 2018 ). However, based on the results of the study, we can conclude that a policy that allows doctoral students to write cumulative dissertations permits them to strengthen their research output counted as papers published or cited.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank for excellent research assistance Denise Bornewasser, Maria Paz Catalan Palma, Besmir Daci, Lea Hartwig, Alana Hindiyeh, Irila Kola, Christina Lerke, James Macumber, Dariia Melnyk, Veronica Vela, Jana Zaremba. Special thanks to Johannes Koenig for finding efficient ways to work with Scopus data and to Maria Mavlikeeva.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. All authors gratefully acknowledge funding by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under Grant number 16PH20011 (PI: GB) and via the German Competence Network for Bibliometrics under Grant number 16WIK2101A. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Conceptualization: GB. Funding acquisition: GB. Investigation: A-MA, VK. Methodology: A-MA, IA, GB, VK, PS. Formal Analysis: Anastasiya-Mariya Asanov. Visualization: Anastasiya-Mariya Asanov. Supervision: IA, GB. Writing—Original Draft Preparation: A-MA. Writing—Review & Editing: A-MA, IA, GB, VK, PS.

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Evaluating Resources: Dissertations

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Dissertations, doctoral studies, project studies, capstones, and theses are all student-produced works that present and discuss an individual's research.

Note: While dissertations are definitely scholarly and are reviewed and edited before publication, they do not go through a peer-review process, and thus, aren't considered peer-reviewed sources.

Identify dissertations

A distinguishing characteristic of dissertations is that they generally start with a cover page.

Dissertation reference citations are perhaps the easiest citations to recognize; they include the words doctoral dissertation right in the citation! They also contain:

• Database name: For dissertations that are downloaded from a database, the database name is included. This is generally the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database.
• Publication number : In ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database, this is the Dissertation/Thesis Number.

In APA 7th, dissertations retrieved from the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database generally follow this format:

Author. (Year). Title of dissertation (Publication No.) [Doctoral dissertation, University]. Database Name.

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Burley, M. A. (2009). Working for social change: Using student-centered instructional designs to improve achievement.  (Publication No. 3379796) [Doctoral dissertation, Walden University]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Note: Not all dissertation reference citations will follow this format exactly. If you have questions about citing a capstone using APA style, please contact the Writing Center .

The first page of a dissertation or doctoral study may contain:

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“ The Dissertation-to-Book Workbook not only succeeds but excels in guiding scholars through this process of revision. This pragmatic workbook walks an author through clear steps to identify the organizing principle of the book, write and revise the book’s central claims, and then ensure that the chapters actually function well together before the author sends the book to a press. Since scholars often only have one opportunity to convince a press to publish their book, working through this process before sending to editors is crucial—and this is an essential guide.”

Rebecca K. Marchiel, University of Mississippi

“Based on their years of helping academics revise their dissertations into books, Knox and Van Deventer have distilled their incredible depth of knowledge into a beautifully thought-out book that takes you step by step through the process of revising your dissertation. Too many writing books give vague advice without any practical guidance. This is not that book. From advice on crafting your book’s arc and organizing principle to drafting your book questions and producing chapter answers, this book takes all the guessing out of one of the most stressful tasks academics face. This is the best book I have seen on the topic.”

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Your dissertation

You can fulfill your publication obligation by handing in printed copies or by means of a digital publication. For the exact regulations and the various options, please refer to the doctoral regulations of the individual faculty office of the University of Münster.

Information on the submission of dissertations

We recommend contacting the thesis office by telephone prior to submission. Personal submission is possible during the service hours of the thesis office (Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.) or after making an appointment by telephone. Contactless submission is possible at any time, irrespective of the opening hours of the thesis office. You can find further details in the information sheet Abgabe von Dissertationen .

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Monographic dissertation: A monographic dissertation (classical dissertation) generally consists of a not yet published, coherent and self-contained scientific treatise. An integral part of the doctoral process is the publication of the dissertation. You fulfill your publication obligation by submitting a prescribed number of printed copies or publisher's editions to the faculty or the university library. In most facultys digital publication is now also possible. The submission regulations can be found in the respective doctoral regulations and in the information sheets of the doctoral examination office.

Cumulative dissertation : Whether and under what conditions a cumulative dissertation is permitted in a faculty is specified in the respective doctoral regulations.

Cumulative dissertations are second publications. Therefore, check under which conditions the publishers allow you to use the essays in your dissertation. The regulations of your publishing contract are decisive. If you have a publishing contract, ask for the right to store a digital copy of your work in an institutional repository. For more information, see under legal advice . The websites Publishers theses policies ( Information from the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin ) and Sherpa Romeo can provide additional guidance on publishing permissions.

Habilitation thesis : The habilitation serves to formally establish the ability to independently and responsibly represent a scientific field in research and teaching (teaching qualification). The habilitation theses or at least their essential parts are to be published by the habilitation candidates, but there is no general obligation to publish. As a rule, the publication should take place within two years after the determination of the teaching qualification. The habilitating faculty and the university library are each entitled to one specimen copy (of the whole or its parts). Details are regulated by the habilitation regulations of your department.

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Publishing the printed version.

The University and State Library of Münster includes your dissertation or habilitation in the library holdings, records the publication in its catalogues and reports it to the German National Library. This makes it searchable via national and international search engines.

Information on general questions and submission formalities can be obtained from the University and State Library of Münster's thesis office.

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University and State Library of Münster publishes your dissertation or habilitation on the university publication server miami and ensures its permanent availability. The publication is reported to the German National Library, listed in library catalogues and can be found via national and international search engines.

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All essential regulations for the creation and submission of a digital dissertation can be found in the checklist for authors of digital dissertations . Information on general questions and submission formalities can be obtained from the University and State Library's thesis office.

Submission statement : For the publication of a digital dissertation with miami, the agreements laid down in the Digital Publication Consent Form (in German) ( incl. Appendix 1 "Upon publication of a digital dissertation") with the University and State Library of Münster apply.

Copyright : As the author, you grant the University and State Library the simple right of use to publicly reproduce the digital dissertation in data networks and to transmit it for individual retrieval. This means that you, as the author, are in principle free to publish your work elsewhere in digital form or as a printed work. In case of a later publication, please indicate that you have already granted the University and State Library the simple right of use for the digital dissertation. The selected digital publication as a form of delivery cannot be subsequently withdrawn. You can find more details under legal advice .

Digital dissertations are permanently stored on the publication server and cannot be subsequently removed.

File format : The dissertations published with miami must correspond to the print version as a graphical image. We therefore recommend generating the printed version from the PDF file and then converting the file to the archivable PDF /A format. The citation capability then remains guaranteed for the digital version. The PDF /A-1b (basic) standard is sufficient, but the PDF /A-1a (advanced) standard is recommended. For more information about PDF /A, see file creation .

Curriculum vitae / Acknowledgements : According to the requirements of some facultys, the printed dissertation must be accompanied by the curriculum vitae, which, however, is subject to data protection in the case of a web publication. We therefore recommend removing the CV from the digital version before the PDF /A conversion and replacing it with blank pages in order to protect personal data. If you expressly wish the CV to be published in the digital version, an express declaration of consent must be provided for the storage and distribution of this personal data. Please note the corresponding item in Appendix 1 "Upon publication of a digital dissertation" in the consent form. If your dissertation contains a preface or an acknowledgement, please consider personal rights and sustainability there as well. In case of doubt, please contact the University and State Library's thesis office.

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If you have completed your doctoral studies with at least "magna cum laude", the University and State Library of Münster offers you the possibility of publishing in the series University of Münster Academic Publications. Your dissertation will be published digitally and you will receive a print-ready file in case you want to order print copies from a publisher or print service provider – for which you are responsible. Habilitation theses can also be published in the series.

Details can be found in the Service Point for Publications.

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Answer Last Updated: Jun 28, 2023 Views: 12776

When citing dissertations, the publication number is usually preferred, since it is more widely recognized..

• In ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global, click the Abstract/Details page
• Look for the Dissertation/thesis  number.
• Use Publication No.  or Order No. in front of the publication/order number when citing the dissertation in APA.

Example citation:

Johnson, E. K. (2003). Word segmentation during infancy: The role of subphonemic cues to word boundaries (Order No.

3080693). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (288178193).

•   Scroll down the article information page to Dissertation/thesis number  and include Publication No.  before the number.

For more information see the APA Style website resource:  Published Dissertation or Thesis References .

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UT Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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This collection contains University of Texas at Austin electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). The collection includes ETDs primarily from 2001 to the present. Some pre-2001 theses and dissertations have been digitized and added to this collection, but those are uncommon. The library catalog is the most comprehensive list of UT Austin theses and dissertations.

Since 2010, the Office of Graduate Studies at UT Austin has required all theses and dissertations to be made publicly available in Texas ScholarWorks; however, authors are able to request an embargo of up to seven years. Embargoed ETDs will not show up in this collection. Most of the ETDs in this collection are freely accessible to all users, but some pre-2010 works require a current UT EID at point of use. Please see the FAQs for more information. If you have a question about the availability of a specific ETD, please contact [email protected].

Some items in this collection may contain offensive images or text. The University of Texas Libraries is committed to maintaining an accurate and authentic scholarly and historic record. An authentic record is essential for understanding our past and informing the present. In order to preserve the authenticity of the historical record we will not honor requests to redact content, correct errors, or otherwise remove content, except in cases where there are legal concerns (e.g. potential copyright infringement, inclusion of HIPAA/FERPA protected information or Social Security Numbers) or evidence of a clear and imminent threat to personal safety or well-being.

This policy is in keeping with the  American Library Association code of ethics  to resist efforts to censor library resources, and the  Society of American Archivists code of ethics  that states "archivists may not willfully alter, manipulate, or destroy data or records to conceal facts or distort evidence." Please see UT Libraries'  Statement on Harmful Language and Content  for more information.

Authors of these ETDs have retained their copyright while granting the University of Texas Libraries the non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute their works.

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• UT Electronic Theses and Dissertations   30995

Dissertation Process

Dissertation Proposals : Prior to undertaking their comprehensive exams, the student will have prepared a draft dissertation prospectus that clearly summarizes the topic and its importance to planning scholarship, primary research questions, and likely research methods. This prospectus will help guide the faculty craft relevant and interesting questions for the exams and can be useful in recruiting potential dissertation committee members with relevant interests.

The final dissertation proposal defense would ideally be completed within one to three months after passing the oral examination. The proposal must be approved by the committee and the GPD, with a copy sent to the Graduate School, and must be completed at least seven months prior to the dissertation defense.

The dissertation proposal can be thought of as a ‘handshake’ contract between the committee and the student, in which the student identifies what steps she/he will take to achieve the specified goals. Significant movement by the student off the approved proposal should be very carefully discussed by the committee and approved; significant variances between the process and content identified in the proposal and the final dissertation that have not been approved by the committee can significantly slow the student’s graduation. Similarly, if a committee member requests significant work beyond that identified in the proposal, the committee as a whole should carefully discuss the need for the change and its appropriate form. Proposals must be of a sufficient length and specificity that allows the committee to be very clear regarding what the student intends to do. A typical table of contents for a proposal is included in Appendix B, but proposals will vary in style to meet the needs of the research.

Students must undertake a public defense of the dissertation proposal. As noted above, this can be combined with the comprehensive examination defense or held separately—the student’s committee will decide.

Dissertation

The rules and regulations of the Graduate School will govern the format and procedures for the dissertation. Dissertations must represent a substantial contribution to new knowledge in the field of urban and regional planning. While some dissertations may include policy recommendations for a case study site, all dissertations must result in generalizable knowledge that will inform future scholarship in that general area. Further, all dissertations must be based on an appropriate and explicitly identified theoretical foundation or interpretive paradigm. The best dissertations will likely provide both empirical knowledge and contribute to better theory or models.

Generally, there are two types of acceptable dissertations:

• Traditional single-topic dissertation: this is generally a book-length investigation of a particular research question.
• One field, multiple investigations: in this model the student selects a general area of inquiry, and then undertakes usually three different investigations into important research questions in that field. These must be substantially different from one another, so that for instance data sets at different scales are used; or one investigation is theoretical, two are empirical regarding different but related phenomena; or different research questions are posed at three different sites with substantial data for each. In all cases, the different investigations must be closely linked to form a coherent intellectual whole. This wholeness is demonstrated by a shared introductory chapter that clearly and broadly places the investigations into the existing scholarship on the general topic, and a concluding chapter that identifies the intersecting findings of the investigations and their importance to policy or scholarship. The chapters within the body of the document should stand each on their own as coherent articles including literature review, methods, and findings, in a format suited for submission to scholarly planning or related journal. When students submit these to journals, co-authors are acceptable; including committee members and other student collaborators, but the dissertating student’s name should be first. This should reflect the distribution of work, with most of the ideas and work coming from the student, and direction and editing coming from the faculty members. The dissertation research of one student cannot be used to satisfy the degree requirements of another student. For instance, a paper or chapter (or significant portion thereof) cannot appear in two different dissertations.

In all cases, the content of the dissertation should be a result of new research and theory building undertaken during doctoral studies in the program and must reflect the original and largely independent contributions of the student. Other graduate students and faculty are permitted to work as collaborators on research related to the dissertation and may be listed asco-authors on subsequent published articles, but the work appearing in the dissertation should reflect the individual student’s original contribution.

Dissertation Defense: Once the committee chair believes that the student has rigorously and effectively completed the research outlined in the dissertation proposal, she or he will give permission for the student to schedule a defense of the dissertation. The GPD will be consulted regarding scheduling the defense, and will likely attend it.

• The defense is a public presentation, and the student must advertise the time and place of it one month in advance, and fill in forms for the Graduate School; see the current Graduate School requirements for details. The student gives a presentation of the key questions, methods and findings of the dissertation,and answer questions that the committee poses regarding the research. Time allowing, the committee may allow the doctoral candidate to take questions from the audience. After the defense and the questions and answers, the committee will meet to determine what further work is required to achieve a fully acceptable, preferably excellent, dissertation. Extremely rarely, a student could fail the defense; very rarely are students told that the dissertation is ready for signing. Typically, committee members identify a set of revisions that are needed,and sign their approval subject to those revisions.
• After the defense, the student completes the revisions, receives signatures, and turns in the dissertation to the Graduate School. Note that formatting requirements of the graduate college apply, so it is best to follow these format guidelines from the start. Once the graduate school has accepted the dissertation and all fees etc. are paid, the student is ready to graduate.All committee members should be given bound copies of the final approved dissertation, and the department also gets a bound hardback copy.

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Home > ETD > Doctoral > 5558

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A defense of the neronic date of the book of revelation.

Jason L. Quintern , Liberty University Follow

Rawlings School of Divinity

Doctor of Philosophy

David Pederson

Neronic Date, Early Date, Internal Evidence, External Evidence, Patristic Testimony, Historical Context, Cultural and Political Climate, Persecution Under Nero, Defending Neronic Date, Scholarly Debates, Contrasting Domitianic Date, Hermeneutical Approach, Textual Criticism, Literary Analysis, Historical Criticism, Interdisciplinary Research, Defending Early Date, Revelation, Apocalypse, Book of Revelation, A. D. 70, Nero, Nero Caesar, 666, Number of the Beast, Kenneth Gentry, Mark Hitchcock

Disciplines

Religion | Rhetoric and Composition

Recommended Citation

Quintern, Jason L., "A Defense of the Neronic Date of the Book of Revelation" (2024). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects . 5558. https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/5558

There are two primary dates for Revelation that are generally accepted: the early or Neronic date (A.D. 64-68) and the late or Domitianic date (A.D. 95-96). In this dissertation, the early date of the book of Revelation is defended against the commonly accepted late date. The study engages with two major texts: Kenneth L. Gentry Jr.’s Before Jerusalem Fell, supporting the Neronic date, and Mark L. Hitchcock’s dissertation “A Defense of the Domitianic Date of the Book of Revelation,” defending the Domitianic date. This present study discusses the central arguments of both Gentry and Hitchcock as it defends the Neronic date across five chapters. In each chapter, arguments are presented by advocates representing contrasting viewpoints, with particular emphasis being placed on the perspectives of Gentry and Hitchcock. The dissertation offers a rationale supporting the choice of the Neronic date while rebutting the claims put forth by advocates of the Domitianic date. The study concludes that the Domitianic theory relies on external evidence and such evidence is not definitive. Conversely, the internal evidence, when examined in conjunction with the earliest available external source materials, compellingly suggests a date preceding the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in A.D. 70.

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