During working on a doctoral work, how do you manage to work on journal articles and get them published while not affecting the intellectual intensity and quality of your major doctoral dissertation?
One way to publish while writing maintaining focus on one's dissertation is to co-author with a faculty mentor who is skilled in polishing a rough manuscript and handling the correspondence and revisions with journal editors. Having some publications as a graduate student, especially if in relatively prestigious journals, can increase future employment options once the dissertation is completed. However, the PhD student should not spend so much time in publishing activities that it delays completion of the Ph.D. degree. Finishing one's Ph.D. faster, rather than later, is often regarded as a powerful signal of future career publication portfolio to employers. Also, if the graduate student has had a productive relationship co-authoring with mentors, maintain those relationships after completion of the PhD degree and working at other institutions.
To be able to do research and publishing them is crucial for graduate student/ PhD scholar. One is not more important than the other. On they contrary they should work together. Here are some things that I do:
1. Recording regular experiments and noting down inferences is key here. After every notable result and/or failed experiment is documented half of the work is done.
2. It is important to think about the research one us doing and more so about the bigger purpose it may serve.
3. Reviewing literature of the related work is important to know where your work stands and how you can push boundaries or do some new that can be considered novel. Also lets you know about the possible limitations of your work
4. As soon as the exercise (1+2+3) is done and the researcher finds the study novel to be published they should make the first draft. Writing the draft will make the loopholes and area of improvement clear.
5. The step 4 will fine tune the next set of experiments that will make the research complete.
6. Once step 5 is achieved, the draft should be finished and fine tuned.
7. A new researcher should learn how each Section of the paper should say and be presented. The draft should be sent finalised and sent for peer review/ publication.
8. Peer review from a journal or your colleagues/ supervisor , discussions at conferences should also improve your paper..untill it is finally published.
9. This whole exercise in totality will induce ideas of further research in horizontal or vertical directions independently. And hence more lab work + writing.
10. Step 1-9 altogether in my opinion makes a student trained and eligible for a PhD.
Thanks, Biswajoy.
Horizontal vs. Vertical expansion of ideas related to your dissertation to be expanded in journal article projects is an interesting point. I guess it depends on the availability of a strong research gap rather than on the researcher's choice. But which is more feasible taking into consideration the pressures of working on your major PhD project?
Hi Muthana!
While I completely agree that "generally" it is the vertical thinking that is more feasible in a PhD research. But I personally am on the horizontal direction given the same limitations that everyone has. I have introspected enough on this to figure it was more due to personal aptitude and training that led me to it rather than choice or availability of research gap. It may differ for different people. However, this article is also an interesting read and follows my line of thought.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thinking-strategies-vertical-vs-horizontal-malik-tubaishat
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Education
- Higher Education
- Academic Writing