In my opinion there is no doubt that publishing during the PhD study is preferable for both PhD students and the overall productivity of papers. The universities I am in contact with are all changing from the old system of making papers only in the end of - or even after - the PhD study.

There are several advantages of writing papers as the data is collected: Firstly, writing papers and receiving responses from reviewers is very developing and likely to influence the PhD students’ further work. Secondly, having accepted papers is very confidence building for PhD students and is a great way to ensure that the final thesis defence will be passed without difficulties.

Scientific papers are still by far the most important method of communication. To delay the writing is like proposing that school children should not talk until they pass their exam.

In my opinion there is no doubt that publishing during the PhD study is preferable for both PhD students and the overall productivity of papers. The universities I am in contact with are all changing from the old system of making papers only in the end of - or even after - the PhD study.

There are several advantages of writing papers as the data is collected: Firstly, writing papers and receiving responses from reviewers is very developing and likely to influence the PhD students’ further work. Secondly, having accepted papers is very confidence building for PhD students and is a great way to ensure that the final thesis defence will be passed without difficulties.

Scientific papers are still by far the most important method of communication. To delay the writing is like proposing that school children should not talk until they pass their exam.

Thanks for the question, Ashraf!

Great that someone asks something like this here. I am myself a PhD student and wonder what others think about it. Here is my opinion:

I follow the principle of publishing the data before submitting the thesis. I think from the perspective of the review committee, who is most probably happier to see the results published in a peer-reviewed journal. I think it also adds some spice to your thesis as the results are already "accepted by the scientific community" when you hand it in. However, if the data collected during one's thesis are insufficient to be published, I by far do not recommend to publish them. Then it maybe better to wait until the data are solid and ready for a paper... Don't know if that helps but I would also be happy to hear others' opinions on that. Particularly of those, who may be in a committee...

Best, Alex

Drawing from my own personal experience, it is better to write and publish your data as and when you have enough to get it published with a decent publishing society. The reasons being:

a. It is a huge confidence booster to get published

b. Answering reviewers questions is good preparation for any questions you might face during your thesis presentaiton. It also helps you build objectivity.

c. Like the previous two posters metioned, getting published and then putting those data sets in your thesis means you will have less intrusive questions from your Thesis committee members.Makes for a wasy easier Thesis defense

d. Finally having a regular frequency of publications makes you look good when you graduate and makes it easier to find your next posittion.

These are what pop to my mind. I am sure there are other who will add more. Cheers

@Alexander probst: the ideal answer varies and depend upon the regulations of your institution. I personally advise all my postgrad students that your PhD is useless without early publications whenever thisi s feasible. And this reflects work efficiency and the scientific quality and clarity of purpose for any PhD student. Early publication prior to actual thesis defense is advantageous for many reasons as the other posters indicated. One main thing is that it helps forming the full character of a PhD student as a successful scientific researcher. Early publication is also an indicator of a healthy student-supervisor relationship which is not always the case. Best of luck for all our PhD students.

Hi Ashraf

To write papers during PhD as soon as your data is generated and getting them published earlier to your submission is best because it will help you to know the flaws in your work. The reviewer comments will let u know if there are any shortcomings in your work. As you go through the process, this will help you to find out newer approaches that can strengthen your PhD thesis and you can minimize the questions that will be asked during your final viva-voce. More than that, you will gain a lot of confidence that you have already published your work and you can strongly put up your research before the university and scientific community.

Even the evaluators ask whether publications have been done form the thesis or not. This is an advantage over those who don't publish within their PhD time. I have seen people struggling for papers after their submission as most of them join somewhere after PhD and can hardly find time to write papers as well as effectively communicate and deal with the review process. So in my opinion to get your research published before submission is the best way to get a confidence booster and your guide will also be satisfied with your work when you provide a publication before submission. So I will conclude with 'Go ahead and publish your research before your submission as soon as you generate sufficient data for the same"

Thanks

best regards

Definitely during your PhD. For a number of reasons including the development of your writing skills (this is also part of your PhD), getting your work peer reviewed before you submit your thesis which markedly increases your chance of a painless PhD review process, making it much easier when it comes to writing up time AND it looks good on your CV when you are looking for that first PostDoc position.

Mr. Ashraf,

I would be suggesting to get going with publication along with the PhD program. Most of the reasons are already pointed by others, however, I would add from my point of view.

1. When u read for preparing the manuscript, will be getting much target oriented information and along with that you can plan and modify your next experiments.

2. You will be getting the comments from reviewers which will give more ideas about improving your experiments and of course the lacuna in the article/results. If you have already finished your part of PhD work, you may not get a chance to improve.

3. Now the scientific world is developing very fast and is highly aggressive. Get recognition to your work before it is taken by someone else.

4. You will be in close contact with you supervisor during PhD program but while finishing or after PhD you will be busy with finishing the PhD defence or finding new positions. Hence no productive time will be available to invest on the manuscript preparation.

5. There may be a chance to hold back your data if they are for patents or something exceptional from which you can make wonderful experiments.

From my experience, I will say that it's good to write and publish while still doing the PhD. That was what I was encouraged to do. With my supervisor, I wrote up a paper on music education, for our own university journal using data from my pilot test. As I obtained data, I wrote and submitted papers for national conferences.

Now, several years after the PhD, I teach Biology. Although my research subject has changed to Innovations in Teaching Biology, I still research and write and submit papers for national and international conferences. Somehow, I feel that teaching without research is incomplete. Maybe it's due to the exercise of doing a PhD...

I do think that it is good to write an publish paper during your PhD. This will help you in future when you will be writing your thesis, lot of universities approve paper based thesis, in that case your thesis writing will be much faster.

Agree with those comment and you have to make clear of which research question and objective during the long process of thesis. Somehow, your students might think "I am not sure about my results" so you should help them about both of their results and communication in Science.

Getting your work published as and when you logically conclude a study or a part of it is always a good idea, instead of waiting till the end and getting your thesis done first. It not only helps you get confidence on what you are doing, but also motivates you for the next stage. Moreover paper writing itself teaches a lot of things as a result of a good peer review process, that makes one a better scientific writer. And that 'training' comes in handy while you finally write your thesis. Moreover, writing papers as you proceed also helps you get your results published in time before someone else walks away with the similar findings. It helps you preserve your novelty.

I think it very much depends on the work being carried out. And to some extent on researchers.

I think it depends on the requirement of PhD degree from the respective university. As in most of the universities, 1-2 research articles are required, so publishing them at the end of thesis will not do any thing other than elongating your PhD time period! So my advice is publish them as soon as possible!

I fully agree with the previous two respondents!

In my opinion, its always good to write papers before thesis. This will increase the overall quality of the thesis and the peer-review comments are definitely going to refine the work. Firstly, you should see whether there is any iota of patentability, file a provisional patent and then publish your work. After thesis, we generally get engaged with job findings and other alarming pending issues and devotion for paper writing generally decreases.

Definitely during- it will make writing up your thesis easier and improves post doctoral opportunities!

It is good to publish preliminary findings before thesis submission. Other impartant findings you may publish immediately after thesis submission before viva voce. That time only you have a perfect confident in your PhD work .

In some institutions, PhD students can now do their PhDs by publication. I recently wrote an article on it if you are interested...

Lee G, Clark AM, Thompson DR. Roses and thorns: Authorship and the PhD by publication. Journal of Clinical Nursing 2013; 22: 299-300

Good afternoon Ashraf,

This question seems to be on the minds of many PhDs during the course. To be honest I found it was a fine balance that was maintainable if your pro-active and flexible with your time. Here in the UK there is no pressure to publish in order to pass your PhD. Im not sure what the case is for you at your institution. But some things were always made clear to me, (A) Writing papers should be a scientist's 'bread and butter', (B) most post-doc positions around the world require proof of scientific writing, usually in the form of a published paper (not review, commentary...etc.) and lastly (C) the fear of being scooped by another lab (you would think the chances are small, but you would be surprised).

Now speaking from my own experiences, I was under a lot of pressure toward the end of my PhD as I was writing up, juggling the writing of two manuscripts, and also starting my new post-doc position. To be honest this was overwhelming and the 12 hours of supposed day light was not enough. But in all honesty the hardest part of all of that was the thesis writing due to the fact that you can ramble on somewhat, which funily enough wasn't so much the case as I found that writing my manuscripts at the same time helped me to produce written pieces of work that gave good impact to the reader. Moreover, manuscript writing helped me form my figures to a publishing standard, which is advisable for any PhD student to do at all times. So there are many benefits to it, and personally i would advise it but remember to be cautious as there is a fine line that easily crossed where you divert to much attention to one and not the other.

I hope this has helped somewhat and Im certain you'll figure the best way forward for yourself. All the best for what is ahead.

I know from experience that once the dissertation is written, it is hard to get around to writing up papers--often the student is moving to a new job, or has other priorities. Some institutions allow students to collect their publications and write an introduction and conclusion section together with them for the dissertation.

The best bit of advice I got for my PhD was that write your chapters as if you are writing a research paper. That way you have done a thorough literature search and critically analysed your own work. If your supervisor thinks that the work is good enough they will encourage you to publish it.

I know pretty well that you must publish at least seven papers out of your PhD work before you submit the thesis. There is no harm. Infact one of the criteria of your continuous effort in contributing to Research even while you are doing your PhD is to publish some papers. It raises your credibility when you appear for Public Defense

Publishing during Ph.D program has high impact on candidate's future certainly and having publication in the high impact journal is most important, however, depends on quality of data. Quality publication some time become decisive factor for most of researchers who wish to stay in the Research and Development in Universities/Institutes. Hence, high quality publication in time in need of the hour hereafter in any area of science and technology.

I know from my own experience that writing papers before thesis submission improves the quality of your thesis as your work is critically analysed by the peers. In my thesis, there were 12 chapters each one of them was in the form of a research paper which were published either before or simultaneous to the thesis submission. It helped improve my writing and analyzing skills and enhanced my confidence of defending the work before the examiners. In my opinion you should publish 6-8 good papers while doing Ph.D. Here in India, there are awards for doctoral work and for young scientists under 32 years of age so publishing your work in good journals leaves a good impact on the jury and will also help you find a good job after you finish your Ph.D.

In addition to the above, working on papers, and having deadlines, brings a good discipline to the writing.

keep writing and writing. Never mind which is putting in the first or later! just writing.

BEFORE! helps convince your committee to let you graduate.

In Taiwan, no publish, no graduation! Publish FIRST!

SEE: Markus, M.B. 1988. The thesis that won't go away. Nature 332: 482.

Agreeing with the many constructive answers already provided in this thread (generally promoting the conclusion that publishing during your PhD period is rewarding both for your own development/ positive experience, your university/department/research team and for the quality of your thesis), it might be added, however, that these publications should preferably be relevant for (and included) in your thesis. Otherwise there is a risk that time is spent on research/publications that are not really within the scope of your thesis work and you might be put under pressure toward the end of your PhD time. In this case, I would argue that publishing after having finished your PhD is better (and, at least in some countries, articles published after you PhD are generally valued higher than those that are part of your thesis when e.g. applying for an academic position)

As regards institutions where publications can physically be included in the thesis as "supplementary" material, one should perhaps think / investigate before actually binding in articles (not on the thesis topic) that one might wish to use in due course for a senior doctorate (DSc)! Papers probably can't be used for a DSc if they have already been included in a PhD thesis. I.e. there is (?always) a law against, so to speak, using the same material in support of candidature for different degrees. I have not checked all of the previous comments yet, so apologies if this point has already been covered.

If you have thesis chapters which could make publications, both can be prepared at more or less the same time. Feedback from peer review is always useful for later thesis viva.

It is education and research points, different universities have different rules. Thus, some are asking for publication to be promoted and others are not asking for publications just writing a thesis to earn Ph.D. However, writing a manuscript for a PhD student is part of education and support. The student has to have such training. Then the second point is that the time. The research is not complete till the results are published in journals. So, publish your results as soon as possible, it is good for student, supervisor and university as well as for others in your field.

Better write the as enough data you have. Because, nowadays getting paper is very difficult. All journals flooded with papers. They are not increasing their number of issues also.

For the researchers, PhD scholars, the best option is publish as much as papers before their thesis submission. Because, the comments from the reviewers will helps them to make the project in a better manner. These comments will help them to write the thesis filled with technology.

Writing a thesis needs collecting data , surveying the literature , , searching for new findings . The PhD students should pursue all that throughout their studies in order to get more information , more valid analysis and by the time they finish their studies they will have the material accumulated so all they need is to arrange and write the thesis adding whatever new scientific points that they have come out with and which may enrich their work .

Universities vary in their systems – some prefer publishing while studying , others obligate students to publish at the end / after passing the GQE ,,,therefore PhD students are obligated by their university system and regulations ,,,

I think that it will be more appropriate to publish whatever the students finish to keep records of the initial work , if any change occurs concerning the outcome of the research , then it will be added later on ..

Before... secure!

Publish and success come forward.

Presentation in conferences and getting new scientific ideas from reviewer may welcome.

It is very advisable to publish before. And I think in the very close future will be necessary to publish in some impacted journal before PhD Thesis.

I will add a point in addition, to others and my previous comment, time is very important in this matter, writing a paper and to be accepted in journal always need time, and you are doing a thesis, therefore, a combination between writing a thesis and submitting a manuscript is good if you have time but waiting till published needs more time and therefore, it is not adiceable to wait till publish and taking the comments of the referee before submitting your thesis is always improve your work,

Manuscript writing and publishing process should be side by side with research, when student have enough data ,he should move fast for publication.number of benefits are related with this as:

1. Finish a part of work and publish fast----no one working in same field will publish before you.

2. As soon as you will publish during the project,you will get many comments from reviewers ,so you can improve for remaining work.

3. Your work is checked side by side by many experts in the field other then your supervisors.

4. When you will publish during the project after every part of research, so at the end very easy for you to write a thesis..Introductions, methods, results, discussions..etc every thing is ready and verified..just arrange.

5. Mostly students writing literature review or long introduction chapter..even if they are writing this during the project, they can send it for publication as a small review article, and they are very lucky if it is accepted for publication..so whole thesis is done..

6. And above all ..if every thing is published ,you will not suffer in your PhD viva..because already you published.

7.Some universities have requirement of published papers for graduation, so if you are not publishing during project then you will waste time after thesis..because if you have a good paper still it can take six months for publication.

so in my opinion publish as soon as you have enough data..

Part of Dr. Syed Commment is true and practical, but we are concering with students that have no experince in wrting a manuscript and the main goal is to write a thesis to graduate. Thus, the first aim is to have your thesis then publishing is part of education for the students but good for the supervisors as well as for the unversity,

I respectfully disagree with your goal of PhD studies Dr. Sherif.

A PhD study is for me the education to become a researcher and the work of a researcher is to investigate questions in ones field and write (mainly) papers about it. Papers are the language of science and one need to learn this while one performs the research. There is nothing to teach a researcher to plan investigations carefully like the torture you get from the first anonymous peer-review.

Writing a thesis is just the last writing task a PhD candidate performs and it should be easy if one prepared during the studies. It is a necessary ritual to ensure that the research performed can be put into perspective and the pieces of work performed are connected. After the graduation few will read the thesis but the papers are lasting contribution to science that will be read many times over the following years.

A last point is the job situation. If you were a professor with a nice grant would you rather hire (1) a just graduated PhD as post doc with just two papers from the thesis but both accepted or (2) an ambitious candidate with four manuscripts pending submission? Would you be sure the latter work full time on your project or that he/she would actually be able to take part in writing papers on the project?

i strongly agree with Henrik Andersen....very good answer...and a solid point for selection of a graduate for post Doc...100%

@Miles: "there is (?always) a law against, so to speak, using the same material in support of candidature for different degrees." The law is known as the anti-self-plagiarism-law.

In our university, at least two publications in journals with good impact factors are compulsory before submission of PhD thesis, so there is no choice but to publish before getting the degree. And of course that has its own advantages as mentioned by many above.

Publishing papers while doing PhD is fine, but isnt it too harsh on the students to compulsorily publish papers, then only they can get degree, and that too 2 or three papers! I mean sometimes, in some work, one cannot publish more than one paper or rather data is incomplete till the end of the degree work, so in these cases how can one expect student to publish before PhD?

Pressure should be there but not in the form of university rule I feel. And even if rules are there, there should be some kind of flexibility or consideration in exceptional and genuine cases.

I think by the time a person is in a doctoral program, they should have enough experience to write effective papers on their own or with minimal guidance. Therefore, if time allows for it, I see no reason why a doctoral student shouldn't publish papers while finishing their dissertation. Besides, for many researchers, whether employed in academia or industry, the goal is to publish and publish often, so they should get used to operating in this kind of environment.

The goal of two papers is also in use at my university and it can be tough with 3 years for a PhD. If it is not meet, the main supervisor usually have to give the candidate 6 months employment as research assistant to work on a extra paper or write up. In more difficult cases the supervisor can explain the lack of papers in a special form. If the head of PhD studies approve the explanation the PhD can proceed to the defense.

I have my PhD (Dr. Med.Sc,), from Swedish University (uppsala University), long time ago. Really when I was a PhD student, I had much stress and lack of experince. In Sweden, the rules is to publish four papers to have the right to present your thesis. I had very short time doing the work (3 years) plus some courses as well as to concentrate on the manuscript to publish the results. So, I really was under stress, but after that I have got good experience and self-confidence in writing the thesis and after graduation with manuscript writing and publication more easier. However, if you look for other schools as England, publication is not so important during Ph D course, therefore, tthe output of the students is different.

As many other things, it depends... It depends on the rules of the University that will grant the degree. In my university (National University of Mexico, UNAM) you have to publish your data before having the chance to defend your thesis. Therefore, you have to work as good and fast as possible to have the chance to publish something good in journals with high impact factors, before having permision to write your thesis. In some Universities they ask at least two or three papers, and some others ask just for one paper, but in a Journal with IF above 4, or something like that. Other universities allow the student to get the degree before publishing in peer-reviewed journals. That doesn't mean that the student couldn't publish something before writing the thesis. In sumary, I think is much better learning to publish and handle with the criticism from Peer-reviewers before the thesis... If the student does that, then the writing of the thesis and handle the questions of the thesis reviewers will be easier.

@ Henrik: This indeed is good that student is provided with financial means for additional 6 months in order to complete its pending paper work. 3 years is really not enough time to work and write and publish 3-4 papers! Everybody is not so lucky in getting positive or expected results everytime they do any experiment.

But as others mentioned, I certainly agree to the consensus of writing and publishing papers while thesis work is going on. That really helps one improve its personal writing, thinking, question solving abilities, which certainly will be helpful for thesis writing and defending PhD degree.

Good afternoon all, its amazing the number of perspectives that this question has been answered in. And also amazing how it is still recieving such high attention. Now I am relatively new to the research game, approx. 1 year as a post-doc. It has always weighed heavy on my mind the requirement for publication especially within the sense of gauging a researchers ability. I fully understand that writing papers are a scientists bread and butter as such, plus the more published papers you have the more success you will have with your career. But from what I have seen here, it would appear that some value papers on a CV more so than others. I can totally understand the logic of wanting to employ someone with a proven track record of science research, but is this necessarily the best way - by assessing the publication success? Not to mention the evolution of how high of an impact factor a scientist has through those papers, factored in to decisions toward employment.

Ive been told quite a number of things by many greatly experienced supervisors, but the one thing that has kept a trend throughout is the fact that nowadays it appears that less and less we see the science, but more so the papers and the impact factors. Now as I mentioned before, I am still to gain a lot of experience but it does somehow set up an odd situation for new comers as such that they are gauged by this and not necessarily core principle, hard work, and the science they produce. Plus with regards to what it actually takes to publish, as we all know very well, is certainly no small order! The beauty of research, i find, lies in the unknown and the wanting to know. But in that lies the danger that you just cant see where problems will arise no matter how much planning and optimisation you do, simply because things will naturally go wrong when they go wrong. These are factors I feel can have an effect on those writing for publication, and also those writing a thesis at the same time. Like myself, I feel I have been quite lucky and pro-active managing to publish before my viva (UK), but I do fully understand that not everyone is in the same boat. Anyways I shant go on, just thought it was an interesting point to convey from a neutral of view. No dis-respect was intended to anyone at any level what so ever. I look forward to seeing more on this ever lasting question!

I think paper writing should be postponed until the thesis is finished. This way one gets complete picture of his research for thorough reasoning and inferences. Moreover, good journal desire that the data should encompass a time span of at least two years or in other words replication of experiments over time. This factor is not kept in mind while universities require papers in hand before the thesis has been published.

In my opinion, it should not come in the way of thesis writing or completion. This way quality of research outcome and results can improve.

I agree with Mohammad Taher. Publication sometimes makes student's graduation late due to the time required to get acceptance by a journal, especially if the student is willing to publish a paper in a good journal which will ask for a lot of corrections, modification, to repeat some experiments, etc. Even though, we have to admit that publication will help student to pass viva smoothly and confidently.

Concurrently. Often papers can inform chapters, and chapters inform papers. What's more, leaving your Uni with a PhD in your hand but no papers does not make you an attractive hire either as faculty or PDF (from my experience on hiring committees). Trust me, Write Both.

Shweta, your answer is marvelous.It is crystal clear like getting butter out of curd/butter milk. But a conscientious worker will always be careful not to produce junk. An unethical worker will produce junk even after he/she finishes his/her thesis. The crux of the matter here is that by the time the PhD scholar makes up his mind to publish much water would have flown under the bridge and his data will be outdated and stale. That is the reason that when you discover new things it is better to let the world know about it. Most PhD examiners do ask how many papers a PhD scholar has published when they come for Open defense. Recently my own candidate faced this question. She had published 2 papers by the time she came for Open defense. The Examiner asked her why she stopped with only two when so many new things had been discovered during the course of her work.Now the candidate is quiet and I have to go on reminding her to publish. So there is no harm in publishing before you actually submit your thesis. All the very best

I think I quite agree with Christopher Samson in that "not everyone is in the same boat" There are some smart scholars who can do both, publishing and writing their theses.

I agree with Raghuveer that 'not everyone on the same boat'. But scholars need to be updated with their research program which could be possible only through quality publication. Regarding job, selection based on publication may help to some extend but not always as there are lot of other factors determine the candidates suitability for the given job. In any situation, updated knowledge plays vital role and hence publication before completing Ph.D is desirable for researchers.

I do agree with publishing papers once you complete your compilation of data... 

I would say that papers should be published after the thesis has been defended. The reason for that is obvious. One gets multi year or locations data for writing a meaningful research article. I myself published one year data for my thesis which i think is not sufficient.

The golden rule of PhD says  "Do not hurry to finish, hurry to publish"

Recently, it provoke a publication ethical issue about the self plagiarism while the study already publication in a journal that the copyright belong to the journal, then does it could be the same on the dissertation??

Financial considerations are presumably a big reason (apart from intellectual property) for Copyright. A dissertation is not normally a commercially valuable document and the publication(s) would be cited therein. For either a publisher or an academic institution to come up with objections to this sort of self-plagiarism would be most unwise. That would be carrying things a bit far and would not do their reputations any good. Some logic has to prevail. If it is not clear that a publisher's regulations allow it (the Copyright agreement specifies various things), then I would formally ask the publisher (or institution) for permission to self-plagiarise. If a publisher were to say "No" in this situation, that would be very surprising (extremely stupid of them, to put it another way). What I would do in the perhaps unlikely event that they say "No", is another story. That aside, in the instances with which I am familiar, the author of the dissertation holds Copyright, not the institution. So in relation to the question asked by Li-Chi Chiang, the author has given herself/himself advance permission to use similar wording, etc., for a journal publication(s).

Thanks for your response. Some reviewers rejected the application of teacher to promote as an assistant professor by their dissertation that some part of the content was the same as their publication in one or two journals. They declaimed it as self-plagiarism and violate the publication ethics!!!!! 

Well, as far as I am concerned, that is nonsense, nothing has been violated, and their minds are confused. In my experience, it is normal to have similar material in the dissertation and journal papers. At the institutions I have attended, this would not be questioned. The candidate includes in the dissertation an explanation as to what journal publications have arisen from the work.

It is certainly "illegal" to use material in a thesis that has already been used in a thesis for another degree. This is obvious and a well known principle which has been mentioned in at least one contribution (I have yet to read them all) to this debate. At many universities (if not most ?), the candidate has to sign a declaration to the effect that this is not happening. If it were to happen, all hell would break loose. At my current institution, that declaration appears in the thesis, at the beginning. However, use of work from one's own thesis for one's own journal publication(s) or vice versa is a different matter entirely. That is not plagiarism of a naughty kind. In this sense it is, rather, a plagiaristic optical illusion.

I feel publishing while doing one's PhD studies in motivational since after completion the will to push your work is diminished. And in some instance the reviewers may advise to adjust the methodology or analysis, which becomes complicated after completing the PhD. I therefore, support the approach of publishing while studying although sometimes it takes time for a paper to be accepted which may also demotivate the student.

You can try publishing results early when they are sufficiently well-evidenced. You can use the reviewers' feedback to improve your thesis.

Papers and thesis should be written by scientists not companies. 

[This answer was written in response to a - now deleted - commercial comment made by someone promoting a commercial interest]

I am on the side of the argument that says, if possible, scientific papers extracted from PhD research have to be written while the research is being conducted and before the final thesis is produced. This provides the research student with a valuable technical writing skills and helps him/her produce a high quality PhD thesis. It also puts them a better position to find a job after the completion of their PhD.

However, as PhD funding is always limited to 3 years and journal papers take long time in the reviewer process, I don't see it a problem if one continues to write  papers from their thesis even after they have finished, particularly if they were unable to do that during their PhD due either to funding restrictions or to that they wanted to meet thesis submission deadline. 

As for having similar content in both your papers and thesis, I have heard from colleagues that some institutions  do not allow academic staff to use journal papers that have similar content as their thesis when applying for promotion. However, I personally do not agree with the I idea that this adds up to plagiarism.

Publishing research papers before submission is essential in view of partial fulfillment of awarding Ph D degree and it will have strong impact on the job market. Since the candidate using won sentences in thesis, it should not be considered as  the pilagarism by the candidate. Rephrasing the sentenses may degrade the quality of presentation some time. Some universites have a formate of thesis in which the candidate have to write brief introduction on the work and attach the paper(s) published and rest of the proceedure must be followed. This may be the best practice. 

Journal publication during PhD work is essential to understand where we stand in the field. The starting point should be a review publication and as we progress our work depending on the outcome publications will be possible. 

In the thesis, you must cite your paper as is used with other publications as well.

More and more Universities follow the prinicple to allow PhDs by publications, meaning a PhD is awarded, if some publications to a topic that is held together  through a common frame are published in respected journals. USP has just started with the possibility of PhD by publications. Does anybody have experience in this? How many publications? Is there any requirement in the type / reputation of the journals? Any pros any contras?

In my own opinion, it depends on the nature of the PhD research, some can be done before finishing your thesis while some are advised strongly to be published only after finishing thesis.

Thank you

Oluwaseun

@Dr. Weber: In my department (Environmental Engineering) we recommend that a PhD thesis has 3 manuscripts of which two should be published in ISI journals and the third can be a manuscript with a content that can be published. We have no demand for the quality of the journal other than the ISI indexing. In Denmark a PhD is done in just 3 years and I know that a similar department in Lund University have a standard of 4 papers which fits with that PhD stipends are 4-5 years.

In other research areas there can be a demand for more papers e.g. chemistry seems to publish 7-10 papers.

I agree with the fact that publication should be done as soon as new findings are discovered. This will help the research student finish the work soon enough because he wouldn't have to wait till the completion of the thesis which could take another one year for publishing. The first stage of the publication could be immediately after thorough and rigorous literature review. Publications could also be made from the findings in each objective at completion. There is no point  waiting for Thesis completion before reporting the findings in scholarly journals. I agree with those that noted that findings could even become obsolete or someone else published similar findings if not reported on time. Publication is actually part of the skill to be acquired during PhD  research.  

How to avoid self-plagiarism if you have published your thesis work before final submission?

You avoid self-plagiarism by referring to and including the publications in the thesis. If the university has adopted this method of making PhD thesis it is acceptable that the data, discussion and conclusions are somewhat repeated in the final thesis.

Dr. Henrik has rightly explained the issue - publications before final submission of thesis (self-plagiarism). Yes, no question of self-plagiarism if the publications are properly referred and incorporated in the thesis.

Regards

I cannot believe that this discussion is still alive. People who want a job in research or academia start publishing early. Those who do not have such plans can do whatever they want, the can publish years after their PhD or they can skip the publishing part altogether, it does not matter.

As per my view for writing research paper is before thesis writing is better because of the getting innovative idea is better to perform earlier.

and those who have not much interest in research work they can submit after also.

thanks

At my institute (Environmental engineering, DTU), we have an expectation document for PhD studies that mention a standard of 3 manuscripts to be included with the thesis. Of these we prefer that 2 are at least accepted for publication.

This is possible for most PhD students to fulfill but there seem to be a problem with submitting and performing revisions according to reviews on manuscripts after the PhD defense. Some students quickly end up with demanding jobs or lack interest in the publication if they go to jobs outside academia.

I think that the publishing of papers before thesis writing helps in the Ph.D. defense and to get recommendation for Ph.D. degree. Regards

I completely agree with Dr. Asit Sir. Publication of research paper before the thesis writing is very helpful in defending the research work, which has to be be submitted in the form of thesis for the award of Ph. D. degree. I got two research papers published in international journals before thesis writing.

In Algeria, Article before thesis writing.

Publishing articles before writing the thesis is usual practice and it helps in the discussion of your PhD as stated by others.

At some universities you need to publish 2 or more articles in order to defend your PhD

Regards

Dear OP:

The question cannot be answered in full generality. It depends firstly on institutional factors such as requirements by the department in which the PhD student is enrolled and secondly on the PhD student respectively her/his career aspirations. I'll answer by first sketching the requirements in an international context and then go in more detail for the country that I live in.

Some departments require a certain number of publications in order to allow a submission of the actual doctoral thesis. If these guidelines are legally OK, this sets a minimum scale on the publications to perform prior to the actual thesis composition.

Independent of the institutional regulations, e.g., when a PhD is embarked on with the goal to transition to industry, not even necessarily to a research position, publications are obsolete for the student her-/himself. If in contrast an academic career is the goal, it is recommendable to have a decent number of work of sufficient quality for standard peer--review--publications.

Speaking for my country of origin, the Federal Republic of Germany, there are two classes of PhD theses: The first one is monographic meanining that a candidate hands in a manuscript which contains novel work and the novelty is assessed by a commitee in the department directly. It is also the traditional form. The second form of a PhD thesis which is popularized by "tradition" in the states is based on journal publications: A total of, say 3, topics reports connected by a "guiding theme" can be submitted as a doctoral thesis. These reports typically undergo some sort of review mainly by submitting to journals. Some universities employ a hybrid model demanding a certain number of published articles (see second paragraph above) the content of which is also part of the actual PhD thesis. I leave deliberations on the benefits and drawback of both systems to the reader.

My personal advice is: If you find out that research is not what you want to do, try to fulfill minimal publications requirements and go to do sth else - in my opinion there is no point in extending the time at university when you are not comfortable with research for whatever reason. Unfortunately, these pathways are often considered as less valuable in universities than an academic career, an attitude lacking substantiation because generation of new knowledge can also be needed in industry. Some countries have a professional doctorate which is more suitable to candidates counting themselves to this first category of students than a traditional, "ivory-tower-PhD". In parallel to thesis completion you can establish connections to industry, go on workshops to deepen relevant skills etc. If on the other hand, you goal is science, having some good (!) publications is beneficial for applications for post-doctoral positions. In this case, try to publish as much as you can and take a possible minimal number of publications required for a PhD as what it is from the perspective of researchers: A minimum.

Kind regards.

I think the researcher should have the thesis in mind and prepare the frame work for thesis. From the framework of thesis the papers may be partitioned for publication. The overall thesis will be better if this process is followed. I wish your opinion.

Dr. Prabhakar Krishnamurthy - Good suggestion for students.

The following article may be also useful.

Publishing from the Ph.D. – make a publication plan

https://patthomson.net/2018/05/21/publishing-from-the-phd-make-a-publication-plan/