Hi Satchi,

Can take a really long time. I submitted a paper in April, 2015, and it was accepted beginning of February, 2016. This did include one round of minor revisions. So I heard back in Aug 2015 to do minor revisions, submitted in October, and then didn't hear back again until Feb.

Social sciences, especially qualitative can take aaaaaages to come back, whereas I found when I submitted a paper to a health journal, it was only a two month turnaround with a major revision decision (which were really not that difficult at all).

Hi Red,

Depends on whether your PhD thesis is considered a publication in itself or not.

For example, in Australia, PhD theses are not considered proper publications (and are only if you decide to epublish them through your University, which I did not do), so you are encouraged to publish straight from your PhD. Rewriting is necessary, but to make it into a strong journal article, not because it 'needs to be rewritten.' I just had a paper accepted based on my last data chapter of my thesis (yay!) and it was in parts, rewritten and in parts, word for word.

However, I've been told that in some countries (I feel like Sweden or maybe it was Switzerland?) dissertations ARE considered publications, and as such, you can't copy and paste because it would then be plagiarism.

So I would look into requirements around that.

I also published a portion of my content analysis chapter as a publication before submission, and then reintegrated that into my thesis. I put in the acknowledgements: 'parts of chapter __ were previously published as "title" in Journal/Volume/ISSN etc.

But different countries/universities have different rules and regulations around this.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your kind messages. I think was just having a really bad day on Monday (and also, after all that, to find out that David Bowie died I think just pushed me over the edge :()

I think part of my frustration is when I moved over to this research centre from where I was, so many of the PhD students have publications already in being part of projects (different discipline) whereas as I am qualitative/theoretical sociology (that intermixes with cultural/media studies) I don't have my name on a list of quantitative/health publications post-PhD. So I feel quite unaccomplished in comparison, but have to keep reminding myself that they are based in completely different disciplines.

I managed to get a new book chapter proposal written and sent off so I have my fingers crossed, and will continue to work on shaping up the others.

Cheers :)

<part 2>

At this rate, at the end of my two year contract (2017) I will not be competitive enough for jobs or fellowships. I know you might think ‘you have two years!’ well no, I have one more year, and then the following year I’ll have to start looking again. Considering how long it’s taken for me to get stuff back, and the 5 year cut off from PhD in being classified as an ‘early-career researcher’ I feel like maybe staying in this role is a waste of time.

I know all the sayings ‘this is academia, this is what you signed up for’ etc etc.

I get that. I think that’s not my frustration, it’s the lack of support really in just trying to get those pubs out.

*sigh*

Cheers thanks for letting me get that off my chest guys.

<part 1>

This is by no means a productive post in any way. I'm just frustrated and needed a bit of rant.

Its been about a year from my PhD, and I feel like I have absolutely nothing to show for it. At least, nothing that hiring committees will care about.

I'm in a good position in that I have a job coordinating a project, and all last year I was lucky to be on a one year teaching/research contract at my PhD university.

However, despite pumping out four publications for under review this year, three of which were solo authored, and have about 4-5 in various stages, nothing yet has come of anything. With two rejects, one major and one minor revision (both of which I'm terrified will just get rejected in the end) and only two 'legit' publications under my belt (and only one that really counts) I just feel like I have achieved f*ck all.

I managed to get some small university grants, but I've been told they don't count, only the external ones do. While I have some technical reports under my belt and some book reviews, as well as some media experience and media articles, I've also been told they don't count. I have heaps of teaching which includes curriculum development and delivery, but again, have been told that it doesn't count for anything.

I've been offered a chance to write a book chapter, and so brought forward an idea to my collaborators to start getting our work out. Shot completely down. I'm rewriting the proposal to something not related to the project, but just feel a bit frustrated because while they keep telling me they are 'supportive' not one is interested in helping me get publications out as an early career researcher, and they bring in politics of where to publish. They have all strong track records and can afford to be picky. I cannot.

One thing you'll encounter throughout your academic career, is that what one academic thinks will not be the same as another. This is really, a foreshadowing of what Peer Review is like on your academic work when you begin to submit to journals, book publishers etc. You'll get reviewers who love your work, and reviewers who hate your work (i.e. the dreaded Reviewer 2!). Sometimes you'll get up to four reviews that may contradict each other.

Your supervisor, no matter how much support and guidance they give you, cannot guarantee the mark you want, because they cannot generally predict how the examiner is going to view your work. So while they may have, in their honest academic expert opinion, felt it was ready to go, that doesn't mean the examiner(s) will think the same way. There is no purely 'objective' measure of a thesis, it will always be, on some level, a subjective reading. It's the same as submitting a journal article for publication. You and your potential co-authors might feel its ready to go, send it off, and it comes back as an R&R or a reject.

Hi Hini,

This is entirely dependent on your university's ethics process. I conduct research at two different universities, and how they handle student recruitment is quite different.

University 1: If recruiting participants where the eligibility criteria requires that they be students of said university, then it is a high-risk application. If recruiting participants where the eligibility criteria does not state whether they need to be students, but will recruit around campus alongside other venues, then unless the project is dealing with high-risk issues (i.e. experience of trauma, sexual assault, etc) it is considered low-risk.

University 2: If recruiting participants but not specifying that they need to be students, but are planning on advertising in university venues (i.e. a gym etc) the application is considered high risk on the possibility that a student will be recruited.

So Uni 1 allows for recruiting on campus, as long as the study does not specifically target students. Uni 2 does not allow for this.

To give an example, I recently did a pilot study that used students at Uni 1. This study was high risk because it was 1), specifically targeting students (i.e. had to be students in the eligibility criteria) and 2) because it was exploring experiences of discrimination and had implications for the University.

As others have said, there's no secure or direct way into an academic career without the PhD. Many of those examples you cite? They not only had careers prior to academia, they belonged to a very different era of academia. What Academia was in the 70s is not what it is today, so you cannot even use them as 'guide posts' because the reality is, the world changes quite rapidly.

I'll put it this way, you'll be competing with PhDs who have massive grants and projects behind them, a list of publications, and teaching experience. One of my mentors,3 years out from her PhD, already had two ARC linkage grants behind her, each around the 250,000 mark of funding (which is a lot for my discipline). ARC grants are the holy grail of grants in Australia, where Linkage, Discovery and DECRA are what Academics here aspire to secure. Your research also needs to have impact, a list of publications is not enough, they need to be in quality journals and book presses.

Another thing to note is that the elusive tenure is no longer a holy grail in protecting you from instability. At the university I was working at, two staff members, who were tenured, were let go, because their research performance was not meeting the required metrics.Tenure did not protect them.

Hi Hunt,

It varies depending on your country's institution's rules. I did my social science PhD in Australia which was qualitative. My thesis is NOT considered a publication unless I actively publish it. With my university, I am able to publish out of my thesis, and am strongly encouraged to do so.

I had a publication published prior to my PhD, based on my PhD data. I used this publication back into my thesis.

I'm in the process of whittling down my chapters to stand-alone publications. Depending on your thesis, this can be easy or difficult. It's difficult for me as my thesis was quite thematic and narrative, so chapters depended on each other, thus becoming difficult to publish as stand alone papers.

Hi Hunt,

It depends really on your discipline.

As mine was a mixed sociology/cultural studies/anthropology using interviews and content analyses, my findings and discussions were interwoven throughout my four data chapters, structured thematically. The first chapter dealt with the content analysis, and the following three the interview data (but references back to the content analysis throughout).

The downside of this format is it can be more difficult to then re-purpose as journal articles as they need to be self-contained.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your responses. I had a chat with a few different colleagues and had a close look at the reviews. The required changes are actually not difficult or bad (basic things like develop the methodology a bit more, weave in a discussions of detraditionalisation, etc) but I've been told that this particular journal only allows for 1 R&R, if further revisions are needed (even if minor), it gets rejected. It is a high impact journal, so I will work down the list. According to my supervisor, he had an article rejected because it didn't cite any articles from that journal!

I think the thing that hurt the most, is that the reviews state that the piece offers original and insightful findings, so that's a plus. I'll keep working on it, and get some fresh eyes to help.

:)

Feeling frustrated, down, and not sure where to turn. (Social Sciences, Qual).

I'm 6 months post-graduation from my PhD, and while my job prospects have been very good, I cannot seem to get anything published.

I've had three papers under review this year (a fourth just sent out, and a series of single and multi-authored in the works). One of those three was an outright rejection, that's fine. The second, was an R&R. The third, minor revisions.

I take revisions seriously, and with the R&R I did everything the reviewers asked, even returning to the original data set, and had the paper reviewed by one of my former supervisors before submission. However, despite this, the article was ultimately rejected on second review, even though a number of the new issues brought up can be fixed. The comments themselves are quite helpful and positive for further review, but the final decision was a rejection.

My minor revisions is now under review, and I'm terrified it'll just get rejected like everything else. This R&R paper that's now a reject, I don't know what to do with. Make the further changes and submit somewhere else? Leave as is and submit somewhere else? Give up on it?

Then this leaves me thinking, surely, if I can't get anything published, I shouldn't be in a research career?

Has anyone else had a series of rejections?

It can take a really long time for them to reply, especially as there is no withdraw option in the system itself (you have to request to withdraw it).

This happened to me, only I had submitted revisions, and then a mentor who finally contacted me after like 3 weeks offered to review my revision before resubmitting. So I had to resubmit the new draft, but the admin person was really good about it and let me just email it to him.

For those of you who publish several pieces from your thesis, what tips can you give when trying constantly rewrite an 'original methodology' section for your methodological approach?

I have two papers under review and am currently working on a third, but it's from the same interview data (and so, same methodology).

I've managed to rewrite the methodology twice for those papers, but am stuck on what to do for this third one without essentially just copying and pasting what I've already written for the first two.