Hi All

I am thinking about publishing. i have never published before so i need your help. I have some questions ,


1. Can i publish any parts of my PhD? given that my PhD belong to the university? I see some PhD students publishing parts of thier research but i dont know if there are any intellectual property rules that i need to watch out for in pursing this.

2. If i want to publish part of my lit review, do i have to put the name of my supervisors on it too? taken into consideration that they are not familier with the specific area of my research and they had a minimum impact on my reserach

3. I have 2 parts in my lit review and in my reserach in general, do you recommend me publishing the part which will provide the original contribution or publishing the second part which is mainly a review of the lit?

4. If i published my original contribution before entering the viva what will happen? will that make it easy for me to pass the viva or make it harder for me because there is a chance that someone might replay to my published work and this might get picked up by the examiners and this might have a bad impact ?

what do you think

:-)

Hi Tomatos

You should talk to your supervisors about the whole publishing process and what would be good for you to try and turn into a journal article for publication. You should also get them to read anything you intend to publish before you send it off, otherwise if the standard isn't good enough it will reflect badly on you, and on them. But in answer to your questions:

1. If you're doing a regular PhD, ie not in partnership with an industry body or employer for eg, you can publish whatever you like. It is not the university's PhD, it's yours - you're doing the work, it's your intellectual copyright.

2. You don't need to put your supervisor's name on anything you write if they have not contributed.

3. Publish original material if you can. In my area (social sciences), journal editors would not publish a lit review - they're looking for work which makes an original contribution.

4. It's good to publish before your viva. It shows the examiners that you're work is of a high standard, that it has already been judged by peers and found acceptable.

I have published a few articles, and have found it to be extremely difficult and time-consuming, but have gotten there in the end. There are a lot of things to be aware of eg the right journal to publish in, the originality of your work, the quality of writing. So, talk to your supervisors, they should be able to help. Good luck!