Hi all...

Coming towards submission am thinking about 'what to do next?'

Publishing seems to be the way forward while I wait for the viva to keep me interested in my thesis and to help me remember my stuff. Other reasons I want to publish is to improve my CV. For a while i have been applying for academic jobs and getting none. I have decided am moving to industry anyway and want to try and get into consulting long-term. I will also probably return to teaching at a point or teach part-time.

I think I can get a decent number of publications from my thesis - at least 4 - or more if I did short pieces. The advantage of this would be I would have this impressive CV that may just be what I need to get a job. I wouldn't need to do too much work on the thesis to publish as journal articles.

My second option is to publish a book. The advantage is a wider readership but the disadvantage is that it would take too long to do and I have only 2 months free during which I can concentrate on just publishing. I can also publish a book later as a consolidation of publications or just a totally new book when I am more free maybe in a year or two's time.

I do not want to wait til i have forgotten the stuff and then find I have to remember it to write a publishable piece.

What would you do?

Do examiners tend to offer advise or help with publications? My supervisor has been quite the snob on this issue and so far I have done it alone. What if I have already submitted articles to publishers and I get this examiner with wonderful ideas on where to publish? My 'what ifs' always turn out to be false alarms. My examiners may be too busy for that and therefore I shouldn't wait for them to tell me what to do next.

Advice.

If it were me I would publish journal articles. If you want to move into academia later, they are far more useful than a book. I've been told to stay away from books because they don't count for the REF and take a lot more time (in my area anyway).

I'd just start looking at the kind of journals you could publish in (often by looking at where your references are from - there may be a lot from the same journal). Look at the style etc. and have a go yourself.

I asked my examiners for advice, towards the end of my viva. In discussion we agreed that journal papers were the way to go - easier to produce for me, given my circumstances, and would require less rewriting than a monograph. But it need not be one or the other. You could produce journal papers initially and try for a book contract longer-term.

thanks Sneaks and Bilbo. had taken two weeks off to recover from writing up and illness. almost myself now.. i think i'll go for journals. i have a fairly good idea on which ones i should go for so its just getting on with it now.. thanks.