Hi All,
I’d like to have your suggestions for solving these issues that I’m encountering in the process of publishing peer-reviewed papers out of my completed PhD thesis (less than a year ago):

a. presenting data (e.g., tables): I’m planning to publish at least three papers from my thesis, which are including three different parts (studies) but with the same demographical data set. The question is, how can I manage to present my results for each study and mentioning the same demographical data without duplicating them (avoiding self-plagiarism).
b. Writing the methodological sections: except the assessment tools and particular details for each paper, the main part of the methodological section would just be repeating in all studies. Would rephrasing this section in all papers be appropriate?
c. My supervisor’s permission or an agreement with them is necessary for the submissions when the PhD thesis has successfully completed? What would be the procedure if supervisors wouldn’t be available for a paper review after the thesis? (Authorship rights)
Thanks
Ella

Never worked with demographical data or that field but I would initially publish one paper in a high impact journal. Once it is accepted/published you can reference that methodological and that data set (boost your citation score). The other two papers will cite the original and there will be no plagiarism issues. I don't think submitting three papers simultaneously together is a good idea, but I could be wrong.

Unless he owns the data you can publish without him. Though he did contribute to the work by supervising you, so you should add him as an author. This is a grey area but unless he specifically doesn't approve, I would add his name regardless of him reviewing the paper.

a- Fine- just acknowledge previous papers (also bumps up your H-index :) )

b- Presumably methods are different somewhere or are you just splitting up to get multiple publications (that is bad form).

c- What Rewt suggests is just wrong!!! There are fields where authorship has very specific requirements (including approval of the final paper). Why is supervisor not available?? Depending on what future relationship you want to have, you could send the paper to supervisor with a reasonable deadline saying that you plan to submit by a certain date and would like comments/ approval by then or will be unable to include as author!

I may have worded it badly but in some fields co-authors cannot block entire publications. The supervisor should be considered as a co-author, as I said, and offered the opportunity to review/change the paper. However if he is unable to review or add to the paper, he should still be considered a co-author. As he did supervise the research during the PhD and most likely contributed. Simply removing his name because he could not review the final form is discourteous. In my field, co-authors are sent all the drafts and approval is assumed unless they explicitly state otherwise. This may vary between fields and may not be applicable to the OP.

I won't lie, reading about chasing increasing H-factors, citation scores and impact factors makes me glad I quit academia. I can feel the life being sucked right out of me just reading it :)
As an aside though, I am sure that self citations don't count towards any scores. That would be open to all sorts of abuse.

...

Thanks rewt for your suggestions. You’re right it wouldn’t be a good idea to publish three papers at the same time, however I’m losing time for publishing my phd studies after finishing the thesis and my supervisor has a significant intellectual contribution in it. Unfortunately, my supervisor is preparing for chemotherapy and I don’t want to inconveniently communicate with them about publications at this stage of their life. As you’ve also advised, I’ll add their name as author and will send the manuscript but with a question that the answer would be short (yes or no for submission). If it was a No, I have to wait…?

Thanks for your advice. No, as I said "the assessment tools and particular details for each study" are different but the procedure for demographic data collection is the same. Unfortunately, my supervisor has serious health issues at the moment...and I'm fully respecting their intellectual contribution in my phd study regardless of publishers requirements for submission. Btut the question is how can I get an answer from my supervisor who is not well to reply emails?