Hi folks!

I have just submitted my thesis with 3 published papers. I want to ask you all who have such an experience. What is the advantage? Would it be helpful for my viva? What are the questions arise in the viva?

Thank you very much!

I also had 3 papers published. But I only submitted 1 paper with the thesis.
It depends on the maturity of internal examiner...

However, it can still be dangerous if someone is *jealous* of your publications.
Be humble...

Thank you for your advice. How about the process during viva?

Hi piere,

It shouldn't be an advantage. You get a PhD (unless you're doing it through publications, which is not the norm) on the basis of your thesis. Why then tit around producing a thesis in the first place when you can concentrate on papers? The only real advantage of submitting papers with your thesis is it demonstrates that the work - already in your thesis - is of publishable standard, as it's been published! But then competent examiners should be able to make that determination anyway. But it makes it more difficult for the examiners to dispute the standard of your work.

As an afterthought, I would add that only papers with you as first author would be relevant.

One PhD student had a 3-year old paper with 45 citations.
However, he was recommended "revise and re-submit".

What is the subject? Is there any difference between humanities or social sciences and physical sciences?

Sometimes, we need to show off. Sometimes, we should hide some publications.
Whether humanities or social sciences and physical sciences, there are crooks and liars...

My University has specific guidelines on this, so you should check with yours. In my dept. you are asked to submit any articles published in peer-reviewed journals bound in the thesis. If nothing else, it demonstrates that you are capable of producing a high quality piece of research that stands the critique of other academics in your field.

Obviously, an article may only represent a small part of your research, so in itself is not a guarantee of an excellent thesis. However, on the contrary of MeaninginLife, I have never come across the case of people that failed their vivas or had a revise and resubmit verdict after publishing in peer-reviewed journals.

The fact is one PhD candidate had 3 papers published with 80 citations...
However, he was recommended "resubmit".
It was shared in this forum last year.

Whilst the peer reviewed papers will not officially be part of the examination process itself, their presence shows a commitment to producing high quality documents worthy of journal publication.

Their presence may swing a dodgy viva in your favour if you are borderline between say "Downgrade to M.Phil" and "Revise and Resubmit". The methodologies in the papers and replicated in your thesis may also convince a dubious examiner that they work, having been accepted by a peer, and dissuade them from requesting major corrections.

Retraction watch is an interesting glance if you're having a bored five minutes. I know of a couple of cases where people have got clean away with out and out fraud, say where a rig failed to work so a student made up the data from what the results might work out at in theory.

I know of one case where a PhD was awarded on the basis of a computer program producing perfect results with a given set of inputs. A few years later, the program was re-examined and a different set of inputs was made for a new set of data. It output exactly the same results as before and not results expected for the new data set. It turns out the student couldn't get the program to work properly and had inserted some code to output this fixed set of results. The University decided to let the PhD award stand to avoid the adverse publicity withdrawing the award would bring.

There was also a beauty in Germany that made the papers at the time, where a supervisor challenged his student's results based upon biological samples of which there was no sign of. He even got his tea mildly poisoned for his trouble as a warn-off. Again the Uni. decided against recinding the PhD and both student and supervisor were quietly moved on.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

LOL some of these stories are insane! Good grief. But like all 3+ year relationships, people will cheat, make the break up nasty and all other sorts of senseless drama.

I don't doubt that such cases exist. (sadly) you can come across "crooks and liars" in and outside academia, but this does not imply that we are all in that way.

I might have understood your point in the wrong way MeaninginLife, but your comment seems to imply a judgement on piere's work that -unless you know him personally- is out of context here.

He asked whether including his published papers in the thesis was helpful and if it makes any difference at the viva. I know nothing about the quality of his work, so my answer was based on my personal experience. I do think that including peer-reviewed papers reflects well on your work/ and the outcome of your viva.

I also doubt that the cases described by Ian are the rule in academia, but I would be inclined to say that these are exceptions. That kind of "researchers" never get that far ahead in the academic world.

I think publications do make a difference. I've always been told by my university that one requirement of a thesis is that it must be work of a publishable quality, ergo if you already have it published you can tick that requirement off the list and use this to defend yourself in a viva if necessary.

Corinne,

I believe these people are most definitely the exception to the rule. If fraud and forgery were widespread then given many of the systems in day-to-day life might have started in a University laboratory, alot of them would not be safe to use. Fortunately, such systems are rigourously tested before they reach the real world so any 'problems' should be found out.

These stories are though an intriguing insight into the minds of some people, that prestige, position and in some cases not having the guts to admit a bollock has been dropped (a mistake made - thus continuing with the mistake) matter more than honesty and safety of the end user of such systems. However, sometime you have to ask if you really want to know. :-)

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)