Hi Everyone,

I am in the final year of my PhD in an Arts/Social science-y subject area. I was wondering how many publications people have achieved by this stage of their PhD? My supervisor advised that I should wait to publish anything relating to my research as I don't have full results yet. I think this is a major mistake (but maybe I'm wrong?!). I am now applying for Postdoc Fellowships and have no publications to speak of - eek! I shouldn't have listened to my sup. right?

Any thoughts much appreciated,

A worrying PhDer :-(

Well mass publications in the Arts aren't as required as some in the sciences. Although its always nice to have some under your belt its not always completely necessary at this stage of your PhD. I would listen to your supervisor, if you don't have full results which is the concern for not publishing then your supervisor could be protecting your future interests when you do have all of your results, in case those results change the outcome of your analysis and cause you to sorely disagree with a previous publication.

Also your supervisor might feel like you aren't in a position to publish as the research just isn't ready. There is nothing wrong with that, sections of your chapters can be made into articles with relative ease once your results are in. I think you should perhaps trust your supervisor's experience, if you are worrying about no listed articles on application forms why don't you just make it clear that you will be publishing on the finalising of your results.

Talk to your supervisor about it if you seriously disagree with them. Obviously I don't know the extent of your situation but it doesn't seem a bad thing to wait till your results are in so you can produce a more assured complete publication

D

To be honest, I think it is a major mistake. The majority of PhD students are now publishing, and will leave with a couple of publications under their belts (even if they are just book reviews). Remember we are increasingly competing with students/academics from other countries that encourage their doctoral students to prolifically publish. However, over here, it's normal just to finish your PhD with 1/2 publications (in social sciences/arts/humanities).

If you can't publish work related to you research, try publishing something else in another area or write-up the proceedings of a conference, or even a book review.

The other option is to publish your PhD work immediately after submission. I remember reading somewhere to use the time between submission and viva to write a publication.

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I'm in the same area as you and had the same advice, as did several others I know. We are all part time, so that might make a bit of difference, but the reasons were time, not spreading yourself too thinly over too many tasks at once and taking time away from the PhD. Plus because you might publish something that you later disagree with as your research is still taking shape. I worried about this not publishing thing myself a lot last year, but since then I agree with the reasons, as my work has developed so much in the final year and now I just want to get the PhD out of the way and publish afterwards, it should be less stressful if nothing else!

I have got a few minor things published though, a couple of book reviews and an essay in an encyclopedia, all by invitation from academics in that area and for the journals/subject I will have to aim for later, so it's better than nothing. These are broadly in my research area, but my actual PhD research hasn't been published anywhere yet. I'd say try to stop worrying about it and get the PhD wrapped up, then publish as soon as you finish, what else can you (we!!) do! I'm wondering if it's a discipline specific thing though, a friend who did law had loads of papers published along the way, but it doesn't seem to be very common for people in my area.

Well thank you everyone for your replies. I think you're right Ruby and Lim, I don't want to spread myself to thinly and be taken away from the core work. But on the other hand, I have been feeling the same way as Missspacey... oh what a dilemma. I guess I feel quite isolated within my department because bizarrely I am the only one studying within an arts/social science subject area (the rest are science). I'll try to stop worrying and consider publishing around my subject but not my PhD.

Thanks for the advice,

Hannah :-)

Hi Hannah,

I can see both sides of the argument too. I'm in my third year and have 4 publications - 3 of them co-authored with my supervisor and one single authored. Sounds impressive BUT the first of these was written while I was still doing my masters degree and while doing my phd I have basically proved everything I argued in this early article to be completely wrong! Believe me, mentioning your own work in a literature review of "how not to do policy analysis" is not something you want to do :$

Now I don't know whether to put it on my CV or not - I'm quite embarrassed by it. So the moral of the story is - don't publish for the sake of it. Wait until your ideas are really developed. It can be a lot more trouble than it's worth!

(Incidentally, I was named on one of the publications even though I only did the literature review, so it might be worth asking your supervisor if there is any possibility of collaboration so you can get experience of publishing without having so much time away from your thesis)

Sorry - just read your original post again - have you thought about applying for an ESRC postdoc? They are geared towards getting publications out (you're not allowed to do new research) and they have quite a high success rate, about 30% of applications are successful I think.

If you are quite near completion, it might be worth listening to your supervisor. If you go completely against their advice and publish, they'll know about it in the end anyway as they'll see it, but if doing that has a negative impact on your PhD workload it won't look too good for you, as you need their support really, especially at this stage. Depends where you are with it all, I guess. I worried about all this in case a job came up that I wanted to apply for and didn't have enough on my CV, but in the end, the PhD is the big one so I decided to concentrate on that.

The issue of spreading oneself too thinly is very pertinent, and something I should have written in my previous response.

My PhD has gone beyond the normal timeframe partly because I have written publications (some in different subject areas). For me, it was absolutely necessary, or I wouldn't be in the running for a job. I have 4/5 publications now and I still feel this is no where near enough compared to my peers (I'm not sciences either). So you really have to weigh up just how crucial the publication issue is to your job chances.

As someone else said, if you're near the end of your PhD, it's probably best just to finish.

The bottom line is that there are only so many hours in a day and either you have time to publish and submit within some deadline or you don't. Your ability to do this will be partly driven by how desperate you are to get a postdoc/lecturship to start the next academic year - i.e. could you get by with some hourly teaching and bits and pieces for another year while publishing and applying for jobs.

There is just no way I can do both in time so I am concentrating on PhD submission then publications. I don't expect to apply for a 'proper' job until after that so will do bits and bobs in the meantime. My husband can support me - so if you have some other support a gap is not so disastrous. I have one paper and one book chapter but I certainly don't think they will get me a job. Some projects really do need to be finished in order to publish - mine is like that. I just can't do much with it until all the results are analysed and that is only just complete now.