What after the dissertation? A new beginning again…….

Getting a doctorate is not the end of the journey for a researcher. This is more true when we talk of an academician because in the life of an academician, regular publications are integral for not just growth prospects but also for the sake of mere survival. You can mine your dissertation for one or more articles or convert it into a book and give a new life and dimension to your PhD research study.

Even if you have given a couple of mandatory publications during your PhD study, there would surely be a chunk of research that you did in your PhD that would be untouched and would have a scope for publication. All that is required, is to repurpose the dissertation and give it a new life.

The new beginning for your dissertation can be by either attempting to create it into a book or else a couple of scholarly articles could be extracted from it. In most of the cases what is observed is that those in the humanities discipline often convert their dissertation into a book while those in social sciences prefer to publish scholarly articles.

It is always a good idea to take into account the trend and expectations of your department and discipline. If most of your peers are into converting their thesis into books then you must also follow suit.This depends primarily on  the ranking of books and articles in your institution. Sometimes three refereed publications are considered equivalent to publishing a book. If these kind of norms are not explicitly specified in your university, you can gauge about the criteria by assessing the trend of the scholarly work of the other faculty members in your institution and the kind of promotions and benefits they have availed from it.

So, by now you are very clear that there is much more to research after completing your PhD. The hard work and effort that you put into your research during your doctoral study can be given a new dimension and life and further brighten your professional prospects. Further on we would also walk through the process of getting your thesis book ready and the step by step process to break your manuscript into worthy articles that can add on to your profile as a researcher and give you an ace in your professional appraisal and a new life to your PhD thesis.

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