how to turn a thesis chapter into a journal article

• Publication Process

How to Write a Journal Article from a Thesis

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You are almost done with your PhD thesis and want to convert it into a journal article. Or, you’re initiating a career as a journal writer and intend to use your thesis as a starting point for an article. Whatever your situation, turning a thesis into a journal article is a logical step and a process that eventually every researcher completes. But…how to start?

The first thing to know about converting a thesis into a journal article is how different they are:

Thesis Characteristics:

• Meets academic requirements
• Reviewed by select committee members
• Contains chapters
• Lengthy, no word limits
• Table of contents
• Lengthy research of literature
• IRB approval described in detail
• Description and copies of tools used
• All findings presented
• Verb tenses may vary

Journal Article Characteristics:

• Meets journalistic standards
• Reviewed by a panel of “blind” reviewers
• Word limits
• Manuscript format
• Succinct research of literature
• IRB described in 1 to 3 sentences
• Essential and succinct tool information
• Selected findings presented
• Verb tenses are fairly consistent

Converting your thesis to a journal article may be complex, but it’s not impossible.

A thesis is a document of academic nature, so it’s more detailed in content. A journal article, however, is shorter, highlighting key points in a more succinct format. Adapting a thesis for conversion into a journal article is a time-consuming and intricate process that can take you away from other important work. In that case, Elsevier’s Language Editing services may help you focus on important matters and provide a high-quality text for submission in no time at all.

If you are going to convert a thesis into a journal article, with or without professional help, here is a list of some of the steps you will likely have to go through:

1. Identify the best journal for your work

• Ensure that your article is within the journal’s aim and scope. How to find the right journal? Find out more .
• Check the journal’s recommended structure and reference style

2. Shorten the length of your thesis

• Treat your thesis as a separate work
• Paraphrase but do not distort meaning
• Select and repurpose parts of your thesis

3. Reformat the introduction as an abstract

• Shorten the introduction to 100-150 words, but maintain key topics to hold the reader’s attention.
• Use the introduction and discussion as basis for the abstract

4. Modify the introduction

• If your thesis has more than one research question or hypothesis, which are not all relevant for your paper, consider combining your research questions or focusing on just one for the article
• Use previously published papers (at least three) from the target journal as examples

5. Tighten the methods section

• Keep the discussion about your research approach short

6. Report main findings in the results

• Expose your main findings in the results section in concise statements

7. Discussion must be clear and concise

• Begin by providing an interpretation of your results: “What is it that we have learned from your research?”
• Situate the findings to the literature
• Discuss how your findings expand known or previous perspectives
• Briefly present ways in which future studies can build upon your work and address limitations in your study

8. Limit the number of references

• To choose the most relevant and recent
• To format them correctly
• Consider using a reference manager system (e.g. Mendeley ) to make your life easier

If you are not a proficient English speaker, the task of converting a thesis into a journal article might make it even more difficult. At Elsevier’s Language Editing services we ensure that your manuscript is written in correct scientific English before submission. Our professional proofers and editors check your manuscript in detail, taking your text as our own and with the guarantee of maximum text quality.

Language editing services by Elsevier Author Services:

• Research Process

How to Choose a Journal to Submit an Article

• Publication Recognition

How to Submit a Paper for Publication in a Journal

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Submit and publish your thesis.

• The Graduate Thesis: What is it?
• Thesis Defences
• Deadlines and Fees
• Formatting in MS Word
• Formatting in LaTeX
• Making Thesis Accessible
• Thesis Embargo
• Review and Release
• Your Rights as an Author
• Re-using Third Party Materials
• Creative Commons Licenses for Theses
• Turning Thesis into an Article
• Turning Thesis into a Book
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Turning Your Thesis into an Article

Creating an article from your thesis means more than just copying and pasting. The audience for the thesis is your committee whereas for an article it may be fellow researchers, professionals working in the field, policy makers, educators, or the general audience. Your article manuscript will need to be modified accordingly. This section is based on Extracting a journal article from your thesis from Taylor & Francis publishing tips for authors.

Plan the article

Identify the central message that you want to get across. This could be a new theory, novel methodology or original findings. Make sure that your article follows a coherent argument and targets the journal audience.

Decide on the kind of article you want to write - will it be a report, position paper, critique or review? What makes your argument or research interesting? How might it add value to the field?

Select a journal

Selecting the right journal means reaching the audience you intend for your article to speak to. To start identifying potential journals:

• Look at your own bookshelf / reference list. Where have authors published on similar topics?
• Search the library catalogue
• Consult Ulrich’s Web serials database  (subscription resource)
• For open access journals specifically - search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
• For student journals - see the Directory of Student Journals at UofT
• Talk to your advisor, colleagues or  liaison librarians

Automatic journal finders can recommend a journal based on your manuscript title/abstract:

• Jane: the Journal/Author Name Estimator
• Enago Open Access Journal Finder
• Elsevier journal finder  

To further narrow down the list:

• Study the “Aim and Scope” or similar section on editorial policies on the website to evaluate the fit and any specific content requirements;
• Skim through past issues, abstracts, table of contents - are there similar papers that have been published?
• How will your paper be reviewed? The journal’s website should mention the details of peer review process;
• Check details of copyright / license agreements and whether publication before or after your thesis submission is allowed .

Is it a trusted journal or publisher?

How to identify a deceptive publisher? See the Deceptive Publishing Checklist created by U of T.

Write the article

You may choose to approach writing your thesis with an aim to publish it as an article or several articles, known as an integrated/publication-based/sandwich thesis. Alternatively, you can reformat and convert your completed thesis into an article to fit the scope and style of a journal article. In both cases it will be helpful to:

• Carefully read and follow “Author Guidelines” for instructions on on preferred layout, word limits, reference style
• Use the criteria the reviewers will use and make sure your article addresses them
• Request and consider the input of your supervisor, colleagues, or other contributors to the research on which your thesis is based
• Reach out to friends or colleagues to prood-read your manuscript prior to submission

Additional resources on converting your thesis into an article:

• Adapting a Dissertation or Thesis Into a Journal Article by APA
• Eight top tips to help you turn your PhD thesis into an article by Elsevier
• Extracting a journal article from your thesis by Taylor & Francis
• << Previous: Publishing Your Thesis
• Next: Turning Thesis into a Book >>
• Last Updated: Sep 15, 2023 3:23 PM
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• Writing Tips

How to Turn Your Thesis into a Journal Article

4-minute read

• 11th September 2019

If you are writing a PhD thesis , you may be thinking about how to get your work published when you’re done. One option is to convert your thesis – or part of your thesis – into an academic journal article .

And if you want to do this, you’ll need to:

• Pick a journal with a scope that matches your research interests.
• Decide which parts of your thesis you want to use for the article.
• Think about whether to co-author the article with someone else.
• Check the journal publisher’s website for author instructions.
• Have the article proofread by an academic editor.

Let’s look at each of these steps in more detail to see how the process works.

1. Pick a Journal

To maximize your chances of publication, pick a suitable journal. The journal’s scope – i.e., the kind of work it publishes – is the most important factor here.

Specialist journals with a narrower scope may be more open to submissions from early career academics than larger, multidisciplinary journals (simply because there is more competition for Nature than, say, the American Journal of Potato Research ). But the most important thing is that your work fits the research interests and approaches of the publishing journal.

Other things to consider when choosing a journal include:

• Article rejection rate.
• Journal metrics (e.g., the impact factor ).
• Journal reputation (e.g., the turnaround times for acceptance/publication).

For more advice, check out the Think. Check. Submit. campaign.

2. Plan Turning Your Thesis into a Journal Article

A PhD thesis is, typically, a long, detailed account of your research. By comparison, a journal article will usually be more focused.

As such, part of turning your thesis into a journal article involves deciding what you will include. This could be a case of setting out your overall argument in clear, concise terms. Or it could be looking for parts of your PhD research that you could use for standalone articles.

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When planning your article, you will therefore need to:

• Have a clearly defined research question.
• Find the parts of your thesis that are most relevant to your question.
• Summarize the aims, methods, results, and outcomes involved.
• Rewrite key sections to make them self-standing.
• Tweak the article to fit the journal requirements.

The first step, then, is creating a paper outline with the factors above in mind.

3. Consider Co-Authorship

If anyone else made a significant contribution to your research, such as your PhD supervisor, you may want to ask them about co-authoring your article. As well as ensuring academic fairness – i.e., crediting them for the contribution they made – this has a couple of distinct advantages:

• You can benefit from their experience of publishing academic work.
• Having an established name with a good reputation in your field of study on the paper may boost your chances of publication.

Remember, though, anyone credited as an author on an article must have made a significant contribution . If they have not, you may want to mention them in a footnote or an “Acknowledgements” section instead.

4. Check the Author Instructions

Before writing your article, check the journal publisher’s website for author instructions. These should tell you all you need to know about:

• The journal’s submission guidelines (e.g., review by an ethics committee).
• The journal’s style requirements (e.g., word count, terminology)

Make sure to follow these guidelines when preparing your journal article.

5. Have Your Article Proofread

Finally, once you have drafted an article, have someone check it.

Asking a colleague is a good first step, as they may have feedback on content. But you’ll also want to ask a professional proofreader to review your document before submission, thus ensuring it is typo free.

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Turning a chapter into an article

Once you have settled on a few potential journals and / or publishers, it's time to think about how you'll write your article.

Spread your research out for maximum effect

One consideration that's worthwhile thinking about early on is how you'll spread your research out across multiple publications. While you cannot publish the exact same research in multiple places, you can publish different aspects of your work in different places. So if, for instance, you've got research that examines a variety of case studies, methods, theories, themes, and so on, consider how to narrow in on just one or two of these aspects for a publication.

To copy and paste or rewrite?

While it's tempting to consider simply sending a chapter of your work to a publisher, it usually takes the same amount of time to edit that chapter to fit the journal as it does to write a new paper.

For chapters that are already written as standalone pieces for a thesis by publication, then it is often a relatively straightforward process to send in that chapter. However, for many people who are writing chapters in the context of a thesis, you will need to spend time considering how to reframe your work as a standalone piece. This is where you need to carefully plan the paper.

What reviewers want

When it comes to planning your paper, keep in mind what reviewers are looking for. Generally, reviewers are looking for the following.

• Is the title focused, relevant and informative?
• Does the abstract capture the essential elements of the paper--does it spark reader interest?
• Does the paper have a clear key message?
• Does the paper clearly contribute something relevant and new to the field?
• Is the paper firmly grounded in the relevant theory or methodology?
• Is the issue sufficiently well-explained for the target audience?
• Is there good use of evidence that demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the literature available on the topic (even if it contradicts you)?
• Is the paper well-structured and well-written?
• Is the paper referenced appropriately to the journal's style?
• Do all aspects of presentation conform to the journal's house-style?

Most importantly, reviewers are looking to publish research that contributes to the field. However, it's useful to keep in mind that contributions can come in a range of forms. Belcher's book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks (2009, pp. 48-53) busts some myths and explains some guidelines about the types of research that journals publish.

Principally, Belcher explains that contributions to the field can include research that:

• "Approaches new evidence in an old way" (p. 50) - in other words, using well-established theory to analyse a new case study or new data;
• "Approaches old evidence in a new way" (p. 51) - where you might re-examine extant data, case studies, methods or theories using a different perspective to what has been used before; and
• "Pairs old evidence with old approaches in a new way" (p. 52) - in which case you might present a new combination of well-established theories, data, case studies, methods, etc, to emphasise a key message that has not been made before.

What can be certain is that journals will usually not publish work that does not contribute something new and of value to the field. So your job as an author is to persuade reviewers that your work contributes something new and of interest to the field.

Planning a journal article >>

References and further resources

• Belcher, W. L. (2009). Writing your journal article in 12 weeks: A Guide to academic publishing success . Los Angeles: Sage.
• Clark, T. & Wright, M. (2007). Reviewing journal rankings and revisiting peer reviews: Editorial perspectives. Journal of Management Studies , 44 (4), 612-621.
• Gump, S. E. (2004). Writing successful covering letters for unsolicited submissions to academic journals. Journal of Scholarly Publishing , 35 (2), 92-102.
• Knight, L. V. & Steinbach, T. A. (2008). Selecting an Appropriate publication outlet: a comprehensive model of journal selection criteria for researchers in a broad range of academic disciplines. International Journal of Doctoral Studies , 3 , 59-78.
• Murray, R. (2009). Writing for academic journals (2nd ed). Berkshire: Open University Press (McGraw Hill).

Journal article writing

Targeting a journal

Planning your paper

Writing an abstract

Dealing with feedback

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Converting a Thesis Chapter into a Journal Article

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By Dr Lizzy Lowe

It can be difficult to decide whether to submit your thesis chapters for publication before or after you submit your thesis. On one hand, the more journal articles you have published the better—especially if you will be seeking an academic position or grant funding following your PhD—and if many of your chapters are already published then your thesis reviewers will (hopefully) have very little to add. Conversely, getting a manuscript ready for publication can take much longer than putting a chapter together for your thesis, and can waste precious time that you need for finishing your PhD in time.

How Many Chapters Should You Aim to Publish?

Ideally, you will have a combination of the two, a few chapters than you turn into published papers earlier in your PhD and a few chapters written only for the thesis to begin with that, once you’ve submitted, will be ready to be converted into manuscripts. Many people have quite a long time between thesis submission and acceptance (and then another wait for job offers) so this is an ideal time to get those journal articles published to keep your productivity up during this time. This blog article gives a few tips for turning your thesis chapters into manuscripts for publication.

A Journal Article Must Stand Alone

The most important thing is to take a step back and evaluate the aims and scope of your planned paper. A thesis chapter will be a continuation of previous work in the thesis and will refer to the main aims your PhD, whereas a manuscript needs to stand alone as a body of work. The first thing you need to do is make a summary of the main results in your chapter and make sure you have clear, stand alone aims for the manuscript. A thesis chapter has no word limit (though your full thesis might), but your target journal will have a strict word limit for articles, so refine the data you want to include in order to present a clear story. This means moving large tables and superfluous figures to the supplementary materials and only including data that is essential for the aims of this article.

Reworking Your Introduction

The introduction and the discussion are likely to need to most work. In a thesis, much of the background information will be included in your general introduction chapter and therefore will be missing from your manuscript. When reorganising and rewording your introduction for publication, use the pyramid approach of starting with the broader context and funnelling down to the information on your specific system.

Reworking Your Discussion

When working on the discussion, refer to your list of the main results and only discuss these topics. You also need to spend a bit more time discussing the implications of your work than you would in a thesis chapter (since in your thesis, this would normally be included in a separate chapter).

Preparing Your Article for Submission

Finally, you will have to reference and format your chapter following your target journal’s specific guidelines, which will usually be different to the guidelines you followed when writing your thesis. This often includes changing the referencing system to the one used by your target journal.

The way you format your manuscript will vary depending on where you are intending to submit your article to. Your journal will outline their specific requirements on the ‘Submission’ or ‘Information for Authors’ page on their website.

For more detailed information on other aspects to consider, such as choosing an appropriate journal, you can refer to our article on publishing your first scientific paper .

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6 Simple Steps to Convert a PhD Thesis Into a Journal Article

What can you do with your PhD manuscript after years of research, sweat, tears (at least that was my case) and revisions? Put it on your mom’s bookcase to proudly showcase to all her friends? Use it as a book stopper? As the world of academia involves attracting funds, research, and publishing, you may find yourself asking, is turning your dissertation into a publishable journal article possible? Yes, definitely yes!

The world has become more fast-paced and competitive, and academia is no different. Today, the concept of ‘publish or perish’ has led to a massive pressure to publish your academic work in order to succeed in the world of scholarly research. The advantages are clear, turning a thesis into a journal article is the best opportunity to present your work to a wider audience, which can get you the funds you need for further research and also act as a great marketing tool for job seekers. This constant pressure to publish can hurt quality, however, your PhD thesis has gone through multiple rounds of revisions by supervisors and reviewers to ensure it meets the high quality benchmarks required to earn your doctoral degree. So, converting a thesis to a journal article should be easy, right? Sometimes it is, but not always.

The good thing is that, in most cases, you will be able to publish more than one article from your thesis (I did so by avoiding plagiarism and without overlapping any of the content across the articles). However, there are a few things to consider. First, the legalities of publishing your thesis; most journals will have no issues with this but it is good practice to mention the work in the credits or in the cover letter. Second, the practicalities, which I will cover herewith. A journal article generally presents a rationale from which a research gap was identified, then how the study intends to fill it, the methods, results and discussion, and often a conclusion. This is also included in a PhD thesis. So why don’t we go straight from the degree approval to the submission page of a target journal? It all comes down to the length! PhD theses vary from subject to subject, but they are far longer than a journal article, probably over 10 times the length needed for an article. Here are a few best practices to help you convert your thesis into a journal article

Get the basics right . Does your PhD thesis cover more than one aspect of your research topic? Then each topic should be treated as an independent theme for a journal article. That is, each chapter could potentially be turned into separate journal articles once you make the necessary modifications to comply with structural guidelines (i.e., abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussions).

Focus on the specifics. When describing the methods, a PhD thesis requires all the specifics, but journal articles can make use of citations to reduce the word count, so effectively cite known approaches or standard laboratory procedures.

Paraphrase effectively . The content in a PhD thesis are expected to be thorough, but journal articles shouldn’t be wordy. So paraphrase content from your thesis; I normally discourage direct quotations, so write concise alternatives using your own words to express meaning.

Get some perspective. Discuss what you’re doing with your supervisors and other colleagues that contributed to the work. This may be obvious but they have walked the road longer than you and will be able to provide some great advice.

Consider writing a review article. The work done on understanding a research topic is remarkably time-consuming, and often covers a wide breadth of knowledge. This can be turned into a review article where you summarize the latest contributions to the field. I published one review from my PhD work considering that during the background review process, I decided to focus on a slightly different direction for my work, and it is today my best effort in converting my thesis to a journal article. One thing to remember is that although review articles do not report original research, they can analyze and often link various studies in an innovative way to promote future research.

Select your target journal carefully. We may all want to publish in a high-impact journal, but if the basics of your research are not well covered by the aims and scope of the journal, you will face a rejection even before your article is sent for review. Read the journal guidelines carefully to comply with all the requirements.

We hope these tips help you turn your PhD masterpiece into a publishable journal article. The work is sound, the background is comprehensive, so jump in. You are ready to step into the next level of building your publication list. Good luck!

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How to Turn Your Thesis Into a Journal Article

In many cases, publishing thesis is often one of the requirements for graduate students to finish their academic program. Publishing research findings is one of the more important ways to share research data with the scientific community. However, the structure of it is different from that of a research article. In this article, we shall discuss how to turn your thesis to journal article.

Characteristics of a Thesis and a Journal Article

Differences between a thesis and a journal article.

While both contain similar sections, you cannot simply publish your thesis research as a journal article. Converting it into a journal article has many steps. It is important to recognize that an article is much shorter than the thesis. However, turning your thesis into a journal article will not be a simple matter of copy and paste. You will need to use the data in your thesis as the starting point for writing your article.

Related: Planning to publish your Ph.D. research in a good journal? Check these journal selection guidelines now!

The  many differences  between a thesis research and a journal article are as follows:

• A thesis meets academic requirements while a journal article meets journalistic standards.
• The abstract of an article is usually shorter than that of a thesis.
• The introduction in a thesis is used to show that you are familiar with the literature in your chosen field. In a research paper , the introduction is much shorter as it is assumed that your target audience is familiar with the necessary background to understand your work. The introduction to your paper will, therefore, focus more on setting the stage for the data/research output that you are about to present.
• The results section in a thesis will include all your findings. In a paper, this would be too much detail. The data in this section should be only what you need to support your research problem or hypothesis. Often, the results in former may represent two to three different papers.
• The discussion in your paper will be much more focused than in your thesis. It will be guided by the results presented in the paper. Finally, only citations of articles actually mentioned in your paper will be listed in the references section.

Turning Thesis Research to Journal Article

As a researcher, you need to publish your work to advance your career and make contributions to the research field. Now that the differences have been outlined, how do you actually write one?

1. Identify a Suitable Journal

You could start by  journal selection . Look at your reference list. Chances are at least some of the papers you read were published in journals whose scope would match your work. Selecting a journal also allows you to tailor the paper to the specific requirements of that journal. Ensure that your research article coincides with the aim and scope of the journal. Understand the journal’s guidelines, recommended manuscript structure, and reference style

2. Reduce Redundant Length of Your Thesis

An important aspect of turning your thesis research to journal article is focusing on the word count without deleting crucial information. In order reduce word count , extract the data that answers just one research question. This should result in a more focused information than your thesis research presented. Discuss results in context with your problem statement-that is the focus of your paper. Good language and structure are crucial – your paper may get rejected even though it contains valuable data if it is difficult to understand. Use your data to tell a coherent story and avoid sweeping conclusions your data cannot support. Ensure that your title matches the contents of your paper. Paraphrase the content without changing the meaning.

3. Modify Introduction as Abstract

Repurpose the introduction as an abstract by shortening your thesis introduction to 100-150 words. Remember to maintain key points of the introduction to hold the reader’s attention. Formulate the introduction and discussion of thesis as basis for the journal article’s abstract. Furthermore, consider combining multiple research questions or focus on just one for the journal article.

4. Focus on Relevant and Selective Information

Since the discussion, methods and methodology, and results section of your thesis is an in-detail explanation of your research, these sections must be kept short while writing in a journal article.  Familiarize yourself with the target journal’s standards by referring previously published papers and understanding their format. Most importantly, provide interpretation of main findings in the results section in concise statements or tabular formats. Avoid repeating your results in the discussion section. However, discuss how your findings expand and support previous perspectives of the research. Finally, mention how future studies can build upon your work and address limitations in your study.

5. Limit the Number of References

As your thesis is a work of several years put together, it involves numerous literature reviewing. However, while turning your thesis to journal article, you must include only limited references that are relevant to the research question addressed in the journal article. Focus on using most recent references. Consider using reference management tools such as Zotero, Mendeley, Quiqqa, etc. to make the referencing process easier and efficient.

It is an academic requirement that you publish your data for the benefit of the scientific community. Considering that the structure of journal article is different from the structure of a thesis, turning a thesis to journal article must be done following logical steps as mentioned above.

Did you ever have to convert your thesis to journal article? How did you plan it? What strategies did you use while reducing the word count of your thesis? Let us know in the comments section below! You can also visit our  Q&A forum  for frequently asked questions related to different aspects of research writing and publishing answered by our team that comprises subject-matter experts, eminent researchers, and publication experts.

I was Searching For This From So Many days. Thank you for Sharing

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

Are we also going to talk Code of Conduct in Research, as authorship is part of the conduct (ethics)?

Regards, Elvia

I guess you are referring to our upcoming webinar on Assigning Authorship & Contributorship | Tips for Researchers. We will be discussing the ethical dilemmas in authorship during the session.

We would request you to register and attend the webinar for additional insights on this topic.

Meanwhile, we would recommend you to share your queries with us on our FREE Q&A forum . In addition, you may download our FREE mobile app to stay updated on the latest resources in research writing and academic publishing.

What about the Topic? we need to rephrase the topic or keep it same with Thesis topic?

Hi Shahid, Thank you for your question. Your thesis topic would be a cumulative title for all the chapters described in your thesis. When you publish your thesis as a journal article, every chapter would be published as an individual article in most cases. You may or may not use the same title that you have used for that particular chapter in the thesis. Your thesis would have chapter names that are more suited to the overall objective of your thesis. On the other hand, your manuscript should ideally have a catchy and search-optimized title highlighting a general perspective. It may not be the same as your thesis title. However, if your thesis chapter title meets the requirement of the manuscript you intend to publish, you can go ahead with the same.

You could also go through our articles on writing good research paper titles: https://www.enago.com/academy/top-10-tips-on-choosing-an-attractive-research-title/ https://www.enago.com/academy/writing-a-good-research-title-things-to-avoid/ https://www.enago.com/academy/write-irresistible-research-paper-title/

Did you get a chance to install our FREE mobile app . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter: https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .

Hi Dr. Durga, Amazing article and I am sure it will surely help the writers to write more carefully and also plagiarised free.

Greeting from Enago Academy! Thank you for your positive comment. We are glad to know that you found our resources useful. Your feedback is very valuable to us. Happy reading!

i just read the article and also the comments section it’s so helpful. thank you so much for sharing it.. good work!

Thanks a lot for this informational blog which surely going to help the students pursuing the Phd. Nowdays due to assignment burden students started taking the help of professional academic experts. There are many writing services.

Thank you for the very useful article. I will definitely look into it.

Writing a book: needed advice and help at one point. I found enago academy in my search of Answers. You were a Great Help! I hope to use your services again, if I am stuck on correct writing principles! Thank You for being here. K.R. Plante

This helped me a lot; thank you for this informative article.

Thanks for writing such an informative blog which will surely be a great help for the students as well as the institutions

Great article! One question…. should I cite the thesis in the paper? If so, how do I do that efficiently since it would be all over the place?

good, insightful piece of text.

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Dr. Katie Foss

Professor and writer on writing, epidemics, and media literacy, transforming a journal article into a book chapter.

Journal articles and book chapters are not interchangeable. You can’t (or at least shouldn’t) take your published article and insert the text into your book. The format, tone, language, structure, and reference section often differ from a peer-reviewed one-time publication to a chapter, which needs to fit into the overall book. So how do you make this switch?

Before you do any revising, you need to get permission from the journal editor to have the article appear in your book. Send a polite email, asking for permission and explaining the outlet in which the article will appear (your book). Some publishers grant individual authors the rights to their work. Others don’t. Always make the request–as soon as you know you’d like to reprint the article. At the same time, check with your book editor about the reprint, at least giving a “heads up.” If you are writing your manuscript and don’t yet have an editor, you will disclose this reprint in your book proposal. It is totally fine to include published articles-turned chapters in your book. It actually makes sense. If you are an expert on this topic and have published articles, your book can be (at least partially) a culmination of your work. Do note that editors typically want the majority of a book to be new content, but that still leaves space for revised reprints.

Assuming you’ve gotten written permission for the reprint, you can move forward. It’s tempting to just drop the article in, call it a chapter, and be done. Not a smart move though. You are (hopefully) including your article as a chapter because it adds to the content of your book. You want this addition to be seamless and not stand out as a journal article floating in the middle of a book.

Journal articles and academic book chapters do share similarities. They are typically both comprised of secondary and primary sources, woven together to create a narrative driven by a purpose and set of objectives. The differences stop there. Book chapters don’t usually have the rigid, standard sections of a journal article, especially in the middle of a single-authored book (you may find more “journal-article” elements in a chapter for an anthology, as each contributor spells out theory and method for their own projects).

Step-by-step Instructions for Making Your Article a Chapter

• Identify the reasons for including the article-as-chapter in your book. What does it add? How does it fit?
• Read your journal article with fresh eyes, looking at your work as it will fit in your book. Note spots in the chapter that need to be updated or revised to match the rest of your book, especially if it’s been a few years since the article’s publication.
• Remove the theory and method sections, unless they are unique to this chapter. You likely already covered these areas in your introduction.
• Conduct additional research needed for the chapter (updating the literature review, analyzing material that’s been created since your article research timeline ended, etc.). For example, for me to transform articles to chapters, I often have to add a sample of media content that has been created since the articles were published.
• Revise the chapter into a chapter format. (Yes, step 5 is the big one). Adopt a slightly more conversational tone in your writing. Define concepts for readers outside of your discipline. Add headers, topic sentences, and other language that creates a flow for your chapter that parallels the other chapters in your book. Most book chapters don’t have a RESULTS or FINDINGS section. Rephrase your primary analysis to thematic headings.
• Revise the references to match your book’s citation format. In my discipline, journals typically use APA, while books use Chicago Style.
• Read the chapter as it fits into the other chapters. Does it flow or stand out? Revise as needed so that it no longer reads as an article turned chapter, but just a chapter. Have you adhered to the press guidelines?

Chapters need to tell a story within the book’s overarching purpose. Only include journal articles if you would have wanted the topics covered in your book anyway. By revising your article into a chapter format, you increase its likelihood of success with editors and reviewers and improve the overall experience for your future readers.

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thank you so much this is so insightful

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What Do Journal Editors Want? Tips From an Editor-in-Chief

Some ideas to make the publication process less opaque..

Posted May 19, 2024 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

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• Publishing research in peer reviewed scholarly journals is important, but challenging.
• Often the editorial process and what the editor wants are opaque.
• Establishing the value of the manuscript topic is the most important part of the paper.

Publications in peer-reviewed, refereed scholarly journals are the currency of academia. Tenure, promotions, grants, and professional reputations hinge on the number and quality of papers accepted for publication in these journals. Acceptance rates in high-impact, high-status journals range from 6% to 20% of all submissions. However, the process for having research articles accepted is opaque. Often, contributing authors have to guess what reviewers and journal editors want.

April 1, 2024, was my last day as editor-in-chief of a peer-reviewed, refereed scholarly journal. This five-year term was preceded by six years as editor of a different journal. After 11 years, it is time to retire as a journal editor. I have learned a lot in that time. Although I cannot speak for all editors, here are a few insights for authors to consider when preparing manuscripts for publication.

Editor Priorities

Editors have fears of plagiarism, authorship purchasing, data fraud, artificial intelligence -generated papers, and other issues that bring the credibility of the journal into question. The credibility of the journal is something all editors wish to protect. The most important remedy is to weigh the value of the paper above all else. Having no errors in analysis or design does not necessarily merit publication. Reviewers and I reject many well-designed and well-written papers where the value of the paper was not established. Colloquially—nice work, but it is not important. Establish value in the context of literature, theory, gaps in the knowledge base, or clinical practice. Focusing on effect sizes or statistical significance can easily be gamed. But a paper that is important to the field, asks useful questions, uses a strong and innovative research design, is open with data, and draws insightful conclusions is less likely to have major credibility issues.

Basic Considerations

The basics may appear overly simple, but ignoring them leads to a desk rejection. Spend the time and effort to ensure that the target journal is a good fit for your article. Ensuring a seamless fit of research methods, scope, intended readership, and implications of findings is worth the investment of time. Many authors complain about the time and energy required to format a manuscript according to the journal's requirements. Do it. Correct formatting is a signifier of professionalism. A carefully prepared manuscript indicates that the authors know what they are doing and casts a positive light on the paper. Papers not following formatting rules are sometimes accepted, but it is one more hurdle that authors do not need.

Follow the simple thread: Has the subject matter of the article been clearly established as important to theory, overall knowledge, or clinical practice? Do the research questions and hypotheses flow logically from this important subject matter? Do the methods and data analyses effectively answer the research questions and test the hypotheses? Do the conclusions and implications logically follow from the data and results? Are all of these components effectively communicated? These questions may seem simple, but failure to answer these questions and link the answers in a thread is the primary reason for manuscript rejection. Telling a story with each competent being clear and accurate is a key to publishing scholarly manuscripts.

I become skeptical when reading convoluted prose intended to impress with its literary flair. Settle down, Faulkner. Be clear, not fancy. Likewise, overselling a paper as cutting -edge, revolutionary, state-of-the-art, paradigm-shifting, or groundbreaking will not help. Relax a bit there, Niels Bohr. A good study that is well done sells itself.

Measurement is a significant issue. This makes sense for me, as Jamie Algina and Linda Crocker were my professors. Remember that reliability is more than reporting a perfunctory coefficient alpha. Very short surveys, informal measures, choice of measures used, and newly developed measures will receive close scrutiny. Sensitivity and specificity are key issues on all measures that require explanation.

All articles with quantitative data receive a quick check before I send them to associate editors or reviewers. Simple checks include: Are the statical test results reported possible given the means and standard deviations reported? Is statistical power considered and addressed in some way? Are the distributions of data checked for violations of assumptions? Are quantitative approaches the best way to address the research questions?

Qualitative approaches require an established theory of data collection and analysis. Is the study truly qualitative? Are data reported fully and as completely as possible? And are qualitative approaches the best way to address the research questions?

Have data ready to share with the editor or reviewers. I requested data for four different articles that had massive and unexpected effect sizes, data in tables did not appear to match, or fits to models were too good to be true. Rather than send the data, all four submissions were withdrawn by the authors. In no case was the request to share data a violation of informed consent of the participants.

I never cared if a study yielded statistically significant results. An important and well-designed study is valuable no matter the result. However, stating that a paper is "approaching significance” or “would likely be statistically significant if the power were greater" is not the winning argument some authors might think. Moreover, statistical significance and significance (meaning importance) are not interchangeable.

Some papers are clearly part of a series of papers from a large data set. Reviewing a paper that is obviously a see-through slice of the salami is not inspiring. This is not automatically rejection-worthy, but there needs to be a clear case made that the current study exists as more than an exercise in p-hacking or HARKing (hypotheses after results are known).

Conclusions

Publishing in peer-reviewed scholarly journals is among the most important and difficult tasks for academics. Understanding a few of the quirks of the editorial process is an important part of the publishing. Editors want to help authors improve their work and are genuinely excited to read high-quality studies. A few considerations from an old editor can make the publication process slightly easier.

Steven R. Shaw, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, QC, Canada.

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