Nurse Researcher

Publishing

How to create a journal

article from a thesis
Cite this article as:Ahern K (2012) How to create a journal article from a thesis.
Nurse Researcher. 19, 4, 21-25.
Accepted: December 2 2010.
Correspondence to:
Kathy Ahern
[email protected]
Kathy Ahern RN, PhD is a
lecturer at the School of Nursing
and Midwifery, University of
Queensland, Australia
Peer review
This article has been subject to
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using antiplagiarism software
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Abstract
Aim To identify strategies to assist in the publication
of research arising from a postgraduate thesis
ordissertation.
Background There are many benefits to publishing
a journal article from a completed thesis, including
contributing knowledge to the writers chosen field,
career enhancement and personal satisfaction.
However, there are also numerous obstacles for
thenewly graduated student in crafting an article
fitfor aspecialist publication from a thesis.
Data sources The author conducted a search of the
title, abstract and keywords of the Cinahl, Scopus
and Proquest databases, from 1990 to 2010: The
author searched for the words: journal article or
manuscript; thesis or dissertation.
Review methods The author excluded papers
if: theypertained to allocation of authorship to
someone other than the academic adviser; related
toundergraduate issues rather than graduate

Introduction
There are many benefits to publishing a journal
article from a completed thesis or dissertation,
including contributing knowledge to ones
chosenfield, career enhancement and personal
satisfaction (McConnell 2010). However, there
areobstacles thatstudents commonly encounter
when developing manuscripts that can render
publication an almost insurmountable chore
(Robinson and Dracup 2008,McConnell 2010).
Thispaper presents a systematic review of
scholarly papers that offers insight into how to
develop publications from a postgraduate thesis
ordissertation, and suggests areas that require
further investigation.
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dissertations; were discussions of the merits of a

PhD by publication instead of by thesis; were
notpublished in a peer-reviewed journal; or were
notin English.
Conclusion The relationship between adviser and
student changes as the student becomes a graduate,
and new roles for the student and adviser need to
benegotiated.
Implications for research/practice Students need to
realise that writing a paper from a thesis is usually
going to be more difficult than they anticipate, but the
application of strategies discussed in this paper should
make the task manageable. Furthermore, universities
might wish to consider alternatives in which published
papers emerge before the examination of a thesis,
such as requiring students to write a paper as part of
their coursework.
Keywords Manuscript, thesis, dissertation, research
student, publication, journal article
I conducted a search of the Cinahl, Scopus and
Proquest databases for the terms journal article or
manuscript and thesis or dissertation in the title,
abstract and keywords from 1990 to 2010. This
resulted in 540 potential papers. I read the abstracts
and excluded papers if they pertained to:
Allocation of authorship to someone other than the
academic adviser.
Specific undergraduate or clinical issues unrelated
to a graduate dissertation or thesis.
Discussions of the merits of a PhD by publication
instead of by thesis.
Publication in a non-peer reviewed journal
because such papers have not been subject to
blind review and are therefore of unconfirmed
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Table 1

Summary of papers included

Author

Paper type

Substantive topic

Major conclusions

Bowen (2010)

First person
account

Adapting a
qualitative thesis

Quality articles are coherent and compelling. They report

research results that break new ground, influence policy
or practice.

Garry (2007)

Expert
commentary

Alternatives for
publication

Virology Journal will publish thesis background sections.

Giefer (1996)

Expert
commentary

Authorship

Before proceeding with the manuscript, clarify in

writing the relationship between the student and thesis
adviser re: authorship. If the relationship changes then
renegotiation ofroles is required.

Johnson
(1992)

Expert
commentary

Adapting a thesis

Use existing sections of the thesis, such as the literature

review, methodology and finding, to write discrete
papers.

Johnson
(1996)

Qualitative
interviews of
editors

Adapting a thesis

Research findings need to be reported to inform practice

and assist with replication. Students need to write the
article to address what editors and reviewers are seeking.

Kekle et al
(2009)

Expert
commentary

Adapting a thesis

A thesis is designed to show that the student knows

everything about the topic for a readership of a few
examiners. The purpose of a journal article is to present
the relevant findings to the academic community.

Leonard
(2010)

Commentary

Authorship

The need for publication for academic advisers is an

indicator that teaching, supervision and everything else
do not count.

Morse (2009)

Expert
commentary

Authorship

A dissertation is not solely the students work. Authorship

attribution is based on conceptual, rather than technical
contribution.

Timmons and
Park (2008)

Interviews of
supervisors
and students

Factors influencing
student publishing

The supervisors role changes after submission of

thedissertation to that of protagonist and motivator.
The extent of supervisor input varied according to the
desire and ability of the student to convert a thesis into
apublication.

Whitley et al
(1998)

Survey
of 633
published
authors

Factors influencing
student publishing

Almost two thirds of publications by students are

because of the requirements of a course. Academic
inputis a major factor in the dissemination of research
by students.

quality or they were not written in English.

This resulted in seven papers. I examined the
reference lists of these papers and determined a
further three relevant papers, resulting in a total
often papers. Table 1 presents an overview of
thesepapers
Of the ten articles identified for this review, only
three (Johnson 1996, Whitley et al 1998, Timmons
and Park 2008) were based on empirical research.
A further six were either expert commentaries
(Giefer 1996, Kekle et al 2009, Leonard 2010) or
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commentaries by journal editors (Johnson 1992,

Garry 2007, Morse 2009). One article (Bowen 2010)
was a first-person account.

Effort involved
Of the three research papers, only one (Whitley et al
1998) applied a quantitative methodology. In this
paper, authors of articles published in the journal
Nursing Research were surveyed about factors that
influenced their decisions as students to become
involved in publishing. Of the 335 respondents,
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Publishing
almost one third (31.6 per cent) of the authors had
been students at some point during research. Further
analysis revealed that student consultation with
faculty was intense during data analysis (seven hours
per month), when drafting the report (9.4 hours
per month) and when preparing the manuscript
(7.75 hours per month).
This is important because it provides empirical
support for anecdotal reports (Giefer 1996,
Kekle et al 2009) and editors commentaries
(Johnson 1992, Morse 2009) that writing an
articlerequires more work than simply summarising
asection of a thesis. Bowen (2010) described howit
took more than a year to publish a paper from
his dissertation, with multiple requested revisions
extending the publication process by five months.
The second research paper on adapting a
thesisinto an article (Johnson 1996) entailed
interviewing 15 editors of nursing journals.
Theeditors described their reasons for rejecting
thesis-style papers and made recommendations
forsuccessfully converting theses into manuscripts.
Common reasons for rejecting manuscripts were
the inclusion in the manuscript of lengthy literature
reviews, a lack of clinical recommendations
appropriate to the readership and not stringently
applying the journals style requirements.
Most of the papers I reviewed highlighted the
issue of crafting an article for the readership of
aparticular journal. Kekle et al (2009) suggested
that authors should change the focus of papers
to practical issues of clinical importance to
readerships of hundreds of thousands of scholars
and practitioners, away from the theoretical and
methodological depth required by the limited number
of thesis examiners. Furthermore, papers must
meetthe needs of the journal readers within a tight
word count.
Bowen (2010) ascribed his desire to include
everything in his first attempt to write an article
from his thesis as the result of the need to
demonstrate his scholarliness. In reality this aim is
counterproductive to getting a manuscript published.
For example, theoretical discussions that lead to the
rejection of a paradigmor methodology in the thesis
tend tobe excluded in a journal article because the
focus of the article is on a clear set of findings and
recommendations from the chosen methodology
(Kekle et al 2009).
Kekle et al (2009) also suggested focusing
onpractical issues of clinical importance by having a
minimal introduction, limiting the scopeof the paper
to one research question, using only literaturethat
is crucial to the research topic, andemphasising the
research methodology andfindings.
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Writing papers from a qualitative thesis is

especially challenging, given the need to include
rich descriptions and quotes as supporting
evidence (Kekle et al 2009, Bowen 2010).
Kekle et al (2009) suggested making a wallchart
with the conclusions of the qualitative study
andsupporting passages from the transcripts, then
deleting superfluous sentences until the required
word length is achieved. Bowen (2010) suggested
using more summative statements instead of
lengthy direct quotes. Both papers suggested
developing a table in which the conclusions are
presented with supporting statements.

Adviser-student relationship
The relationship between adviser and student
changes as the student becomes a graduate, and
new roles for the student and adviser need to be
negotiated (Giefer 1996, Timmons and Park 2008).
Box 1 (page 24) lists the points to note in the early
stages of manuscript development.
Timmons and Park (2008) conducted a
qualitative study of supervisors and students on
the completion of their theses or dissertations.
These two authors concluded that the role of the
supervisor changed after completion into the role
of protagonist andmotivator. However, Timmons
and Park didnotdescribe the pre-graduation roles
and provided little guidance for assisting with this
change in role.
Nevertheless, Timmons and Park showed that
the input by supervisors into publication varies
enormously, according to the ability and motivation
of the student to publish. One aspect they identified
as being particularly helpful for studentswas
naming the student as first author andthe
supervisor as the subsequent but corresponding
author. In the study, only one of the ten students
who had published indicated that they would have
preferred to be the corresponding author.
Giefer (1996) and Timmons and Park (2008)
suggested that authors should determine
in writingthe ground rules for authorship
before proceeding with any paper, and Giefer
provided some concrete suggestions. The
authors of papersdiscussed in this review
generally acknowledged that failing to negotiate
and clarifyroles in the publication of a paper
potentiallyleaves the studentand the adviser in
awkward positions.
The literature also suggests that a cause of this
conflict might be that the unpublished new graduate
will not grasp the amount of work required to
re-draft a thesis into a published paper (Johnson
1992, Giefer 1996, Kekle et al 2009).
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Box 1 Points to consider before crafting a thesis into a journal
Start by accepting that this is going to be harder than you think.
Crafting an article is considerably more work than most students realise (Robinson and Dracup 2008,
Timmons and Park 2008, Bowen 2010, McConnell 2010).
Your relationship with your supervisor will change when you have completed your thesis or dissertation
(Giefer1996, Timmons and Park 2008).
Recognise that many supervisors make significant contributions to the thesis and related publications
(Whitley et al 1998, Timmons and Park 2008, Morse 2009).
Negotiate early with your supervisors about ownership, roles and authorship, and have a written agreement
(Giefer 1996, Robinson and Dracup 2008, Bowen 2010, Leonard 2010, Morse 2009).
Your manuscript will probably be rejected and some journals will ask for changes that you do not want to do.
But it is all part of the process (McConnell 2010).
Box 2 Steps to producing an article for a journal
Dozens of references do not necessarily impress an
editor unless these references are relevant to your
article and target audience (Johnson 1992, 1996,
Bowen 2010).
Avoid presenting a summary of the dissertation or
thesis (Johnson 1992, Bowen 2010).
Limit descriptions of informed consent and other
ethical issues. Keep discussions to a concise
statement regarding the institutional review board or
ethics committee (Bowen 2010).
Focus the topic so it addresses the concerns of
journal readership (Johnson 1996, Kekle et al
2009, Bowen 2010, McConnell 2010).
Rewrite and update the literature review (Johnson
1996, Garry 2007). Edit the demographics and
methods section. Keep the literature and theoretical
framework to a minimum (Johnson 1996,
Kekle et al 2009, Bowen 2010).

Alternative approaches to publishing

Several papers provided alternatives to crafting a
paper from a completed thesis. Virology Journal
publishes the background section of a thesis if the
references are up to date (Garry 2007).
Another option gaining popularity, as cited by De
Jong et al (2005) and Robinson and Dracup (2008), is
for postgraduate research students to publish a series
of papers instead of writing a major thesis, then
developing articles from it. This approach should
minimise conflicts about the roles of the student
and supervisor because the student is receiving
formal input from the supervisor and the mentoring
relationship is defined clearly. However, for many
institutions this would constitute a major change in
the way they conduct postgraduate education, and
the potential benefits of having publications must be
weighed against the loss of opportunity to investigate
the broader scope of the topic, including theoretical
issues (Robinson and Dracup 2008).
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Identify one dimension or outcome to report

(Johnson 1992, Bowen 2010).
Establish a clear topic with a strong opening
sentence to entice the reader into the article.
(McConnell 2010). Write a conclusion that
reflectsthe topic in the title and introduction
(McConnell 2010).
Include only the charts and tables needed by
the reader to understand the topic of the paper
(Johnson 1992, 1996, Kekle et al 2009).
Incorporate truncated quotes and more summative
statements in qualitative papers (Bowen 2010).
Emphasise clinical application of the research
(Johnson 1992, 1996, Kekle et al 2009, Bowen
2010, McConnell 2010).
Adhere to journal referencing, style and length
requirements (Johnson 1996, Bowen 2010,
McConnell 2010).
A third alternative asks students to write a paper
for publication as part of a coursework component
in the graduate programme. Whitley et al (1998)
found that 59 per cent of student authors were
required by their course to submit manuscripts.
However, this approach has drawbacks because the
pressure to publish can lead to the disproportionate
selection of topics regarding issues that reflect the
priorities of funding agencies rather than areas of
need or interest to the individual research student
(Leonard 2010).
Finally, Timmons and Park (2008) recognised
that some supervisors may not have the desire,
confidence, time or skills to help students get their
research published. They concluded that if specialist
staff members take responsibility for supporting
publication it might provide the knowledge and
guidance students require to developarticles
suitable for publication. Box 2 provides the steps
required for development of a manuscript.
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Publishing
Discussion
There were surprisingly few studies of how to
re-work a thesis into a publishable paper. Only
three of the ten papers identified were empirical
studies, which represents a major gap in the
resources available to help students and their
supervisors with this endeavour.
In addition, some of these papers were published
a long time ago and postgraduate protocols have
evolved since they were written (McConnell 2010).
Johnson (1992) suggested that the thesis chapter
and sections can be modified into papers so that the
literature review, for example, can be developed into
a research analysis paper and the recommendations
section into a clinical application. However, this
linear approach in which a discrete thesis section
relates to an equivalent paper does not reflect current
trends in which systematic reviews of highly specific,
published literature andevidence-based practice lead
to recommendations based on empirical rather than
theoretical findings.

Conclusion
Writing for publication requires different skills to
those learned in writing a thesis or dissertation,
most notably the ability to identify and meet the
requirements of the readership of a particular
journal. A thesis is written for an audience of
two orthree experts, while a published paper
is readby many thousands of practitioners and
researchers. The slant of any manuscript must
be relevant to the readership of a specific journal
andmust have a style consistent with other articles
in the journal (McConnell 2010). This usually requires
a major rewrite of several different sections of the
thesis to form a cohesive paper thataddresses a
particular issue.
Writing a journal article from a completed
thesisis neither easy nor a skill most newly
graduated students possess. It takes determination
to learn new skills at a time when most students
are simultaneously celebrating their recent success

Additional advice
If you feel too overwhelmed or exhausted to
publish, negotiate to be second author rather
than first author (Timmons and Park 2008)
publication as second author is better than no
publication at all.
Ask the supervisor (as second author) to be the
corresponding author (Timmons and Park 2008,
Morse 2009).
Collaborate with experienced authors as well as
your thesis adviser (Bowen 2010).
Attend seminars and workshops on publishing
from a thesis (Timmons and Park 2008).
Identify journals that actively encourage
publication of sections of a thesis (Garry 2007).
andreeling from the work required to complete
athesis. However, publication of articles will
maximise the outcome of all the energy expended in
a thesis, and lead to the development of new research
skills, career benefits and personal satisfaction.
This review has identified a significant gap in
theresearch literature regarding processes by which
theses can be efficiently crafted into manuscripts
that will reach a wide readership of clinicians
andscholars.
Although De Jong et al (2005) and Robinson
and Dracup (2008) suggest writing a series of
manuscripts instead of a thesis is a better alternative
to developing a thesis, there is little empirical
evidence to support this view. Athesis requires a
theoretical and methodological depth not required in
published manuscripts, andgraduate students might
be missing out on learning these higher level research
skills ifpublishing papers becomes an end in itself
(Leonard 2010).
Empirical research is needed urgently to
identify the advantages and limitations of different
approaches to postgraduate supervision so that
postgraduate students can benefit from the best
possible research training.

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Conflict of interest
None declared

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