how to write an article from your thesis

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How to Write a Journal Article from a Thesis

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Table of Contents

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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How to Convert Your Thesis into a Journal Article?

Table of Contents

“Congratulations, your Thesis has been accepted!”

Upon submitting your thesis, when you hear this statement, your heart must have felt complete feelings of joy and pride. You must be in a self-boasting mode where you finally feel that you have sent your baby to the outside world. However, as time passes by, you will gradually get to know that: the majority of the researchers only prefer to read a 10-15 page paper about the most revolutionary part of your research rather than digging through 500 pages of your book-style thesis.

Welcome to the harsh reality, now. After completing the gigantic task of writing, submitting, and defending your Ph.D. thesis, you get to know that it was not enough. The next pragmatic step you must adopt is converting a few parts of your thesis into a journal article.

You can easily create a few journal articles by scouring through your manuscript. While skimming your thesis manuscript, you will be able to discover that a few chapters can easily be segmented and converted into a journal article. These segmented chapters and the research material you gathered during the research phase can provide you with enough materials to create a few journal articles.

There is much confusion around the conversion of the thesis to a journal article. These confusions range from “what is the need for the conversion of the thesis to an article,” “whether it is legit to do so or not,” to “is converting a thesis to a journal considered a plagiarized source, specifically self-plagiarism?”

Even you must have got these questions. So, let me answer and clear off the doubts over these looming questions contesting within you.

Why Publish Articles from Thesis?

It is pretty well known that a research paper asserts much credibility to the author. So, the easiest way to create your first research paper is through your thesis or dissertation. Besides, you will come across many benefits once you have published the first article from your thesis. These can include:

1) Career Boost

A mere bullet point mentioning you have authored a journal article will be an outstanding achievement and addition to your CV. It generally takes a year or two to complete a thesis. Since you have already done the research, you do not need to conduct new research or collect facts. This way, you can save a significant amount of time and publish your research.

Also, like a cherry on a cake, you can create multiple research papers from your thesis. In this way, you will be way ahead of your peers as by the time they will be able to publish one or two articles, you will already be carrying multiple journal articles in your name.

2) Greater Outreach

What happened to your thesis after submission? Probably nothing more than becoming part of your institutions’ archives. It is the usual case with every thesis in most institutions worldwide. However, if you transform that into a journal article, it reaches a far greater audience, surpassing your institution's internal corridors.

3) Self-satisfaction

You have spent a lot of time and effort in creating your thesis. So why not reward your efforts by transforming your thesis into a journal article that can provide a more significant readership, credibility, and praise for your work. Just put in a last-mile effort and convert your thesis into a few journal articles; you can quickly achieve higher recognition and reputation for your work and even yourself. Also, it can help in enhancing your academic and research writing skills.

Is creating articles from a thesis or dissertation legit?

There are a lot of concerns and misconceptions that cloud scholars when it comes to publishing articles from theses. For example, scholars usually get thoughts like if journal publishers accept something that has already been a part of a thesis or dissertation or creating articles from a thesis might come under the purview of a duplicate submission, self-plagiarism, or copyright issues.

I will not say that these questions are entirely baseless or of fault, but publishing articles from a thesis varies in different contexts. What I can frankly say is that publishers are not entirely against publishing articles that have been generated from a thesis. Follow-through below mentioned reasons to understand this:

i) Theses are not formal publications

Most academic publishers do not consider theses or dissertations as formal publications. Theses are published at the institutional level only for internal scrutiny and a little circulation among fellow scholars.

However, if your institution has published your theses through its online channels, then it is prudent for you to inform the academic publisher about this. Staying transparent about the origin of your manuscript with your publisher is the best way to stay away from any unethical practices. The best solution here is to create a citation article for your thesis.

ii) No Copyright Issues

You are the copyright owner when it comes to your thesis. So, when you publish an article from your thesis, there will be no copyright infringement issues. You can register yourself as a copyrights owner if extra protective. In such a scenario, you can create as many articles as possible, and academic publishers will publish them without worrying over any copyright violation.

iii) Duplication and Self-Plagiarism can be easily eliminated

A journal article can be generated easily from a few thesis chapters. Therefore, a journal article that has originated from a thesis or a dissertation is a part of it and not a copy. Additionally, it undergoes a rigorous peer-review process, bringing many differences between an article and your thesis. No one can charge you for duplicating your thesis for a journal article.

Similarly, you can avoid the traps of self-plagiarism by simply citing your thesis/dissertation in the journal paper. Moreover, you can take advantage of quote blocks in sections where you have directly used the same content verbatim as your thesis.

You should inform the publisher that the article has been scoured from your thesis in all of these cases. Moreover, you should furnish them with a copy of your thesis with all the information, such as where and when it was first published, etc. Staying transparent and open about these things with your editor can turn to your advantage as they may help you understand the procedures to be followed to avoid any ethics violations you may not know at that time.

Tips on How to convert your thesis to a journal article

Before mentioning the tips on generating a journal article from your thesis, it is crucial that you first understand a few contrasting aspects of a journal article and a thesis.

First and foremost, the audience or the readers are very different for both the journal article and the thesis. In the case of a thesis, the audience is the institutional committee that evaluates if your thesis is of quality or not. Whereas, for the journal article, the readers are the scientists or scholars of the same domain looking for theories backed with facts and evidence.

Additionally, a thesis is created to serve the educational purpose of achieving a degree. On the other hand, an academic paper/article is published to achieve professional goals like attaining credibility, reputation, and recognition in the academic domain.

A thesis is presented or the format is quite different from a journal article. Like everybody else, you too must have included all that you knew about the topic in your thesis. The purpose of a thesis is to present all the known facts and evidence to manifest your knowledge about a particular subject. Whereas, in the case of journals, you have to manifest your knowledge about the topic in a shorter and precise format.

While creating your first publication, you must be careful to ensure that it includes a concise literature review, calculated methods and methodology section, only the relevant findings and evidence, and a condensed discussion section.

You must draft your first paper after understanding your audience and their questions once they choose to read your article. Simply put, you must know your audience and the answers they will be expecting from your article.

To create your first article from your thesis, keep the above-discussed points in your thoughts and follow through the below-mentioned elements that you revise and amend as per the publication’s requirements.

1) Words limit

Quite pronounced and known to all that a journal article is of much shorter length than a thesis. While a thesis can be 8000-10000 words covering over 200+pages, a journal article can maximum go up to a few thousand words spanning over 5-7pages. Additionally, this length also varies from domain to domain and topic to topic.

Therefore, you must shorten each section very accurately. You need to trim the paragraphs so that the true essence should not get lost, and there should not be any redundancy, too. You must select the key important topics and include them in your academic paper.

2) Abstract

The abstract is the entry point of your academic paper. Therefore, you need to include and present the exciting points of the topic here but briefly. You need to curate it according to the instructions provided by your target journal. You must enquire and ensure whether they require a structured or unstructured abstract. Moreover, there is a growing trend of graphical and video abstracts.

3) Introduction

While writing the introduction, you must present the gaps in your chosen topic that led to the research. Next, you need to write a concise literature review to bring forth the past works and the new results that you aim to find out. In this section, you must specify the research problem and a background check over that topic.

You must have extensively provided details about your chosen methods and methodology in your thesis. However, you can not do the same here. You need to narrow it down to the methodology section, especially the experiments, surveys, and more you have adopted. You are not supposed to present a detailed discussion around the research methodology approach in the journal articles.

You must be aware that a thesis must contain the details of every result with considerable discussions, whereas a journal only contains the result of the main findings. Therefore, while creating the result sections, ensure that you include the results or the findings that directly answer the research question. Also, you must provide hard evidence to back your results. Moreover, strict adherence to the standards of reporting results has to be followed.

6) Discussion

The discussion section of a journal article is meant to provide a brief interpretation of the results to display your understanding of the topic. Ensure that you keep the discussion section of your journal article clear and cut to the point. Be aware that by providing a discussion section, you demonstrate your interest and speculations in the future direction the research topic will adopt.

7) References

Do not just copy-paste the reference or citation list from your thesis to the article. You need to provide the relevant reference and citations you sought when conducting the research. You must ensure that the reference list you are putting here should be relevant to the topic. Sometimes, the academic publishers limit the number of references you can include, so properly enquire beforehand only over the number of references.

Final Words

Publishing articles from the thesis is nowhere prohibited. In reality, if you discuss this idea with your peers, they will encourage you to do it. Just keep in mind the concept of thesis and journal articles, their differences, and the purpose each serves in a different context; you will be able to publish an article from your thesis easily.

The above tips are intended to provide you with a direction to publish articles from your thesis. If you feel overwhelmed by the publisher's requirements or get confused and seek answers, you can come over to the SciSpace (Formerly Typeset) Community. Just submit your questions there, and you will find answers pouring in from experts all over the world. Even now, if you feel that there are certain aspects that this article did not cover, feel free and post your question in the SciSpace Community, and I will make sure that you get your answers ASAP.

Considering you are searching for research platforms that streamline workflows, we highly recommend you take a look at SciSpace discover .

It helps you to find millions of peer-reviewed articles with an option to sort the results based on the publishing date, citation count, and relevance along with easy citing feature with multiple citation format just by a click.

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Research Guides

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
• Other Venues of Publication

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
• URL: https://guides.library.utoronto.ca/thesis

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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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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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I am looking for Editing/ Proofreading services for my manuscript Tentative date of next journal submission:

What should universities' stance be on AI tools in research and academic writing?

How to create a journal article from a thesis

Affiliation.

• 1 School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Queensland, Australia. [email protected]
• PMID: 22866554
• DOI: 10.7748/nr2012.07.19.4.21.c9220

Aim: To identify strategies to assist in the publication of research arising from a postgraduate thesis or dissertation.

Background: There are many benefits to publishing a journal article from a completed thesis, including contributing knowledge to the writer's chosen field, career enhancement and personal satisfaction. However, there are also numerous obstacles for the newly graduated student in crafting an article fit for a specialist 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: they pertained to allocation of authorship to someone other than the academic adviser; related to undergraduate issues rather than graduate dissertations; were discussions of the merits of a PhD by 'publication' instead of 'by thesis'; were not published in a peer-reviewed journal; or were not in 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 be negotiated.

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.

• Academic Dissertations as Topic*
• Nursing Research*
• Periodicals as Topic*
• Publishing*

Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements

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Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

1. Determine what kind of paper you are writing:

• An analytical paper breaks down an issue or an idea into its component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.
• An expository (explanatory) paper explains something to the audience.
• An argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

If you are writing a text that does not fall under these three categories (e.g., a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.

2. Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.

3. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper.

4. Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.

Thesis Statement Examples

Example of an analytical thesis statement:

The paper that follows should:

• Explain the analysis of the college admission process
• Explain the challenge facing admissions counselors

Example of an expository (explanatory) thesis statement:

• Explain how students spend their time studying, attending class, and socializing with peers

Example of an argumentative thesis statement:

• Present an argument and give evidence to support the claim that students should pursue community projects before entering college

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Amanda Hoover

Students Are Likely Writing Millions of Papers With AI

Students have submitted more than 22 million papers that may have used generative AI in the past year, new data released by plagiarism detection company Turnitin shows.

A year ago, Turnitin rolled out an AI writing detection tool that was trained on its trove of papers written by students as well as other AI-generated texts. Since then, more than 200 million papers have been reviewed by the detector, predominantly written by high school and college students. Turnitin found that 11 percent may contain AI-written language in 20 percent of its content, with 3 percent of the total papers reviewed getting flagged for having 80 percent or more AI writing. (Turnitin is owned by Advance, which also owns Condé Nast, publisher of WIRED.) Turnitin says its detector has a false positive rate of less than 1 percent when analyzing full documents.

ChatGPT’s launch was met with knee-jerk fears that the English class essay would die . The chatbot can synthesize information and distill it near-instantly—but that doesn’t mean it always gets it right. Generative AI has been known to hallucinate , creating its own facts and citing academic references that don’t actually exist. Generative AI chatbots have also been caught spitting out biased text on gender and race . Despite those flaws, students have used chatbots for research, organizing ideas, and as a ghostwriter . Traces of chatbots have even been found in peer-reviewed, published academic writing .

Teachers understandably want to hold students accountable for using generative AI without permission or disclosure. But that requires a reliable way to prove AI was used in a given assignment. Instructors have tried at times to find their own solutions to detecting AI in writing, using messy, untested methods to enforce rules , and distressing students. Further complicating the issue, some teachers are even using generative AI in their grading processes.

Detecting the use of gen AI is tricky. It’s not as easy as flagging plagiarism, because generated text is still original text. Plus, there’s nuance to how students use gen AI; some may ask chatbots to write their papers for them in large chunks or in full, while others may use the tools as an aid or a brainstorm partner.

Students also aren't tempted by only ChatGPT and similar large language models. So-called word spinners are another type of AI software that rewrites text, and may make it less obvious to a teacher that work was plagiarized or generated by AI. Turnitin’s AI detector has also been updated to detect word spinners, says Annie Chechitelli, the company’s chief product officer. It can also flag work that was rewritten by services like spell checker Grammarly, which now has its own generative AI tool . As familiar software increasingly adds generative AI components, what students can and can’t use becomes more muddled.

Detection tools themselves have a risk of bias. English language learners may be more likely to set them off; a 2023 study found a 61.3 percent false positive rate when evaluating Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exams with seven different AI detectors. The study did not examine Turnitin’s version. The company says it has trained its detector on writing from English language learners as well as native English speakers. A study published in October found that Turnitin was among the most accurate of 16 AI language detectors in a test that had the tool examine undergraduate papers and AI-generated papers.

Matt Burgess

Andrew Couts

Emily Mullin

C. Brandon Ogbunu

Schools that use Turnitin had access to the AI detection software for a free pilot period, which ended at the start of this year. Chechitelli says a majority of the service’s clients have opted to purchase the AI detection. But the risks of false positives and bias against English learners have led some universities to ditch the tools for now. Montclair State University in New Jersey announced in November that it would pause use of Turnitin’s AI detector. Vanderbilt University and Northwestern University did the same last summer.

“This is hard. I understand why people want a tool,” says Emily Isaacs, executive director of the Office of Faculty Excellence at Montclair State. But Isaacs says the university is concerned about potentially biased results from AI detectors, as well as the fact that the tools can’t provide confirmation the way they can with plagiarism. Plus, Montclair State doesn’t want to put a blanket ban on AI, which will have some place in academia. With time and more trust in the tools, the policies could change. “It’s not a forever decision, it’s a now decision,” Isaacs says.

Chechitelli says the Turnitin tool shouldn’t be the only consideration in passing or failing a student. Instead, it’s a chance for teachers to start conversations with students that touch on all of the nuance in using generative AI. “People don’t really know where that line should be,” she says.

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