Resource of the Week #179: Writing Journal Papers from a Thesis

Hello again. This week’s resource is by AuthorAID team member Dr. Bernard Appiah. It’s a presentation that he gave at a recent AuthorAID workshop in Tanzania. The topic is writing (and publishing) journal articles based on one’s thesis or dissertation.

The presentation begins with general advice on this topic. This first material is adapted from part of an AuthorAID workshop on writing theses and dissertations.

Most of the presentation focuses on Bernard’s experience publishing papers based on his master’s thesis. Bernard has published 2 papers based on his thesis. Each paper presents different findings from his thesis research.

Bernard published the 2 papers in different journals. He submitted each paper in response to a call for papers on a specific theme. One lesson from Bernard’s experience is to be alert for such opportunities if journals in your field have calls for papers.

Another lesson is that publishing a journal article based on a thesis requires greatly condensing the content. Bernard’s thesis had 12 figures and 30 tables, but the journal that published the second paper allows a total of 5 tables and figures.

Thank you, Bernard, for sharing your presentation. And congratulations on publishing the papers based on your thesis!

Until next post—

Barbara