Hi all, im wondering for those who are taking either mphil/phd, do you guys publish a journal paper based on ur research before finishing your thesis or after finishing your whole thesis? And why would you do so?

everyone can graduate if without publication

Would be good to submit and if possible, get it under accepted or published status before submitting your thesis. This may help you in terms of significance of work.

yups, i know that Since I'm somewhat done with my thesis and the due date for thesis submission is actually the end of this year, I'm thinking of publishing a journal paper out of it.

hmm, alright. I was thinking the same too. Do you know how long the process of submission to a journal till the review/acceptance/rejection normally takes?

Depends on the editor office actually. You can refer to the 1st page of your referenced paper.

Here's a timeline sample of my paper in Elsevier:

Received 12 February 2013
Received in revised form 28 April 2013
Accepted 2 May 2013
Available online 11 May 2013

wow. that's fast!

Some tips, look for journals with a large pool of reviewers or that publishes regularly eg. once per month or every two months.

Wouldn't it be more important to publish your work in a journal with high impact factor?

mycolumn,

If your thesis and research is good, wouldn't your adviser submit it for publication in some prestigious journal?? So, why do you have do it??

For example, I did not realize that my master thesis had been published in a journal until after many years that I had graduated.

Dreamer

owh, my supervisor did ask me to do so before. However, during that time, I am still busy writing and finalizing my research, so I do not want to think about publishing just yet. Only now that I have extra free time that I am considering of publishing one paper out of my thesis.

As far as I know, for those that do 3 small papers, most publish their research after finishing every small papers as some universities' graduation requirement includes publications (in ISI or Scopus). Editing is especially hard for those who wish to publish before finishing their paper.

However, for those who go for 1 paper, most publish partial findings or publish thesis from previous study (master level).

Besides sharing your findings, publication is important for researcher to build network and citation. These two alone are the biggest assets for a researcher, either for promotion (to professorship), awards (from low level research awards all the way to Nobel prize), or obtaining grant.

For non-ISI or non-scopus, it is relatively fast (around 3 months from the date of submission) to get answer from publisher. Usually these publishers either accept or accept with minor amendment but these publications carry little weight.

For ISI and/or scopus, you need to wait upward of 1 year or even more for reviews and the rate of rejection is quite high, especially for quarterly journal.

They come hand in hand. More often than not, reputable journals will have a large pool of experts who are more likely to accept to review the papers.

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jan 30 2015, 10:12 AM

I don't quite agree on this part. So far, all my ISI listed journals are published in less than a year. As I have pointed out above, a good editorial office will be able to process at a faster rate as they have strict guideline and timeline for their reviewers. I do agree that rejection rate for quarterly or biannually journals are higher.

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jan 30 2015, 10:13 AM

"upward" of 1 year does include less than 1 year fyi. I have a paper sent on late March 2014 and until now I am still awaiting review.

Ah sorry, understood. Try to email the editor to check on its status.

Nah, no problem. I did send few emails but they replied it is their common standard for multiple cross-review. It is a quarterly and sub-100 ISI journal after all.

All the best. Can you elaborate on what do you mean by sub-100 ISI? Is that their classification method?

sub-100 basically means top 100 journals in related fields (ranked annually). It is not an official classification category but the term is commonly used and widely recognized as the "best" journals around. They carry extra weight in deciding, for example, university ranking and achievement of researcher.

This post has been edited by ru40342: Jan 30 2015, 11:30 AM

Maybe some further clarification. It is ranked by your institution or by ISI or other organization? Thanks

It is ranked based on their citation impact factors by T-R under their annual Journal Citation Reports.

Okay, now I know which listing you are referring too. Thanks!

You're welcome. BTW I might need some advice on publishing on these sub-100 journals. Have you done so before?

I have no access to JCR so I am unable to check whether the journals are in the sub-100 or not. The highest IF that I have achieved so far is 3.171 (SCImago Indicator 2.21) in engineering field. Anyway, we are here to share. So do post your concerns, me or others may be able to chip in.

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jan 30 2015, 12:08 PM

Not sure about engineering but 3.171 is pretty high. How long for your paper to be accepted (after all cross-review)?

For the 2 papers below, between 3-4 months.

Received 20 March 2014
Accepted 22 May 2014

Received 12 January 2010
Accepted 15 April 2010

Once accepted, it takes about a week for so to be available online at sciencedirect.

Wow that is rather quick. I rarely see such fast acceptance in my field, especially for ISI indexed journals.

This post has been edited by ru40342: Jan 30 2015, 01:43 PM

What is your field? Perhaps the experts in your field are limited hence the lengthy time.

Fast processing period is quite common for engineering.

This post has been edited by Human Nature: Jan 30 2015, 05:55 PM

Wow, nice one! I've learnt alot from you guys in terms of these publishing stuffs and journals too.

Economics. Certainly not scarce of experts but the time required is quite long, especially compared to engineering.

Entire publication process takes 4 -24 months to process, which is normally 12 months after your first submission. Submiting papers during your research study. Publication is the key measurement for graduation or application of academic position.

Two main tasks in your research. 1) Graduation on time 2) Publication in Tier-1 ISI journal.

It took me almost 3 years to get my paper publish in ISI journal.
1 year for review. Another 1 year to amend-from major-minor-grammar corrections. Then 5 months wait before it to appear in Early View. Then 6 months to be included in the volume for printing. 2012 to 2015. The most stressful paper I ever wrote lol.

wow, im a newbie here, sorry but not to be rude just curious what's your topic about?

On Material science

IMO, publication is controversial when you go for outside publishers. I mean you work so hard and you are handing over the copyright to someone doing nothing else but managing the database and profiteering. The authors suppose to receive royalty for each purchase but this doesn't happen. This is unfair and ridiculous.

Not to forget, the grants you received are tax-payers' money and basically most of you deliver nothing back to them which is embarrassing and non-productive acts. This is however, has become the disease of academicians in Malaysia. They become delusional and jokes since what actually they are doing in research is just a wasteful consumption, unlike professionals on the real fields which really move things.

This also surfaces the term called self-plagiarism when you publish before thesis submission. My suggestion is to publish local and forget the impact factor which is just a number purposely created for rat race and they are happy when you become obsess with it. Just put a number and they are richer. If your work really has value, don't be afraid, it will talk itself whenever it is published. If it doesn't, I can understand why you do want to share.

Another aspect is, if you have found a mountain of gold (breakthrough), are you even going to publish and let the outsiders have their hands into the pool and claim rights? or are you going to reserve it for your community or future business that will benefit the local. This is why commercial study never publish their works.

inb4: I did publish few papers. Impact factor >4 but no way after this.

What say you?

This post has been edited by Ph 7.00: May 20 2015, 09:17 AM

Unfortunately, that is the reality. For postgraduates, papers are given very high attention by their supervisors and to some extent, examiners. For academicians, papers are included in their KPI for promotion and bonuses. Rat race, as you call it.

I concur with the issue of self-plagiarism and it is a growing concern for PhD students, supervisors, publishers and universities alike. Some authors maybe unaware of the laws and ethics involved in reusing texts, but it can infringe upon a publisher’s copyright.

before.because most uni need to see publication to graduate

Thesis and journal papers have no issue on self-plagiarism. Therefore, PhD candidate can choose to graduate with publication. You need to put all the publications with a relative short introduction to link up all your works being published. Your publication proved your research works being recognised by the reserach community.

If you submit the same works to two journals at the same time, it offenses the submission rules. For submission to the journal, athors need to declare that the works have not been submitted to other journal at the same time. It prevents the same paper being sent to the same experts for review. If you purposely to publish the same story with same discussion and same conclusion to two different journal, it falls on the category of self-plagiarism.

Journal paper is just a process of communication to inherit knowledge in a proper written format.

Sorry, I just read this thread with interest and was wondering, how could you submit your paper for publication before completion of your paper?

And also, why would you do that because if you submit your paper before completion. Another person could make a bigger breakthrough before you finish your paper for submission of PhD.

Forgive me for this noob question. Just started application for my PhD and am curious about such matters.

Also guys, is publication of paper a requirement for PhD Graduation?

This post has been edited by kobe8byrant: Aug 13 2015, 11:36 AM

Hi, i meant submit paper before submission of thesis. For example, different chapters in your thesis may cover some different aspect, so while working on chapter 4 scope for example, results covered by chapter 3 could be sent for the review process. Even when your paper is published, it will be under your name but true, someone could potentially make a bigger breakthrough. Personally, I think the best way is to time so that the status is accepted but not published yet although some journals are very efficient in uploading the manuscript before proof correction too.

However, you may also refer to several posts above about self plagiarism which is on another perspective. Some institutions have publication requirements, while some supervisors will insist on publication too, so you need to check this with your university/supervisor.