Authoring a PhD

particular subfield of a discipline’s literature and discuss its
intellectual themes and development as a whole, drawing
out commonalities between authors, identifying promising
research avenues, and so on. Review articles should also have
a distinctive critical angle or value-added argument of their
own. They are normally around 6000 words long. Obviously
they do not need elaborate methodologies or original
empirical materials, and hence they are quicker to undertake.
However, most published review articles are actually
commissioned by journal editors from senior figures in the
discipline, with an established publications record. 
So if you have an idea for such a piece, send a letter to the
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journal editor you are targeting before you begin work. 
Give a brief outline of what you propose and the 
treatment you will use, and make clear that the length 
will be strictly 5000 to 6000 words. Check that the 
journal has not published a review article on this theme
recently, because the editor will not want to repeat such a
piece within three or four years. The editor may then 
either write back putting you off the project (which 
avoids your spending time on it abortively), or they may 
say that they cannot commit themselves to accept it but
that it sounds interesting and they would like to referee the
full version in the normal way. Very rarely they may be
more positive than this, in effect semi-commissioning the
piece from you.
Research notes, comments, pieces in short-article journals, and
review articles are all excellent ways of beginning to publish at
the start of an academic career.
Getting your material published
The first barrier new authors face in publishing papers is a 
psychological one. Main papers in academic journals are delib-
erately made hard-boiled and less accessible products by what
Minkin calls ‘the convention of perfection in presentation and
the reconstructed logic of events that accompanies it’.
7
Papers
often systematically perpetuate a myth about how their authors
did research. The author or research team read the existing lit-
erature and ingeniously identified a problem, seen by none or
very few people before them. They then coined a new theory;
or saw how to apply an existing theory in an interesting way;
or generated a distinct empirical test and prediction; or devised
a new method for analysing an intractable problem; or they dis-
covered a key new source hitherto neglected; or otherwise had
a brilliant research idea of their own. Next they applied this
new approach in a precise, targeted fashion, going to exactly
the right data, evidence or sources first time. Of course, thanks
to their perceptiveness, the authors almost immediately gener-
ated interesting results, generally confirmatory of their initial
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starting position. They conducted their analysis clearly and
incisively to show hidden layers of causation or meaning or
complexity resolved by their approach. There was never any
muddle or confusion in their research process, beyond that 
generated by the clutter or indirection of earlier researchers’
misguided ideas, which was soon decisively cleared away. The
authors were never at a loss for explanation, but rather had a
confident understanding throughout, which led to their strong
value-added conclusions. They were sure that their path-breaking
work would be appreciated and would now be taken up and
referred to many times by future scholars. They conclude with
some modest words about the agenda for future research in the
aftermath of their contribution. This research article myth is a
potent beacon for professionals across all the social sciences,
arts and humanities. It is what people almost always aspire to
reproduce in writing a journal paper. More worryingly, it is an
established pattern which most editors and referees tacitly
demand should be followed religiously in the structure and for-
mat of submitted papers, if they are to be successful in getting
accepted.
The reality of doing research and publishing papers is quite
different, for the most senior professional academics as much as
for PhD students. Most new research starts out as an itch, a
vague discontent with an accepted answer or a dissatisfaction
with what has already been written. Authors develop a paper
driven most by a career urge to get something into print and
onto their CV, or a drive to get some professional recognition, or
a desire to express their differences from or belonging to some
group or school of thought. After a lot of chopping and chang-
ing in its direction, the paper lurches off the ground in a highly
unsatisfactory preliminary form on the author’s PC. The basic
idea is next given in university workshops or seminars, only to
be criticized by even the author’s friends. After a lot of rewriting,
and many false starts, the author has something more credible
and decides to devote some scarce research time or even scarcer
sabbatical to the chosen theme, perhaps also searching for a
grant or funding support to meet the costs involved. The actual
in-depth research period proves confusing, demoralizing and
difficult. The sources or evidence are not there, or the data resist
all explanation, or the analysis which the author expected to
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stand up is bit by bit destroyed. Getting to anything but a com-
monplace explanation turns out to be overwhelmingly more
complex than the author expected. The funded or designated
period for research ends inconclusively and the author is pro-
foundly depressed, and goes back to other things – teaching,
administration, ‘distracter’ research. But after a while it is clear
that this project remains the best bet for publication amongst
the possible materials that the author has available. In time she
gradually begins to see a couple of different ways for presenting
things in a better light. After a lot more effort and false starts she
manages to reconstruct something vaguely in the form of the
necessary research myth and create a paper which can claim a
little value-added, even if this is partly achieved by judiciously
exaggerating or misrepresenting a previous viewpoint. After giv-
ing the paper to a sceptical audience at a professional conference
and making a lot of revisions in its aftermath, the author selects
a journal and sends the paper off.
After a long pause the editor writes back rejecting the paper
outright and enclosing two or three comments from anony-
mous referees which make strong and devastating criticisms, in
the process judiciously exaggerating or misrepresenting what
the author is trying to do. The author is again a bit depressed 
at this reception. But after a while she picks up the piece again,
tones it down, reworks it to avoid the misinterpretations of the
previous referees, adds more references to deflect possible criti-
cisms, and submits it to another less good journal, lower down
the profession’s ‘pecking order’ of academic journals. After a
further long pause the editor writes back grudgingly conceding
that perhaps they might publish it, but only if the author 
cuts the length by a quarter and makes revisions to accommo-
date all the comments of two more anonymous referees which
are attached. The author struggles to regard this as a success,
especially when it becomes apparent that the two referees want
contradictory things and that the editor has opted out of
explaining how they can be reconciled. Eventually though the
author tones down anything that obviously annoyed either 
referee and obfuscates any other points that seem controversial.
She achieves the cuts asked for by radically underexplaining the
methods and the evidence or data findings, making them more
difficult and inaccessible. The article is resubmitted, the editor
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at last writes back accepting it, and after a very long further wait
it duly appears in print. In due course the article is referenced
five or six times in other articles or publications in the field over
the next five years, including three times by its own author in
other papers. After five years the paper is scarcely ever referred
to again. You might think that this account is pretty cynical and
extreme. But in fact the sketch above is a very moderate one and
not at all unusual. It captures my typical pre-publication
experience quite well, for example. And I have already noted
above the low citation rates of journal papers in general
(although, of course, I fondly believe that this aspect is 
not
typical of my own work).
Research students are often perplexed to find that meeting
the requirements for originality in the doctorate does not in
itself guarantee the publishability of their material. You might
ask, if a reputable university and (in Europe and British/
Commonwealth systems) independent examiners have
accepted that a research work is a substantive contribution to
knowledge, then surely professional journals in the same disci-
pline must recognize the same qualities? This matching up of
criteria might seem even closer for a papers model dissertation,
where the chapters are supposed to be potentially independ-
ently publishable. But in practice a great deal of material in PhD
dissertations may not be journal-publishable. In ‘big book’ the-
ses the lead-in and lead-out chapters are chiefly there to frame
the thesis core, and so they cannot usually be translated into
stand-alone journal articles. In many theses some of the dens-
est and most research-intensive core chapters may not be inde-
pendently publishable, because they consist of very detailed
case study or applications research at a micro-level. In addition
they are often much too long to fit within the normal paper
length (8000 words or less). Universities and examiners will
accept such detailed or micro-level work as perfectly valid
scholarship, and the kind of exploratory or observational con-
tribution that can be appropriately done by a PhD student. But
that does not necessarily mean that any journal wishes to
broadcast news of these discoveries, unless it is relevant for
broader professional debates.
As the Darwin epigraph to this section stresses (p. 227), all
such case material or detailed evidence has to be analysed and
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interpreted in a context where other scholars can grasp it as sig-
nificant for some controversy or debate in their discipline.
Almost the first question that journal referees ask of authors
with case studies is: ‘What is your case study a case of? And 
why should we care?’ For a PhD intrinsic interest can play a
larger role in justifying case analysis, but professional readers are
much more sceptical when it comes to journal publication.
Similarly a piece of text may be accepted as meeting the doctoral
standard, without being inherently well written or appealing.
Acceptable doctorates can be worthy and dull, unexceptional,
micro-focused, ponderous, over-referenced, hyper-cautious,
overly methodological, and so on, without being failed. But
none of these qualities are recommendations for publication 
in a journal.
Start by identifying which chapter of your thesis has most
potential to become a paper. Think about how your possible
paper is likely to score on the criteria considered in Figure 9.1
and then do your market research. In the library, look carefully
at the various journals you might submit to, so that you are
thoroughly familiar with what they accept and are sure that
your paper will fit their established pattern. Get your supervi-
sors’ advice on what changes are needed and which are the pos-
sible outlets that you might send it to. As in every other walk of
life, choosing a journal involves trade-offs. If you go for a very
prestigious journal with your first serious publication and are
successful then you will scoop more prestige points. But you are
also far more likely to wait quite a long time (three to six
months) only to be eventually rejected. You may also get rather
strong criticism of your piece, which can be demoralizing. Or a
top journal may reject the paper in its current form but leave
half-open a possible door back, if very time-consuming
demands for changes are met. Even if you make these revisions
a ‘sniffy’ editor may still not accept that the piece is sufficiently
changed, which is invariably very demotivating.
To lose half a year to a whole year on abortive efforts to 
publish like this can seriously jeopardize your overall work
rhythms, so there is really no point in pitching your material
higher than it is likely to be accepted. Journals rarely change
their spots, so do not let the idea that your paper is particularly
path-breaking or novel affect your judgements here. Opt for 
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a journal which publishes the same kind of material as your
paper, and has a good but not necessarily a top reputation in
your field, ideally one with fairly low time lags and an approach
of encouraging new authors. Again the conference circuit is
your best guide to the state of play across the main journals in
your discipline. But it is always worth ‘triangulating’ two or
three views of each journal, to control for the potent misinfor-
mation capabilities of professional rumour machines.
Once you have a clear target journal in view, amend your
chapter to fit its requirements, both small and large. Try to
make sure that everything conforms exactly to the journal’s
style guide, and that the references are in the required format.
Editors are notoriously hostile to authors who submit material
in the wrong style format. But the single most important
change to put a chapter into paper format is always to get the
length down. Journal papers should 
never
be more than 8000
words long – only academic superstars will be accepted above
this length in most fields. Be careful to split up long chapters
into manageable paper-length components before trying to get
them published. Squeezing the length down even further to
7000 or even 6000 words will usually greatly boost your
chances of getting a main article published. If you go much
below this length, however, there is a danger that the editor or
referees may not see your piece as a proper main article but as
an over-length research note. They could then ask for a 5000
word paper to be cut further, to fit within the normal 3000 to
4000 word limit for research notes.
Journal papers also need to be written in a different style
from chapters. They must be completely self-standing and inde-
pendently intelligible, with no references to material in other
chapters. Papers also need to be written to do just one job, to
hit a single target well – whereas PhD chapters often handle
several aspects, a key reason why they are longer. You need a
fast and preferably high-impact start to your paper, devoid of
any waffle, which gets to the key issues quickly. Cut out long
literature reviews or set-up components, because your readers
are experts with busy professional lives. Try and reference other
recent synoptic literature reviews to avoid running over more
familiar territory yourself. But make sure that you make suffi-
cient appropriate genuflections to previous scholarship in the
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area, since the authors of relevant work are likely to be your 
referees. Get long data or methodology sections out of the main
line of the text argument and put them into annexes, leaving
the key ‘bottom line’ results appropriately established and
framed in the main text. Many journals now are developing a
terser style and putting data and other annexes onto the Web
only, a trend that will probably develop further. Remember that
the ‘need to know’ criterion can be easily adapted to meeting
the needs of a professional readership. Applying the ‘Say it
once, say it right’ maxim can also help keep length minimal.
Because of the long time lags in papers being processed by
journals it is always a good idea to try and anticipate any criti-
cisms before you send the paper off, rather than afterwards.
Show your ‘paperized’ version of your chapter to your supervi-
sor and fellow students, and try to get a wider range of 
comments by giving it at seminars and a conference. Much as
it is painful to do so, you should religiously note down and
carefully reflect upon the critical or bored/uncomprehending
comments that you get from these audiences and readers, and
then adjust your text to try and pre-empt or counter them. This
kind of feedback can also sometimes be helpful in reappraising
which is the best journal to send your work to.
Once you have submitted the piece and borne the frustra-
tions of waiting for a response, you need to be able to deal with
the referees’ and editors’ comments that you will get back. It is
best to anticipate that your paper will not be straightforwardly
accepted without any revisions, a rare achievement even for
senior academics. Instead you should expect to receive an edi-
tor’s letter which is either some kind of tentative acceptance or
a not complete rejection or a flat no. An attitude of making
changes to respond to all criticisms (recommended above) can
stand you in good stead again here. Any journal’s referees are
likely to make some criticisms of your work that will be unsym-
pathetic or misguided in some respects. But however infuriating
and unjustified some criticisms may seem, the referees nor-
mally could not have made them without