Following Directions

I recently had an author send me their entire dissertation as an article to be published. Needless to say all of the information on the journal website discusses word and page limitations, and a dissertation does not fall into that requirement! This example illustrates a basic issue that you should remember when submitting an article to a journal for possible publication, make sure you are following the directions exactly as stated on the journal's website. Every journal varies on what they want, some follow APA exactly, others have modified the requirements. You will not know what they want until you read the directions.

What happened to the dissertation that was submitted? It was rejected! Do not follow their example!

Stay curious!

Today I want to remind you to stay as curious as Mandy is in the photo. It is so easy during the long process of writing to become bored or complacent, forgetting the drive that has led you to this point. Curiosity about everything in your environment and related to your study will keep you excited and provide the energy to get done.

Feel like you have lost the curiosity in your study? Here are some questions to lead you back. It often helps to write out your answers in your journal so you can refer back to them later. Think back to before you started your study… what lead you to that decision? Why did you decide to make that commitment? What did you want to do with your paper at that time? What steps can you take today to get you where you want to go?

Why did you choose the topic that you did? Have you read any recent books on your topic or methodology, lately? If not, that may help get you going!

Grammar Checks

You have a draft of your article, now what? First give yourself a cheer and celebrate, then begin the rewriting process. Rewriting?? Yes, you have done a first draft, hopefully including all of the necessary parts, but it is rough, and needs a lot of polishing. I suggest reading through the draft in full, make notes to yourself (I use track changes) and mark areas that are not complete, may not be clear to someone reading it for the first time, or need more support with citations. Then start at the beginning and read each sentence aloud, is there a way to make it clearer, more concise? Picture your grandmother, who knows nothing about your area of study, reading it: would she understand that sentence? Check for any pronouns (they, he, and she); is it clear to whom the pronouns are referring? Check your plurals versus possessives (this makes me crazy when they are wrong): plurals (e.g. “girls”) do not have an apostrophe, possessives do have an apostrophe (e.g., “the girl’s bike;” “the girls’ bikes”). Do you know a former English major? Someone who is a great writer? If so, ask them to read through your paper and offer suggestions.

Updating your literature

If you are working on rewriting your dissertation into an article for publication, be sure that you update your literature. Research moves quickly these days with the internet, and you want to make sure when your paper is published it has the most current thinking. Authors often forget to check on literature related to theory, which can get them into trouble, so do your homework! 

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Rewriting and Polishing

Once you have a draft of your article, it is time to begin the rewriting and polishing phase. Everyone has to do it, including very experienced writers. Accept that rewriting is part of the process, and spend that extra time now to save you pain later.

Where to start? I suggest reading through the draft in full, make notes to yourself (I use track changes) and mark areas that are not complete, that may not be clear to someone reading it for the first time, or that need more support with citations. Then start at the beginning and read each sentence aloud, is there a way to make it clearer, more concise? Picture your grandmother who knows nothing about your topic reading it, would she understand that sentence? Have you explained any terms that might be considered jargon? Check for any pronouns (they, he, and she), is it clear who the pronouns are referring to? Check your plurals versus possessives (this makes me crazy when they are wrong): plurals (e.g. “girls”) do not have an apostrophe, possessives do have an apostrophe (e.g., “the girl’s bike;” “the girls’ bikes”).

Do you know a former English major? Someone who is a great writer? If so, ask them to read through your paper and offer suggestions.

Check your results sections' APA format. There are very specific ways that statistics should be written, check the APA Manual that you are doing it correctly. If you are including tables or figures, then PLEASE read the sections on these in the APA Manual, not only on how to do them but also when to use them.

Print out your references, then go through the paper crossing off each time you have cited the reference. They should come out even. Double check if the citation has 3+ authors (e.g., Smith, Jones, & Johnson, 2015) then use et al. after the first citation (Smith et al., 2015).

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Discussion

The final text section of your paper is the Discussion, similar to the dissertation's Chapter 5. In your discussion, you will evaluate, interpret the results, and draw conclusions about them. Emphasize the theoretical or practical consequences of your findings. Be very careful that you are not misinterpreting or misrepresenting your findings (e.g., "the results are clear that older adults…" Did you examine ALL older adults? No? Then do not over generalize).

Begin your discussion with a clear statement of support or nonsupport for original hypotheses (it can also be structured in term of your research questions). Relate the findings to the previous literature, how do your results fit in with others' work? Your interpretations should take into account sources of bias and threats to internal validity. Also, consider limitations or weakness or your study. Bring in the theoretical implications of the study; does it fit with previous theories- why or why not? If not, could the theory be modified to account for your findings? Finally, end with problems remain unsolved, and what future areas of research have you identified? 

Rewriting Your Dissertation into an Article: Results

The results section of your article is taking Chapter 4 of your dissertation and reducing it to the essentials. I find it helps to discuss the results through your research questions. Your results should be unbiased and provide enough detail that others can interpret them. Do not hide ones that did not come out as expected. Indicate whether your data violate the assumptions of the statistics you used.

It generally makes the most sense to set it up based on your research questions, keep it concise and to the point. Do not include unnecessary figures and tables. A good rule of thumb is if you discuss the data in detail in the text, do not also include a figure, or table on it.

Quantitative Studies. Keep your reporting of results non-biased and assume your reader has a professional knowledge of statistics (so do not explain basic concepts or give citations for common procedures). Be sure to explain how you handled any missing data in the analyses, and the percentage that were missing.

Qualitative Studies. Report your findings in a non-biased way; explain how you went about your analyses. Provide participant quotes to illustrate your themes. It is a good idea to assign pseudonyms to participants and briefly provide any relevant information after each quote (e.g., Rose, age 68). Discuss any discrepant cases, and how these were addressed.