Benefits & practicalities of a PhD by published and unpublished papers in the Sciences Dr Will Bennett & Prof Catherine Pickering
EFRI, Griffith University
Why are we talking about this…..
Dr Will Bennett – PhD consisted of 5 published papers plus Introduction & Conclusion chapters
Chancellors Medallist
DECRA fellow
Why are we talking about this…..
Prof Catherine Pickering (CP) ‐ supervised three students with PhD as publications, with 2 more close to finishing
HDR convenor, ENV, Gold Coast
70 C1 papers with PhD, Honours & undergraduates, + >30 other C1 papers
Different styles of PhD theses :
Examples by Griffith PhD’s with thesis online are:
• Dr William Bennett – PDF of papers
• Dr Augustina Barros – prepublication version of accepted & in review papers
• Dr Frances Johnston – 'hybrid format’ ‐ some of these chapters have been published...
• Dr Clare Morrison – traditional format, but some of it published prior to submission
Dr William Bennett PDF of papers
Dr Augustina
Barros –
prepublication version of accepted and in review papers
Dr Frances Johnston ‐ 'hybrid format’ ‐ some of these chapters have been published...
RESEARCH PUBLISHED DURING PhD 1.
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Johnston, F.M. (2002) Alien plants in the Australian Alps. In: Research on Australia’s High Country 1999‐2001. (eds C.M., Pickering, K., Green, and K., Bridle). Research Report. Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Griffith University, Gold Coast. pp 34.
Johnston, F.M. (2002) Ecology of the weed Achillea millefolium in alpine and subalpine habitats of Kosciuszko National Park. In: Research on Australia’s High Country 1999‐2001. (eds C.M., Pickering, K., Green, and K., Bridle). Research Report. Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Griffith University, Gold Coast. pp. 10‐11.
Johnston, F.M. and Johnston, S.W. (2001) Relationship between road induced disturbance, soil properties and weed occurrence in Kosciuszko National Park. In: Ecological Society of Australia. ESA 2001 Abstracts. University of Wollongong. Institute for Conservation Biology, Wollongong. pp. 57.
Johnston, F.M. and Johnston, S.W. (2003) Weeds set to flourish following fires. Victorian Naturalist 120, 194‐97. Johnston, F.M. and Johnston, S.W. (2004) Impacts of road disturbance on soil properties and weed plant occurrence in subalpine areas of the Australian Alps. Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research 36, 201‐207. Johnston, F.M. and Pickering, C.M. (2001) Alien plants in the Australian Alps. Mountain Research and Development 21, 284‐291.
Johnston, F.M. and Pickering, C.M. (2001) Yarrow, Achillea millefolium L.: A weed threat to the flora of the Australian Alps. Victorian Naturalist 188, 230‐233. Johnston, F.M. and Pickering, C.M. (2004) Effect of altitude on resource allocation in the weed Achillea millefolium (yarrow, Asteraceae) in the Australian Alps. Australian Journal of Botany 52, 1‐6.
Johnston, F.M., Pickering, C.M. and Enders, G. (2001) Alien plants in the Australian Alps. Fact Sheet. Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Griffith University, Gold Coast.
Johnston, F.M., Pickering, C.M. and Enders, G. (2001) Yarrow a weed that thrives on tourism. Fact Sheet. Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism, Griffith University, Gold Coast.
Pickering, C.M., Hill, W. and Johnston, F.M. (2003) Ecology of disturbance: the effect of tourism infrastructure on weeds in the Australian Alps. In: Celebrating Mountains. Proceedings of an International Year of the Mountains Conference. (ed. Janet Mackay and Associates). Australian Alps Liaison Committee, Canberra. pp. 213‐21. Pickering, C.M., Hill, W. and Johnston, F.M. (2005) Snapshot 14.13 Weeds, tourism, and climate change. In: (eds G. Worboys, M. Lockwood, and T. de Lacy) Protected Area Management: Principles and Practice Second Edition, Oxford University Press, Melbourne. pp. 399‐400.
Sanecki, G.M., Sanecki, K.L., Wright, G.T. and Johnston, F.M. (2003) The response of yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.) to herbicide application in the Snowy Mountains, south eastern Australia. Weed Research 43, 357‐361. Current PhD students in ENV doing this:
‘Publish or Perish’
• Benefits for students, supervisors, the University and the community
• Big picture benefits for PhD students:
– Increases research opportunities
– Improves competitiveness for scholarships
– Improves grant success
– Garner awards
– Employment prospects
Immediate benefits for students:
Sense of achievement during candidature
Improved motivation
Turns big thesis into discrete papers/chapters
Make mistakes on smaller components of research earlier in thesis
• Get lots of feedback on your work/writing (>10 people)
• Obtain feedback from different people
• Benchmark the quality of your work •
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The supervisor benefits as well...
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A better return for effort
Co‐authorship
Spreading supervision workload
Faster student completion + papers
As do Universities...
• More publications sooner
• Greater return for investment of money, time, and resources in PhD students
And the community…
• Knowledge creation
• Knowledge dissemination
But not just a bed of roses…
Disadvantages to publishing papers: • Feelings of being judged and rejected by reviewers
• Additional workload
• Long lead time to publication....months to years !
Griffith University policy = hybrid model
Benefits listed on GU website:
1. Preparing papers for publication saves time when preparing the thesis … as papers may make up one, or several, chapters
2. Advantage to publish work from thesis means of disseminating research
3. Improve the quality of thesis as parts already subjected to peer review.
4. Examiners may have more confidence … if they can see already published research. 5. Met one of the criteria of examination, with the thesis suitable for publication
6. Also…..all doctoral candidates are expected to have at least one peer reviewed output accepted for publication during candidature
Requirements for inclusion of papers:
1. Published or unpublished papers 2. Produced under supervision and during candidature
3. Quality of such papers is appropriate to level of research
4. ‘Papers’ = journal article, conference publication, book or book chapter
Extent of student’s contribution:
• Student should normally be principal author (that is, responsible for the intellectual content and the majority of writing of the text). • Where jointly authored, a signature from the corresponding author is required in order to include the material in the body of the thesis. • Co‐authored work in which the student was a minor author can only be used and referenced in the way common to any other research publication cited in the thesis.
How do examiners assess the thesis?
• Spend ~3‐4 days full time, but over 2‐3 weeks
• Reluctant to fail a thesis, ~3% failed
• Most read Abstract, Introduction & Final Chapter, check references, then read cover to cover • First impressions count
• Publication of work is good – but must be clear what the student did (more common in Sciences)
What do examiners want from thesis consisting of papers?
Assessed 62 examiners of publication based thesis:
• 48% found easier to assess, but 26% wanted more guidance from Uni
• 77% want more of theses like this
• 86% impressed by publications in international peer reviewed journals – the higher impact the better
Concerned about:
• input of candidate in authored papers • coherence of the thesis
They recommend guidelines for students…
• Clarification on different types of publication based thesis & format
• Commentary in introduction explaining what published, where, status & authorships
• Recognise ethical issues with authorship & how to resolve them
• Structure thesis to present coherent argument –
commentary in introduction, bridging sections between chapters, & synthesis in final chapter
How many papers ?
• No hard & fast rules
• General idea among some ENV academics – need 3 papers, so work on 4 papers to be safe
• Different disciplines have different expectations
• Core PhD Papers, Side PhD papers and Post‐PhD papers…..
You can publish your literature review
Systematic Quantitative Literature Review method
1. Systematically search for all papers on topic
2. Enter data into personal database
3. Quantify what's known, but also unknowns
4. Publish review
See website for details (search Catherine Pickering, Literature Review) or attend workshops (16 June 2015, Nathan + Logan)
>19 papers published using method
Videos collectively watched >24,000
10,000 reads for article
So what do we suggest?
• Conceptual model + structure diagram in Intro – with conceptual model repeated in final chapter but now showing results
• Statement in Introduction and Final chapter about structure
• Linking pages between papers/chapters consisting of:
1. Paragraph linking previous chapter to next one
2. Statement about the publication 3. Statement about students contribution to the paper If published, then put in pdf in version for examination (talk to us about dealing with copyright issues in final online version)
Peri-urban national parks:
Who visit them and what are their environmental values, sense of place
and perceptions about recreational activities?
Chapter 2 & 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
South D’Aguilar
National Park
visitors
Five other peri-urban
national parks
visitors
Local communities of
six peri-urban
national parks
Sociodemographic
characteristics
Level of education
Sex
Age
Level of education
Sex
Age
Level of education
Sex
Age
Visitation
patterns
Prefer day of
visitation
Frequency
Time spent on the
visit
Prefer day of
visitation
Frequency
Time spent on the
visit
Main recreational
activity
Main recreational
activity
About: non-motorised
and motorized activities
About: non-motorised
and motorized activities
About: non-motorised and motorized
activities
Activities social
and environmental
impacts
Activities social and
environmental
impacts
Activities social and environmental
Activities social and environmental
impacts
impacts
Place of residence
(network analysis to
calculate real
travelled distance)
Visitor reported
travelled distance
Data
collected
Recreational
activities
People’s
perceptions
Distance
travelled
Environmental
values
Sense of place
Visitors
Non-visitors
Frequency
Main recreational
activity
Psychometric scale
Psychometric scale
Example conceptual model
Example statement about thesis structure: The thesis consists of six chapters: a General Introduction (Chapter 1) & Discussion (Chapter 6) & four results chapters (Chapters 2‐5). The results chapters are in the form of manuscripts formatted to meet the requirements of the peer reviewed academic journals that they have submitted to………. Done in accordance with Griffith University policy on PhD thesis as published and unpublished papers (Appendix 1). As a result, there is some repetition among the results chapters, including in the descriptions of study sites & reference list. There are also detailed literature reviews at the start of each results chapter in accordance with the requirements of journals manuscripts. Some aspects of the results presented in chapters 3 & 5 have also been published as ……..
Publications
The publications stemming from the research presented in this thesis are as follows:
• Papers • Industry monographs
• Extended conference abstracts • Additional relevant publications
Example of linking pages:
The previous chapter provided xxxxx. It found xxxxxxx. This results chapter xxxxxxxx. It specifically examines xxxxxxx.
Chapter 2 is currently under review by the Journal xxxxx and has been formatted to that Journal style. The citation is as follows:
Author 1, Author 2,. (status). Title paper, Journal.
The co‐authors of this manuscript are my thesis supervisors, xxxxx & xxxxx. My (your name) contribution to the manuscript involved: initial concept and experimental design, data collection & analysis & preparation of the manuscript.
Signed by
• XXxx (Corresponding author)
• XXX (Co‐Principal Supervisor)
• Xxxx (Co‐Principal Supervisor)
How to write the final chapter:
• Get aims from each paper, & combine them into 4‐8 overall aims – put in Intro & Final chapter
• Structure of Final Chapter:
– Intro – short summary of importance of topic, plus statement that thesis done as papers – so final chapter synthesises all the papers in relation to literature
– Aim 1 ‐ what found, literature
– Aim 2 ‐ what found, literature, etc
– Contribution to knowledge ‐ discipline, methods & practical implications
– Research context & further research directions
Training/support in paper writing:
Supervisors
Discipline specific writing workshops
Peer writing groups
Books and articles
Learning support units
How to write ecology papers –
Catherine Pickering, Griffith University
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/435526/Writing‐Ecology‐
Research‐Papers‐July‐2012.pdf
So….
Aim at resilience… publishing can be hard but its worth it in the end !
Good luck & happy publishing !