Publication and Career Advancement

Publication at a Glance

Congratulations, Doctor! Welcome to post-doctoral life! Now, what? The first order of business have your dissertation is approved and you are granted your doctorate is to leverage your dissertation study to prepare an article that you can submit for publication. Getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is must if you want a career in academia. We're sure you have heard of the dreaded phrase 'Publish or Perish'. Even if you are not looking to have a career in academia, having a peer-reviewed publication under your belt will look impressive on your résumé and acts as proof of your expertise when applying for industry positions.

Peer-reviewed publication is a very competitive environment. When you submit a manuscript for review, there are usually three outcomes:

Rejection without feedback (Don't worry, the world's top academics get rejected regularly)
Rejection with reviewer feedback (The feedback journal reviews provide is usually very comprehensive and helpful, so use it to improve your article for submission to another journal)
Conditional acceptance pending revisions
Outright acceptance (This is very rare)

If you receive a rejection, do not be discouraged. Submission are often rejected because the forthcoming issue of the journal is full, the journal editors have a theme in mind that your study does not fit, or the rejection could be arbitrary or subjective.

In addition to getting your dissertation study published, you should also be thinking about how to leverage your doctorate to advance your career. Having a doctorate opens up many career paths often with higher pay, but these career paths are not guaranteed. To set yourself up for maximum opportunities, you network and promote yourself.

How will Dissertation Demystified help me?

Dissertation Demystified has developed a comprehensive framework for leveraging a dissertation study to get at least one publication. A dissertation is a much lengthier document than a research article, so our Defense and Career Advancement module will coach you through distilling down the content of your dissertation manuscript into a pithy and engaging article that will appeal to journal reviews.

Another important element of this module is understanding how to select appropriate journals to submit to in the first place. We will coach in how to read the last 1-3 issues of a journal to determine if there is optimal alignment with your study and the goal of the journal. One of the key outcomes of this module is the development of a publication roadmap that identifies three optimal journals that you can submit to.

As we mentioned above, peer-reviewed publication is competitive and rejection is the norm. In the event you cannot get your study published in a peer-reviewed journal, there are myriads of other options included developing a white paper for a professional publication and even preparing a manuscript that isn't published, but you can share on LinkedIn and with your network so that your work and expertise gets exposure.

In terms of career advancement, Dissertation Demystified sets you up for success first through our community of doctoral candidates. We built in the networking aspect of the community from the beginning so that you can first network with your fellow peers in the communities (especially alumni who have finished the program). Remember, members of Dissertation Demystified are members for life so you can use the community to make connection for career opportunities. We also have an entire module dedicated to providing you excellent career coaching resources and how to leverage LinkedIn to promote your expertise and skills.