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The Ultimate Guide to Getting Your Thesis Published in a Journal

• 7-minute read
• 25th February 2023

Writing your thesis and getting it published are huge accomplishments. However, publishing your thesis in an academic journal is another journey for scholars. Beyond how much hard work, time, and research you invest, having your findings published in a scholarly journal is vital for your reputation as a scholar and also advances research findings within your field.

This guide will walk you through how to make sure your thesis is ready for publication in a journal. We’ll go over how to prepare for pre-publication, how to submit your research, and what to do after acceptance.

Pre-Publication Preparations

Understanding the publishing process.

Ideally, you have already considered what type of publication outlet you want your thesis research to appear in. If not, it’s best to do this so you can tailor your writing and overall presentation to fit that publication outlet’s expectations. When selecting an outlet for your research, consider the following:

●  How well will my research fit the journal?

●  Are the reputation and quality of this journal high?

●  Who is this journal’s readership/audience?

●  How long does it take the journal to respond to a submission?

●  What’s the journal’s rejection rate?

Once you finish writing, revising, editing, and proofreading your work (which can take months or years), expect the publication process to be an additional three months or so.

Revising Your Thesis

Your thesis will need to be thoroughly revised, reworked, reorganized, and edited before a journal will accept it. Journals have specific requirements for all submissions, so read everything on a journal’s submission requirements page before you submit. Make a checklist of all the requirements to be sure you don’t overlook anything. Failing to meet the submission requirements could result in your paper being rejected.

Areas for Improvement

No doubt, the biggest challenge academics face in this journey is reducing the word count of their thesis to meet journal publication requirements. Remember that the average thesis is between 60,000 and 80,000 words, not including footnotes, appendices, and references. On the other hand, the average academic journal article is 4,000 to 7,000 words. Reducing the number of words this much may seem impossible when you are staring at the year or more of research your thesis required, but remember, many have done this before, and many will do it again. You can do it too. Be patient with the process.

Additional areas of improvement include>

·   having to reorganize your thesis to meet the section requirements of the journal you submit to ( abstract, intro , methods, results, and discussion).

·   Possibly changing your reference system to match the journal requirements or reducing the number of references.

·   Reformatting tables and figures.

·   Going through an extensive editing process to make sure everything is in place and ready.

Identifying Potential Publishers

Many options exist for publishing your academic research in a journal. However, along with the many credible and legitimate publishers available online, just as many predatory publishers are out there looking to take advantage of academics. Be sure to always check unfamiliar publishers’ credentials before commencing the process. If in doubt, ask your mentor or peer whether they think the publisher is legitimate, or you can use Think. Check. Submit .

If you need help identifying which journals your research is best suited to, there are many tools to help. Here’s a short list:

○  Elsevier JournalFinder

○  EndNote Matcher

○  Journal/Author Name Estimator (JANE)

○  Publish & Flourish Open Access

·   The topics the journal publishes and whether your research will be a good fit.

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·   The journal’s audience (whom you want to read your research).

·   The types of articles the journal publishes (e.g., reviews, case studies).

·   Your personal requirements (e.g., whether you’re willing to wait a long time to see your research published).

Submitting Your Thesis

Now that you have thoroughly prepared, it’s time to submit your thesis for publication. This can also be a long process, depending on peer review feedback.

Preparing Your Submission

Many publishers require you to write and submit a cover letter along with your research. The cover letter is your sales pitch to the journal’s editor. In the letter, you should not only introduce your work but also emphasize why it’s new, important, and worth the journal’s time to publish. Be sure to check the journal’s website to see whether submission requires you to include specific information in your cover letter, such as a list of reviewers.

Whenever you submit your thesis for publication in a journal article, it should be in its “final form” – that is, completely ready for publication. Do not submit your thesis if it has not been thoroughly edited, formatted, and proofread. Specifically, check that you’ve met all the journal-specific requirements to avoid rejection.

Navigating the Peer Review Process

Once you submit your thesis to the journal, it will undergo the peer review process. This process may vary among journals, but in general, peer reviews all address the same points. Once submitted, your paper will go through the relevant editors and offices at the journal, then one or more scholars will peer-review it. They will submit their reviews to the journal, which will use the information in its final decision (to accept or reject your submission).

While many academics wait for an acceptance letter that says “no revisions necessary,” this verdict does not appear very often. Instead, the publisher will likely give you a list of necessary revisions based on peer review feedback (these revisions could be major, minor, or a combination of the two). The purpose of the feedback is to verify and strengthen your research. When you respond to the feedback , keep these tips in mind:

●  Always be respectful and polite in your responses, even if you disagree.

●  If you do disagree, be prepared to provide supporting evidence.

●  Respond to all the comments, questions, and feedback in a clear and organized manner.

●  Make sure you have sufficient time to make any changes (e.g., whether you will need to conduct additional experiments).

After Publication

Once the journal accepts your article officially, with no further revisions needed, take a moment to enjoy the fruits of your hard work. After all, having your work appear in a distinguished journal is not an easy feat. Once you’ve finished celebrating, it’s time to promote your work. Here’s how you can do that:

●  Connect with other experts online (like their posts, follow them, and comment on their work).

●  Email your academic mentors.

●  Share your article on social media so others in your field may see your work.

●  Add the article to your LinkedIn publications.

●  Respond to any comments with a “Thank you.”

Getting your thesis research published in a journal is a long process that goes from reworking your thesis to promoting your article online. Be sure you take your time in the pre-publication process so you don’t have to make lots of revisions. You can do this by thoroughly revising, editing, formatting, and proofreading your article.

During this process, make sure you and your co-authors (if any) are going over one another’s work and having outsiders read it to make sure no comma is out of place.

What are the benefits of getting your thesis published?

Having your thesis published builds your reputation as a scholar in your field. It also means you are contributing to the body of work in your field by promoting research and communication with other scholars.

How long does it typically take to get a thesis published?

Once you have finished writing, revising, editing, formatting, and proofreading your thesis – processes that can add up to months or years of work – publication can take around three months. The exact length of time will depend on the journal you submit your work to and the peer review feedback timeline.

How can I ensure the quality of my thesis when attempting to get it published?

If you want to make sure your thesis is of the highest quality, consider having professionals proofread it before submission (some journals even require submissions to be professionally proofread). Proofed has helped thousands of researchers proofread their theses. Check out our free trial today.

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Revising Your Dissertation for Publication

While a dissertation’s in-depth research and analysis can provide a strong foundation for a book, the dissertation itself is not a book and will not be published by an academic press without substantial revisions. Some acquisitions editors are interested first books, especially if they bring new perspectives and fresh ideas to a field, while others do not often publish first books. If you are considering submitting your dissertation for publication, we recommend that you contact editors at university presses that publish in your subject area for guidance on revising your work. Many editors prefer to be involved in the early stages of this process so they can advise you on how to structure the book and your arguments to create a publishable book. Editors generally require changes in the length, content, tone, and style of a dissertation in order to produce a book that will appeal to buyers in the academic market. Read more about submitting a proposal in our Scholarly Publishing Guide .

Below are selected resources to help you revise your dissertation for publication as a book or journal article(s).

Advice from publishers

• Harvard University Press
• Palgrave Macmillan
• Rowman & Littlefield
• Taylor & Francis
• University of North Carolina Press
• Yale University Press
• Publisher Policies on using content in both a thesis or dissertation and an article (from MIT Libraries)
• From Dissertation to Book by William Germano (Lauinger Library, 4th Floor, PN162 .G37 2013)
• Revising Your Dissertation, Updated Edition : Advice from Leading Editors (updated edition, 2008) edited by Beth Luey (online; GU NetID and password required)
• From Dissertation to Book , Duke University (February 27, 2018)
• From Dissertation to Book ( full transcript ), Harvard University (December 17, 2010)
• How To Turn Your Dissertation into a Book , Yale University (April 6, 2016)
• From Dissertation to Book by Leonard Cassuto (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 30, 2011)
• From Dissertation to Published Book (lanugageandphilosophy.com report on an American Comparative Literature Association workshop)
• Give It a Rest by Laura Portwood-Stacer (Inside Higher Ed, August 6, 2019)
• The Stages of Revising a Dissertation into a Book by Amy Benson Brown (Journal of Scholarly Publishing, vol. 52 no. 2, 2021, p. 127-140) (GU NetID and password required)
• Turning Your Dissertation into a Book (University of Washington)
• Publishing your Dissertation (American Psychological Association)

• Public Resources
• Publishing Your Dissertation in a…

Publishing Your Dissertation in a Scholarly Journal

So you’ve decided you want to earn a PhD. You have read about the road blocks , you’ve selected your committee, and you’ve started writing your dissertation. But why start thinking about a publication? What does that have to do with earning the ultimate degree?

Writing a dissertation without a publication is like going to the trouble of making a cake but not baking it. No one can taste your cake, no one can benefit from your hard work—of course, no one can criticize your work either. But without a publication, or two or three, the dissertation is not technically a total success. You’d be amazed at how many people don’t get a publication out of their dissertation. Without advanced planning, a publication likely won’t happen, because, once again, there are often unanticipated roadblocks.

1. Publication will be completely driven by you and no one else. A publication will not be on the priority list of your dissertation committee. And you will likely be the only one to understand where to publish.

2. Planning is the most important step and the only way to be successful. If you wait until after you go through the dissertation process, you will be too exhausted to publish, and it won’t happen for a year or two. You must plan.

3. Configure your dissertation for three separate publications. This may be three separate chapters, or it may be three different data sets or arms of your data. Link this to the selection of your committee. In my previous articles, I recommended choosing a committee wisely, with different members being associated with different jobs. Committee members should not have similar areas of expertise. Their “jobs” should not overlap. There should be a content expert or literature review expert, a methods person, a results person and a “whip.” Ideally, the “whip” (think politics, as in majority whip or minority whip in Congress) is your dissertation chair. The jobs of each member should be distinct to avoid having members fighting or making conflicting suggestions. Each article should be aligned with a separate expert. So there can be a Review article, a Methods article, and a Results article.

4. You get to decide who is listed as an author on your articles. You will be first author, and your mentor should be last author (a position of honor). If a committee member does not contribute, they ethically should not be included in the list of authors. Many journals now ask you to list the authors along with their meaningful contributions.

5. Decide ahead of time the journals in which you wish to publish. Full disclosure — I am on the board of the Journal of the American Academy of PAs (JAAPA), and I’m a reviewer for the Journal of Physician Assistant Education (JPAE). I’m going to recommend these PA journals for one of your publications. Here is my pitch (although biased): We are THE scholarly journals for the profession. If your data is completely focused on PA education, then select JPAE. Think about JAAPA for any research on PAs themselves or PA analogues. Select a PA journal for a personal touch and some really important feedback. Your article will be on a stage with your peers. This gives you the home crowd advantage.

6. Lose ownership. Remember how I said your dissertation is like your baby? Well, your baby now has gone through elementary school and the tumultuous teenage years and currently is entering college. Your publication needs you to back off and give it some space. It will leave home for a while (often for the long review process). When it comes back, it might need to do some laundry, but it should essentially not look at all like the baby you once knew. A publication should look like a publication, not a dissertation. It should be neat and mature and all grown up.

7. Try for the highest level journal you can realistically get published in. Here is the main problem: time. You cannot ethically submit the same article to multiple journals. You will need to make sure you have three completely separate articles in order to submit to multiple journals. There are many people who believe you should publish in the most prestigious journal you can make it into. I do not disagree with this philosophy; however, the alternative is that your work might not get read in a higher scholarly journal because PAs and PA educators don’t tend to read these other journals. This is for you to decide. There are websites that can help you determine where to publish. But be careful and check out Beall’s List, a list of potentially predatory “scholarly” open-access publishers.

8. Best of luck — and don’t fail to publish. Don’t bake your cake and not put it in the oven. Remember to reach out to your peers within the profession to aid in your success. Ultimately, your committee will be pleased to add a publication to their CVs. They will remember this as their reward for all the hard work that they (and you) put into your PhD.

A publication is the lasting legacy for all of your tough efforts and sacrifice. It is the “so what” of all you have put into this academic Mt. Everest. Consider the impact that your work will have on the profession. Don’t run the marathon (or climb the mountain) and not cross the finish line!

Jennifer Coombs, PhD, MPAS, PA-C

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• University of Michigan Library
• Research Guides

Copyright for Dissertations

• Publishing Your Dissertation
• Using Others' Content
• Copyright in Your Dissertation

Copyright Questions?

The University of Michigan Library Copyright Office provides help with copyright questions for University of Michigan faculty, staff and students. Please email us with questions or visit our website for more information.

Legal Advice

The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have specific legal questions pertaining to the University of Michigan, please contact the Office of the General Counsel .

If you require legal advice in your personal capacity, the lawyer referral services operated by the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan may be helpful to you.

Preparing for Publication

Norms around publishing dissertation material vary from one field to another. For instance, in some scientific fields, it is common to publish individual chapters from the dissertation before it is submitted. In the humanities, it is common to develop a monograph from the dissertation after completing the graduate degree.

Whether you publish before or after submitting your dissertation, it is important to plan ahead when signing publishing contracts or submitting your dissertation. Will the publishing contract you sign allow you to use the article in your dissertation later? How does depositing your dissertation in Deep Blue impact this? Can you use material that you've coauthored in your dissertation or thesis? For questions about the norms in your field, talk with your advisors. With copyright questions, contact the library copyright office.

If you are about to sign a publishing agreement, consider using the U-M Author's Addenda , which may help you negotiate and keep the rights you need in your work.

From Dissertation to Book

Thinking about transforming your dissertation into your first book? Hardly any dissertations are published as books without significant work on the author's part to refocus the manuscript for an audience beyond the dissertation committee.

Here are a few resources to help you understand the process of reworking a dissertation for publication as a monograph:

• Dear First-Time Author: How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book, by Theresa MacPhail MacPhail shares advice from writing her own first book as well as advice from editors at university presses.

In reading some of the resources listed above, you might encounter discussions of how having your dissertation available online (for example, in  Deep Blue ) could negatively impact a publisher's willingness to look at your manuscript. Some authors assert that you should not put your dissertation online if you hope to sign a publishing contract. However, please note there is very little evidence to support this view. In fact, research has shown that publishers will indeed consider manuscripts that are revised versions of openly-accessible dissertations.

• Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers, by Ramirez, et al.

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Research Process

• Brainstorming
• Explore Google This link opens in a new window
• Explore Web Resources
• Explore Background Information
• Explore Books
• Explore Scholarly Articles
• Narrowing a Topic
• Primary and Secondary Resources
• Academic, Popular & Trade Publications
• Scholarly and Peer-Reviewed Journals
• Grey Literature
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• Website Evaluation
• Article Keywords and Subject Terms
• Cited References
• Citing Articles
• Related Results
• Search Within Publication
• Database Alerts & RSS Feeds
• Personal Database Accounts
• Persistent URLs
• Literature Gap and Future Research

Web of Knowledge

• Annual Reviews
• Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses
• Finding Seminal Works
• Exhausting the Literature
• Finding Dissertations
• Researching Theoretical Frameworks
• Research Methodology & Design
• Tests and Measurements
• Organizing Research & Citations This link opens in a new window

Scholarly Publication

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A Ph.D carries with it not only an understanding of a subject, but an expectation of advancing understanding in a field through publication.  But getting published requires knowledge of the tricks of the process. These webinars from the Center for Teaching and Learning discuss the keys to get published.

• How to Get Published
• Maneuvering the World of Journals
• Writing for Publication
• How to Get Your Dissertation Research Published
• Publishing from Your Doctoral Research

Additional Resources

• The Case for Open Access
• Finding Journal Acceptance Rates
• How to Find the Right Journal (Emerald)
• How to Publish your Journal Paper
• Journal Metrics Overview
• Society for Scholarly Publishing
• Library Copyright Guide

Journal Article Acceptance Rates

Acceptance rates, along with the method for calculating this rate, varies per journal. Access to these rates is not always readily available, but there a variety of ways to find this information. 

Possible sources:

• Journal Home Page
• Society or Association Home Page (i.e. American Psychological Association )
• Contact the journal's editor
• Google search (i.e. "acceptance rates" AND psychology
• NOTE : The Library does not subscribe to this resource. 

Publishing is an essential step in the information life cycle. By publishing, scholars allow readers to view, comment, and build upon their work, all of which are necessary steps to further knowledge. Publishing also increases the scholar's standing in his or her respective field which is important for funding and employment. Many accreditation bodies require that faculty remain active in their field; publishing is the most common way to show active engagement.

Publishing Dissertation Research

Although your dissertation has been published in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, you are still the copyright holder. And, as long as you hold the copyright, you are able to decide how your dissertation may be made available (e.g., reworked into a book, divided into a few journal articles, presented at a poster session, etc.). For additional information, please see  Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities .

Note, however, that you will need to be careful about reproducing images, test instruments, etc. You will need to ensure that you have permission to reproduce these resources in other formats. This may require contacting the author or copyright holder of the work.

Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that most journals prohibit multiple submissions of the same paper. You will likely be required to sign paperwork stating that your paper has not already been submitted to or published by another journal. Please consult the individual publisher websites for additional information. Often they have a page for author information such as the  example here .

For additional information about how to disseminate your dissertation, see the following FAQ:

• How do I make my published dissertation more discoverable?

The Next Step: Library Tools for Scholarly Publication

• The Next Step: Library Tools for Scholarly Publication Are you interested in publishing your research? Considering publishing a book, submitting to a journal, or presenting at a conference? The Next Step: Library Tools for Scholarly Publication provides information on scholarly publishing considerations and opportunities as well as details concerning predatory journals and conferences. Available resources and tools for current students and alumni are also shared, including Think Check Submit, Genamics JournalSeek, and Stop Predatory Journals.

I'm ready to publish my work. What should I do?

When you are ready to publish your research it is important to find the right place to do so. Finding the perfect publication for your research can be a time consuming task, but it is vital in order to get your research out to the scholars and readers who will most benefit from it. There are several different factors to consider when selecting a publication for your research:

• What is the scope of the journal? Does your research fit in with the subject matter? Does the tone and length of your article match previously published articles?
• Are you submitting an article in response to a call for articles? If so, does your subject matter match the requirements in the call?
• If you are concerned about having your article cited by other scholars, do you know what the impact factor of the journal is?
• Do you want to publish your article in an open access journal or repository?

To answer some of the above questions refer to resources like the resources below. Note, however, that the Library does not currently subscribe to Cabell's or Journal Citations Reports. Please check with your local public or academic library to access them.

• Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities Assists you in selecting those journals that are most likely to publish your manuscript. The index in each Directory helps you match the characteristics of your manuscript to the topic areas the journal emphasizes, the type of review process, acceptance rate and number of internal and external reviewers.
• Journal Citation Reports Database Offers a systematic, objective means to critically evaluate the world's leading journals, with quantifiable, statistical information based on citation data. By compiling articles' cited references, JCR Web helps to measure research influence and impact at the journal and category levels, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals.
• Think Check Submit Provides an easy-to-use checklist designed to help you identify which journals in your discipline are trustworthy, and will help your research have the maximum impact on your career.

How do I find the scope of a journal?

It is very important to learn about journals that you are interested in potentially publishing with. By researching journals early on, and finding those whose scope and subject matter match your topic well, you will have a much better chance of your article being accepted later. A simple Google search on the title of the journal will usually bring up the journal home page. From there you can read about the journal and submission guidelines.

For example, the Journal of Marketing describes their scope as thus: "Articles in Journal of Marketing concentrate on marketing needs and trends that demonstrate new techniques for solutions to marketing problems, review those trends and developments by reporting research, contribute generalizable and validated findings, and present new ideas, theories, and illustrations of marketing thought and practice."

This should give you, the author, a very clear idea of the types of articles this journal is looking for and the types of articles that are likely to be accepted for publication.

The following resources may also assist with identifying potential journals and locating their scope:

Content: Detailed information about periodicals. 

Purpose: Use to verify if a journal is peer-reviewed, as well as discover additional information on a specific journal.

Special Features: Provides a review of certain journals

• Genamics JournalSeek Largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet. Journal information includes the description (aims and scope), journal abbreviation, journal homepage link, subject category and ISSN. Searching this information allows the rapid identification of potential journals to publish your research in, as well as allow you to find new journals of interest to your field.

Predatory Journals

Predatory journals and publishers are defined as "entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices” ( https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03759-y ). Essentially, they exist primarily to profit off of employer requirements for scholars to publish. Many are open-access publications and do not provide peer reviews, editing services, or publishing help for the authors. They also may not offer quality control, indexing, or licensing, which is routine for legitimate publishers. Often they will accept any article submitted and prevent you from publishing that content in a reputable journal.  

Additional characteristics of predatory journals include:

• Low article processing charges (APCs)
• Small, or nonexistent editorial board
• Single publisher with hundreds of titles
• Issues published late or never
• Poor quality website
• Bogus national or international affiliation
• Excessive errors in published content
• Uses Index Copernicus Value as index factor
• Promises quick turnaround and publication
• Lack of clarity around copyright, preservation, and publishing process
• Have titles that are very similar to those of established, non-predatory journals

The following resources may be used to determine if a particular journal or publisher is predatory:

• Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers This is an archived version of the Beall's list - a list of potential predatory publishers created by a librarian Jeffrey Beall. They will only update links and add notes to this list.
• Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Check the list of COPE members. If a journal isn't predatory, the publisher should be a member. "COPE is a forum for editors and publishers of peer reviewed journals to discuss all aspects of publication ethics."
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Check the DOAJ's extensive list of open access journals. Although they can't guarantee that no publisher or journal on their lists is predatory, they attempt to include only high quality journals and publishers.
• Journal Publishing Practices and Standards (JPPS) Framework Although this site won't identify a journal as predatory, it rates journals published in the southern hemisphere. It is a work in progress. To find journals that have already been evaluated, click on the Assessed Journals link at the top of the page.
• Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) Check the list of OASPA members to see if the publisher is listed. If a journal isn't predatory, the publisher should be a member of the OASPA.
• Stop Predatory Journals Check to see if the journal is listed on this list of potential predatory journals maintained by Stop Predatory Journals.
• Stop Predatory Journals - Publishers Check this list of publishers maintained by Stop Predatory Journals

What is an impact factor?

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) provides ranking for journals in the areas of science, technology, and social sciences. They also calculate journal Impact Factor , the average number of times articles from the journal published in the past two years have been cited in the Journal Citation Reports year. This measure is a frequently used indicator as to the significance and influence of the journal in its field. Please note that the Library does not currently subscribe Journal Citation Reports. Please check with your local public or academic library to access them.

Opinions vary widely as to what constitutes a "good" impact factor. Click here for a chart which provides some context, in terms of how many journals achieve the various ranking levels. Also, please keep in mind that consideration of a good impact factor may vary by discipline. A number that is considered low in one field might be considered quite high in another field. Therefore, the Library recommends consulting with your Dissertation Chair to find out if they require a minimum impact factor for your concept paper or dissertation references.

While the Library does not subscribe to Journal Citation Reports (JCR), there are some databases which provide impact factor for their published journals. Follow the instructions in the below box to find impact factor in the Library and online.

• Impact Factor Guide Provided by the Center for Teaching and Learning
• Infographic: Navigating the World of Citation Metrics Provides a quick overview of the key citation metrics and what they tell us.

How do I find the impact factor of a journal?

• SAGE Journals
• ScienceDirect
• SpringerLink
• Wiley Online Library

Content: Literature review database covering psychology, sociology, anthropology, environment and resources, law and social science, political science, and public health.  

Purpose: Provides articles that synthesize primary research and discuss the topic in historical context. Discover seminal works and literature gaps. 

Special Features: Multimedia and supplemental materials.

Follow the instructions below to find impact factor using the Library’s Annual Reviews database.

• Go to A-Z Databases and then click on Annual Reviews.
• Hover over Journals A-Z to see a list of all journals.
• Click on your journal title.
• The impact factor will appear above the journal description as shown below.

Note that Library subscribes to the following Annual Reviews titles only.

Annual Review of Anthropology Annual Review of Clinical Psychology Annual Review of Environment and Resources Annual Review of Law and Social Science Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Annual Review of Political Science Annual Review of Psychology Annual Review of Public Health Annual Review of Sociology

You can use Google to find impact factors for individual journals and for rankings by subject areas. For example, entering "Journal of Business Research impact factor" will display the impact factor in the search results as shown below.

Content: Scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles only, in health science, biomedical science, engineering, social science, and the humanities. 

Purpose: Use for scholarly research in most fields. 

Special Features: Includes discipline hubs for browsing and citation search.

Follow the instructions below to find impact factor using the Library’s SAGE Journals database.

• Go to A-Z Databases, select “S” and then click on SAGE Journals.
• Enter the journal title using the basic search box in the center of the screen. You can also browse journals by discipline or alphabetically.
• Press search.
• From the results screen, click on the Journals tab (defaults to Articles tab).
• Go to the "About" drop-down menu and select "More Information."
• The impact factor will appear below the journal title as shown below.

Content: Elsevier’s science database covering computer science, health science, and social sciences. Contains peer-reviewed and open-access journal articles and book chapters.

Purpose: A great resource that covers foundational science to new and novel research.

Special Features: Covers theoretical and practical aspects of physical, life, health, and social sciences.

Follow the instructions below to find impact factor using the Library’s ScienceDirect Journals database.

• Go to A-Z Databases, select “S” and then click on ScienceDirect Journals.
• Enter the journal title using the journal/book title box at the top of the screen.
• Locate your journal from the list of results, or under "Suggested publications."
• The impact factor will appear next to the journal image as shown below.

Contents: Scholarly journals and other resources covering science, technology, business, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences, 1997 to present

Purpose: Millions of scientific documents on a large variety of disciplines.

Special Features: Browse by discipline or keyword search. Filter results by article, book chapter, reference book, discipline, and sub-discipline. Coverage for most journals is from the first issue to the current issue.

Follow the instructions below to find impact factor using the Library’s SpringerLink Journals database.

• Go to A-Z Databases, select “S” and then click on SpringerLink Journals.
• Enter the journal title using the basic search box at the top of the screen. 
• Select your journal from the list of results.
• The impact factor will appear on the right-hand side of the screen under the journal image as shown below.

Content: Scholarly journals, e-books, and reference materials.

Purpose: Subject areas include Anthropology, Business, Economics, Finance, Geography, Family Studies, Law, Management, and Psychology.

Follow the instructions below to find impact factor using the Library’s Wiley Online Library database.

• Go to A-Z Databases, select “W” and then click on Wiley Online Library.
• Enter the journal title using the basic search box in the center of the screen. You can also browse journals by title or subject by clicking on "1,600+ Journals."
• The impact factor will appear under the journal's editor name as shown below.

Journal Rankings

• Google Scholar Top Publications
• Microsoft Academic Journal Analytics
• SCImago Journal Ranking
• Web of Knowledge Journal Ranking

Google Scholar Metrics provides a way for researchers to easily assess article visibility and influence. Google Scholar Metrics has compiled a list of the top 100 Publications in Several Languages . The publications in this list are ranked by their 5 year h-index and h-median metrics. By clicking on the number under the h-index, you can view a list of that publication's most cited articles as well as who cited them. 

Example: Click on the h-index number to view the most cited articles within the publication,  Nature.

This will identify a list of those articles in addition to the subcategory under which Google Scholar Metrics has labeled  Nature.

Google Scholar has also compiled lists of the top publications within the following fields. Each category maintains supplemental subcategories as well. Please note that these are only English-language lists at the moment. 

• Business, Economics, & Management
• Chemical & Material Sciences
• Engineering & Computer Sciences
• Health & Medical Sciences
• Humanities, Literature, & the Arts
• Life Sciences & Earth Sciences
• Physics & Mathematics
• Social Sciences

Click here to learn more about Google Scholar Metrics. 

The Microsoft Academic Search Engine offers Journal Rankings  based on the dynamic eigencentrality measurement. The Journal Analytics feature automatically extracts information from publications and their metadata. Journals are indexed in a variety of disciplines, and are more likely to be included if they are easily discoverable on the web.

Microsoft Academic's Journal Analytics allows users to filter by the following measurements:

• Publications

Users can also filter by topic, year, and keyword search. 

To access the Journal Analytics from the Microsoft Academic main page, click on 'Journals' located to the right of the screen. This will redirect you to the Journal Analytics page. 

Scimago Journal and Country Rank (SJR) is an open-access database containing citation information on more than 17,000 scholarly and professional journals based on content from Elsevier's Scopus collection.

SJR is a prestige metric based on the idea that ‘all citations are not created equal’. With SJR, the subject field, quality and reputation of the journal has a direct effect on the value of a citation. SJR differs from other bibliometric measures in that it:

• Is weighted by the prestige of the journal, thereby ‘leveling the playing field’ among journals
• Eliminates manipulation: raise the SJR ranking by being published in more reputable journals
• ‘Shares’ a journal’s prestige equally over the total number of citations in that journal
• Normalizes for differences in citation behavior between subject fields

Follow the instructions below to find SJR using the Scimago Journal and Country Rank website.

• Go to https://www.scimagojr.com/
• Enter your journal title in the basic search box in the center of the screen. You can also browse by subject area by clicking on Journal Rankings at the top of the screen.
• Select your journal title from the results list.
• SJR is displayed on the lower right as shown below. You can hover over the graph to see the SJR for each year displayed.

Content: Citations and articles in multi-disciplines not found through a NavigatorSearch.

Purpose: Used to conduct topic searches as well as find additional resources that have cited a specific resource (citation network).

Follow the instructions below to find a journal's ranking using the Library’s Web of Knowledge database.

• Go to A-Z Databases, select “W” and then click on Web of Knowledge.
• Enter the journal title using the basic search box in the center of the screen. The default search is set to Topic. Click on the drop down menu and select "Publication Name." A link to search the index is also available beneath the search field.  
• From the results screen, click on the journal title located beneath the article title. 
• The journal ranking will appear below the article record as shown below.

The quartile is given as either Q1, Q2, Q3 , or Q4 where Q1 indicates that the journal is in the top 25% of its subject category while Q4 indicates it is in the bottom 25% of the journals in that category.

Are there other measures of journal/article significance or influence?

• Introduction
• Eigenfactor & Article Influence Scores
• SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Publication)

There have been numerous criticisms regarding the use of impact factor to measure the quality of a journal. Therefore, alternate bibliometric measures have evolved to address shortcomings, and to provide alternate perspectives on journal or article significance. These alternate measures further described below include: Eigenfactor Score, Article Influence Score, SCImago Journal and Country Rank (SJR), H-Index, and SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Publication).For further details about journal impact criticism, see the scholarly article below.

• Fooladi, M., Salehi, H., Yunus, M. M., Farhadi, M., Chadegani, A. A., Farhadi, H., & Ebrahim, N. A. (2013). Does criticisms overcome the praises of journal impact factor? Asian Social Science, 9 (5), 176-182.

Eigenfactor.org is an academic research project sponsored by the Bergstrom Lab in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington with the purpose of ranking and mapping scientific knowledge. Eigenfactor Scores and Article Influence Scores are calculated similarly to the methodology used by Google to rank webpages. Scholarly references link journals together in a large network of citations and allows for a comparison across disciplines.

The Eigenfactor Score measures the number of times articles from the journal published in the past five years have been cited in the JCR year. Eigenfactor scores are intended to give a measure of how likely a journal is to be used, and are thought to reflect how frequently an average researcher would access content from that journal.

The Article Influence Score calculates measures the relative importance of the journal on a per-article basis.

Follow the steps below to search a database of Eigenfactor and Article Influence scores from 1997 to 2015.

• Go to http://www.eigenfactor.org/projects/journalRank/journalsearch.php
• Enter the journal name and click "Find Journal."
• The Eigenfactor and Article Influence scores will be displayed on the results list as shown below.

Developed by J.E. Hirsch, the h-index is a number intended to represent both the productivity and the impact of a particular scientist or scholar, or a group of scientists or scholars (such as a departmental or research group). The h-index is calculated by counting the number of publications for which the scientist has been cited by other authors at least that same number of times. In comparison with the ISI Impact factor, the h index corrects for highly cited papers not found in highly cited journals. This presents an unbiased way of comparing people within a discipline, especially in the sciences. 

Follow the instructions below to find h index using the Library’s Web of Knowledge database.

• Enter your journal title and select Publication Name from the drop-down menu.
• Click search.
• Check that the target title is the only journal listed under Refine Results > Source Titles in the left-hand side column (toward bottom). If not, tick the box next to the target title and Refine .
• Select Create Citation Report on the top right.
• h-index appears in the second box at the top as shown below.

Scimago Journal & Country Rank

Follow the instructions below to find h index using the Scimago Journal & Country Rank website.

• Enter journal title e.g. "organization studies" and press search.
• Select the appropriate journal title from the results list.
• h index appears in the upper right, as shown below.

Google Scholar Google Scholar has adapted the h-index method of impact. h5-index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years. It is the largest number h such that h articles published in 2013-2017 have at least h citations each. You can browse the top 100 publications in several languages, ordered by their five-year h-index and h-median metrics.

Follow the instructions below to find h index using Google Scholar Metrics.

• Go to https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en
• Click on the Categories drop-down menu to select a broad subject.
• Select a subcategory if desired.
• The h5 index is displayed for the top journals in that category or subcategory as shown below.

CWTS Journal Indicators provides free access to bibliometric indicators on scientific journals. The indicators have been calculated by Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) based on the Scopus bibliographic database produced by Elsevier. Indicators are available for over 20,000 journals indexed in the Scopus database.

A key indicator offered by CWTS Journal Indicators is the SNIP indicator, where SNIP stands for source normalized impact per paper . This indicator measures the average citation impact of the publications of a journal. Unlike the well-known journal impact factor, SNIP corrects for differences in citation practices between scientific fields, thereby allowing for more accurate between-field comparisons of citation impact. CWTS Journal Indicators also provides stability intervals that indicate the reliability of the SNIP value of a journal. More information on the indicators offered by CWTS Journal Indicators is available on their Methodology page.

Follow the instructions below to locate SNIP using the CWTS Journal Indicators website.

• Go to http://www.journalindicators.com/indicators
• Enter the journal title in the "Search for" box.
• The journal results appear at the bottom of the page and includes the SNIP value as shown in the first image below.
• You may also click on the journal title to view a graph as shown in the second image.

How do I submit my article?

Each journal will have its own guidelines and requirements for article submissions. Do a Google search to locate the journal home page that interests you. Look for a section called Submission Guidelines, For Authors, or Requirements and make sure that you follow their rules when submitting your article. This may require some re-formatting of your content, and possibly changing your citation style. Your article will then most likely go through a peer review process; this process may slightly differ depending upon the publication. See the What is Peer Review article below for an outline of one publisher's peer review process to better understand this type of editing.

If you are considering publishing your article in an open access journal, then make sure to check the journal website and see what kind of copyright and access restrictions the publisher puts on any published materials. Open access means that your article, and any others in the journal, are immediately available for free for anyone to read, download, or distribute. This will make your research available much faster to a much larger audience. Open access journals are still struggling to gain the same type of respect and relevance that subscription based journals have, but this is a burgeoning field with more and more publishers, universities, and scholars choosing to publish their research in this way. The Public Library of Science has a great page called the Benefits of Open Access Journals (link below).

When considering open access publishers, you should conduct a Google search for the publication name to determine if there have been any reports about unethical or predatory practices. Scholars should read the available reviews, assessments and descriptions available online, and then decide for themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors or on editorial boards.

• What is Peer Review?
• Benefits of Open Access Journals

My article wasn't accepted. Now what?

Pay particular attention to acceptance rates and journal impact factors. The higher the journal impact factor, the lower the acceptance rate is likely to be. Review and be selective of the journals you wish to submit your work to. Paying attention to the scope of the journal and looking at previously published articles will also give you a sense of whether or not your article is appropriate for that publication. By submitting your work to a journal with a strong focus on the same subject matter as your research, rather than choosing to submit to a journal based solely on impact factor, will give you a much better chance of your article being accepted.

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Scholarly publishing, where to begin.

Thinking about transforming your dissertation into your first book? Hardly any dissertations are published as books without significant work on the author's part to refocus the manuscript for an audience beyond the dissertation committee.

Here are a few resources to help you understand the process of reworking a dissertation for publication as a monograph:

• Dear First-Time Author: How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book, by Theresa MacPhail MacPhail shares advice from writing her own first book as well as advice from editors at university presses.

In reading some of the resources listed above, you might encounter discussions of how having your dissertation available online (for example, in the UH Institutional Repository ) could negatively impact a publisher's willingness to look at your manuscript. Some authors assert that you should not put your dissertation online if you hope to sign a publishing contract. However, please note there is very little evidence to support this view. In fact, research has shown that publishers will indeed consider manuscripts that are revised versions of openly-accessible dissertations.

• Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers, by Ramirez, et al.

The dissertation to monograph process is particular to the individual and their field. UH librarians can help talk through the process that is common to your field and how you can get started. Please contact the Director of the Digital Research Commons, Taylor Davis-Van Atta to schedule a consultation.

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Copyright and your thesis or dissertation.

• Using Others' Work
• Reusing Your Published Work
• Your Copyright
• Publishing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• Frequently Asked Questions and Resources

Preparing for Publication

Norms around publishing thesis or dissertation material vary from one field to another. For instance, in some science and engineering fields, it is common to publish individual chapters from the thesis or dissertation before it is submitted. In the humanities, it is common to develop a monograph from the dissertation after completing a doctoral degree.

Whether you publish before or after submitting your thesis or dissertation, it is important to plan ahead when signing publishing contracts or submitting your dissertation. Will the publishing contract you sign allow you to use the article in your thesis or dissertation later? How does depositing in the ETD repository impact this? Can you use material that you've coauthored in your dissertation or thesis? For questions about the norms in your field, talk with your advisors. With Graduate School policy questions, consult the Graduate School's Thesis and Dissertation Guide . With copyright questions, contact the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright .

From Dissertation to Book

Thinking about transforming your dissertation into your first book? Hardly any dissertations are published as books without significant work on the author's part to refocus the manuscript for an audience beyond the dissertation committee.

Here are a few resources to help you understand the process of reworking a dissertation for publication as a monograph:

• Dear First-Time Author: How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book, by Theresa MacPhail MacPhail shares advice from writing her own first book as well as advice from editors at university presses.

In reading some of the resources listed above, you might encounter discussions of how having your dissertation available online (for example, in Penn State's ETD repository ) could negatively impact a publisher's willingness to look at your manuscript. Some authors assert that you should not put your dissertation online if you hope to sign a publishing contract. However, please note there is very little evidence to support this view. In fact, research has shown that publishers will indeed consider manuscripts that are revised versions of openly-accessible dissertations:

• Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers, by Ramirez, et al.

Attribution

This guide is based in part on Copyright for Dissertations , a guide from the University of Michigan Library Copyright Office, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license .

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How to Turn Your Dissertation Into a Book: A Step-By-Step Guide for New Authors

Whether you are just starting graduate school, writing your dissertation, or the proud recipient of a recent Ph.D., you may be thinking about turning your dissertation into a published book. There are many reasons why this might be a good idea. In some fields, a published scholarly book is a preferred method for presenting a comprehensive view of pivotal research. A book gives you the space to discuss details, complications, connections, and ramifications in a way that is not possible in a journal article. In these fields, a well-reviewed book gives you instant credibility when applying for faculty positions, tenure, and related positions. A published book also has a much longer shelf life than an unpublished dissertation, and will occupy a respected place on your CV or resume for years to come.

In other fields, good dissertations are expected to produce one or more published journal articles, and many tenured faculty at top research institutions never publish a book. In these fields, publishing a book may still be an asset for those pursuing a traditional academic career, and can be a great way to transition into other careers such as science communication, education, or public policy. So if turning your dissertation into a book is something you are considering, here are some steps to get started.

Step 1: Identify your audience

Publishers are businesses that make money by selling books. This is true of "trade" publishers that sell books for the general public, and "academic" publishers that sell books primarily for students and scholars. Therefore, in order for a publisher to consider publishing your book, there must be a sufficiently large audience to buy your book. This audience will strongly influence how you organize and write your book, and may cause your book to be massively different from your dissertation. After all, the purpose of a dissertation is to show that you are knowledgeable about your field of study, and have made a significant contribution to it. In contrast, the purpose of a book is to serve a need for the reader.

Some dissertation topics may work well as required reading for college and university courses. In that case, you need to identify the types of courses that would be appropriate (e.g. courses in sociology that cover gender identity), and develop an understanding of how many students take such courses. For example, you might find that almost all colleges in the California State system have a sociology department. At California State AnyTown, there are 20,000 undergraduate students, and 400 students a year take a sociology course that focuses on gender identity. Other dissertation topics might appeal to people in specific professions (e.g. people who work with children who suffer concussions), and you might look at the number of people in relevant professional organizations (e.g. associations for coaches or pediatric nurses). At the other end of the spectrum, you might imagine a book that appeals to a fairly wide audience (e.g. a book that addresses recent events linked to gender identity, or a broader discussion of concussion in youth sports). For these books, the intended audience may be harder to define, so you can estimate its size in the next step.

Step 2: Identify competing books

Once you have identified a potential audience, you need to familiarize yourself with the books they are reading. Your book will be competing with these books, so you need to determine how your book will fill a gap for this audience. Here you have the opportunity—and the obligation—to read widely in your intended niche. If this opportunity doesn't excite you, do not try to write a book for this niche. The process of writing a good book is laborious and time consuming, so if you are not interested in exploring similar books for what works and what doesn't, you will not enjoy writing your own book for this category.

As you identify and read competing books, you should pay attention to the topics that they cover, and how the author writes about these topics. Consider whether the text is instructive or narrative, what details are included, how the text is organized, and whether visual aids such as photographs, diagrams, or tables are included. Also find out when the book was published, how long it is, how much it sells for, and how many copies have been sold (or at least what its Amazon sales rank is).

You may find books that are very similar to your book, or that are different in significant ways (such as the specific topic) but that have characteristics you want to emulate (e.g. a good strategy for presenting technically challenging research to a broad audience). As you gain a good understanding of related books, you'll need to develop a list of 3-10 books that will compete with your book. You will use this list to support two points:

• Books similar to your book have been successful with your intended audiences; and
• Your book fills an unmet need for this audience, so they will buy it.

That unmet need might be a more recent book that incorporates new knowledge, or a book that takes a different approach to a question that has already been addressed.

This survey of related books will also help you plan your book. If you find that multiple books already exist for your intended topic, you may need to shift your emphasis so that your book offers something new. If you find that there are few successful competing books, it may be that your intended audience is too small, and that you need to shift your emphasis to fit into a more productive niche.

Step 3: Create an outline for your book

Once you have an intended audience, an excellent understanding of successful books in the same category, and an idea for how you can fill a need in that category, you can start planning your book in detail. Put together an outline, starting with the major topic for each chapter, and thinking about how the overall theme will progress through the entire book. Even for a purely academic book, there must be an overall arch to your story.

While it may be tempting to slip into the same mindset that you used for planning and writing your dissertation, remember that the purpose of your book is to serve a need for the reader. So rather than focusing on your specific research contributions (which is essential for a dissertation), focus on what the reader needs to know. To facilitate this mindset, it may be useful to put away your dissertation for a bit (assuming that it is already complete) and focus on other projects. Then revisit your dissertation topic when you have fresh eyes and a better understanding of what would be useful for your intended audience.

As you flesh out the details for each chapter, set a target word count and think about any images or tables that should be included. Keep in mind that book publishers must pay for every page, image, and footnote to be edited, prepared, and printed. Books that are only available electronically still have most of these per-page expenses. Therefore, use successful books in your category as a guide for how long your book should be, and how many images should be included. Color images also add significantly to the production costs .

As you are preparing your outline, you will likely reach a point where you are unsure if the details of your plan will work. Then it is time to write.

Step 4: Write a sample chapter

If you want a publisher or agent to consider your book, you will typically need to submit a sample chapter or two. You may be asked to submit your first chapter or your "best" chapter, so I recommend starting with your first chapter and making it excellent.

While there are many different approaches to successful writing, one common theme is that the first draft is usually terrible. So write the first draft of your first chapter and let it be terrible. Then read and revise, and repeat. As you are writing and revising, I recommend regularly taking time to read some of your competing titles. How do they deal with some of the challenges you are facing? Are their approaches successful or can you envision a better way?

As you write your first chapter or two, you may find that you need to revise your outline. Pay attention to what you can effectively cover for your audience in the space available.

Step 5: Identify appropriate publishers or agents

Once you have a strong plan and a sample chapter or two, you need to identify potential publishers. Start by looking at your list of competing titles, and learn about those publishers. Also talk to colleagues who have published books, and ask if they would be willing to put you in contact with their publisher or agent. The process can be quite complicated, and for a comprehensive guide I recommend The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry. Many publishers also post guidelines for potential authors on their websites. For most publishers, you will need to show that you understand your audience and competing books, and provide a detailed book outline and convincing sample chapter.

Here is an infographic that breaks down all of these major points:

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How to Turn Your Dissertation into a Book

Why write a book? There are many reasons. Writing a book helps you clarify your thinking, establishes your authority, boosts your confidence, promotes your research, expands your audience, helps other people, brings you income, and outlives you. As students at the GC, many of us write book-length dissertations at the cutting edge of our research fields.

On the other hand, your dissertation and your book proposal exist in two different genres. Whereas your dissertation is a document designed to show your work and support your candidature as a newly-minted (or soon-to-be) PhD, your book is an exercise in storytelling. You are now the expert, and you’re crafting a story for a broader audience that should take them on an intellectual as well as emotional journey.

Whether you’re considering an academic or a popular press, this blog post discusses some tips and guidelines in turning your dissertation into a book. It is adapted from advice given by the GC’s own Ken Wissoker, director of the Intellectual Publics initiative and editorial director of Duke University Press, at his recent GC event  From Dissertation to First Book: A Practical Guide .

Building the Foundation

It’s important for people to know who you are as an author for your book to have success. Try to publish a few articles based on chapters of your dissertation in journals that are relevant to the topic and area you’ve been researching. Alternatively, publish an article or two based on research you’ve done that is more peripheral to your main book argument. Try to avoid distilling all the points that will form the core of your book in a single article.

You can also establish a print presence by writing for blogs (read more about how to write and publish op-eds in our recent  blog post ), as well as local print and magazines. While this can help you to get a potential following, it also helps prospective publishers feel more confident in your brand image, as well as your expertise and ability to deliver and promote your message to a broad, academic or non-academic audience.

Today’s world is digital, so it’s a good idea to have a website and a blog. It’s also good to be active on social media like Facebook and Twitter. Consider making a professional Facebook page. You could even consider making short YouTube videos about your research findings or teaching modules. These are all ways you can think about branding yourself, and creating a broader impact that will make publishers see your presence and be more likely to want to invest in you! (Read more about how to re-brand yourself for non-academic careers in our  blog post .)

Re-working Your Dissertation

After you’ve completed your dissertation, take a step back. Ask yourself, what is my dissertation trying to do? Think about it as a film: you’re the director, so what scenes does the audience need to get to understand the film? To help yourself in this process, try to define your audience who will read the book. Focus on what your audience needs: go to their conferences, talk to people, and look at recent and widely-read publications in the field.

The books that become the most valuable and influential are those that generate their own theory. Take the time to ask yourself, “What am I going to be most quoted for by other people?” Let the theoretical concepts you’re articulating come out of the actual research work and empirical data. Don’t force it! Only add what helps to make your points clearer. It’s the way in which your story and your theory go together that will make your book compelling.

As in other styles of persuasive writing (like  grant writing ), it’s a good idea to structure your book around a “hook”. This means don’t make it a predictable narrative, but instead present the narrative as a paradox, an unexpected development, or an unresolved question that merits further inquiry. This helps to get your reader emotionally invested in your prose, and provides intellectual energy that keeps the reader’s interest over the pages that follow.

There are many ways to write a dissertation. Typically, you want to provide the historical and theoretical background to your thesis, a discussion of how you got there (your methodology), followed by chapters discussing and unpacking different facets of the experience; finally, draw your conclusions. For your first book, everything is flipped. You have to demonstrate what you want to argue at the beginning. You have to commit to that core message, and let the other pieces of the investigation fall away. Most of the literature review that took a substantive place in your dissertation will now drop down into the footnotes of your book.

When putting your proposal in front of an editor, try to anticipate the objections that will be raised in the book review process, and do the minimal work necessary to allay those objections in advance. While it may sound obvious, it’s worth restating the importance of writing confidently. You are now the expert! Because of this, the flow and style of the prose should reflect your own writing voice.

Remember that reframing your dissertation as a book is a process that takes time. For people working in full-time academic positions, it typically takes three or four years to develop the book while juggling other commitments, so don’t be too hard on yourself if progress goes more slowly than you’d like.

Getting a Book Deal

If you’re considering an academic press, consider that when it comes to getting academic tenure, all publishers are not weighted equally on the job market. Bear in mind the implications of your choice of publisher on the career you want to make for yourself. Search out prestigious university publishers, or smaller publishers that specialize directly in your area of expertise.

When courting an editor, the important things to give them when making your introduction are these. First, let them know your intervention, and what’s at stake in your work. Second, communicate what stage of completion your dissertation is currently in. Third, show them a chapter-by-chapter outline. And finally, send them a writing sample. It’s also a good idea to have on hand an introduction chapter handy, as well as a chapter from the body of the book, to send to the editor.

Your cover letter to the publishing house is the equivalent of an extended “elevator pitch,” in which you discuss the topic, methods, main findings, and broader impacts of your research in a concise manner. In terms of format, your cover letter should spend two or three paragraphs describing your project and your authorial credentials. It’s important to review the submission guidelines on a publishing agent’s website first, and make sure you tailor the description of your proposed book to their requirements.

More rarely, other things you may be asked for include a biographical sketch of the author. Depending on the publisher, you may be asked to provide a marketing proposal, along with sample publicity to promote the book, and possibly a discussion of competing books.

If you are asked to select potential readers for your book, think of people whom you think it would be helpful to receive comments from in your field.

Remember that it’s ok to have presses be in competition over your book. You can even tell the editors which other presses your book is under consideration for, and this will tend to solicit these editors to give you different feedback and advice about your manuscript.

Finally, if you’re writing for a popular press, you may want to hire an agent to promote your work. Do your research beforehand to find out if getting an agent is the right choice for you. A good way to find a suitable agent is to ask for referrals from people in your professional network, or from authors and book acknowledgments that may be topical to your own research. Consider joining the website  www.publishersmarketplace.com , where you can create a web page to promote your work and network with agents and other authors (for a monthly subscription fee of $25).

Once You’ve Been Published

Leverage your book to build your brand. Solicit positive reviews on Amazon from friends, family, colleagues, and people in your social networks. Make friends with your local bookstore/s, and volunteer to sign all their copies. They’ll be grateful, and more willing to promote your work and give you free marketing in your city. There’s nothing better than word-of-mouth advertising!

Finally… start thinking about your next book.

Further References:

Germano, William. 2013.  From Dissertation to Book . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Germano, William. 2016.  Getting it Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

– Anders Wallace

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• Dissertation

How to Write a Dissertation | A Guide to Structure & Content

A dissertation or thesis is a long piece of academic writing based on original research, submitted as part of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree.

The structure of a dissertation depends on your field, but it is usually divided into at least four or five chapters (including an introduction and conclusion chapter).

The most common dissertation structure in the sciences and social sciences includes:

• An introduction to your topic
• A literature review that surveys relevant sources
• An explanation of your methodology
• An overview of the results of your research
• A discussion of the results and their implications
• A conclusion that shows what your research has contributed

Dissertations in the humanities are often structured more like a long essay , building an argument by analysing primary and secondary sources . Instead of the standard structure outlined here, you might organise your chapters around different themes or case studies.

Other important elements of the dissertation include the title page , abstract , and reference list . If in doubt about how your dissertation should be structured, always check your department’s guidelines and consult with your supervisor.

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Table of contents

Acknowledgements, table of contents, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review / theoretical framework, methodology, reference list.

The very first page of your document contains your dissertation’s title, your name, department, institution, degree program, and submission date. Sometimes it also includes your student number, your supervisor’s name, and the university’s logo. Many programs have strict requirements for formatting the dissertation title page .

The title page is often used as cover when printing and binding your dissertation .

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The acknowledgements section is usually optional, and gives space for you to thank everyone who helped you in writing your dissertation. This might include your supervisors, participants in your research, and friends or family who supported you.

The abstract is a short summary of your dissertation, usually about 150-300 words long. You should write it at the very end, when you’ve completed the rest of the dissertation. In the abstract, make sure to:

• State the main topic and aims of your research
• Describe the methods you used
• Summarise the main results
• State your conclusions

Although the abstract is very short, it’s the first part (and sometimes the only part) of your dissertation that people will read, so it’s important that you get it right. If you’re struggling to write a strong abstract, read our guide on how to write an abstract .

In the table of contents, list all of your chapters and subheadings and their page numbers. The dissertation contents page gives the reader an overview of your structure and helps easily navigate the document.

All parts of your dissertation should be included in the table of contents, including the appendices. You can generate a table of contents automatically in Word.

If you have used a lot of tables and figures in your dissertation, you should itemise them in a numbered list . You can automatically generate this list using the Insert Caption feature in Word.

If you have used a lot of abbreviations in your dissertation, you can include them in an alphabetised list of abbreviations so that the reader can easily look up their meanings.

If you have used a lot of highly specialised terms that will not be familiar to your reader, it might be a good idea to include a glossary . List the terms alphabetically and explain each term with a brief description or definition.

In the introduction, you set up your dissertation’s topic, purpose, and relevance, and tell the reader what to expect in the rest of the dissertation. The introduction should:

• Establish your research topic , giving necessary background information to contextualise your work
• Narrow down the focus and define the scope of the research
• Discuss the state of existing research on the topic, showing your work’s relevance to a broader problem or debate
• Clearly state your objectives and research questions , and indicate how you will answer them
• Give an overview of your dissertation’s structure

Everything in the introduction should be clear, engaging, and relevant to your research. By the end, the reader should understand the what , why and how of your research. Not sure how? Read our guide on how to write a dissertation introduction .

Before you start on your research, you should have conducted a literature review to gain a thorough understanding of the academic work that already exists on your topic. This means:

• Collecting sources (e.g. books and journal articles) and selecting the most relevant ones
• Critically evaluating and analysing each source
• Drawing connections between them (e.g. themes, patterns, conflicts, gaps) to make an overall point

In the dissertation literature review chapter or section, you shouldn’t just summarise existing studies, but develop a coherent structure and argument that leads to a clear basis or justification for your own research. For example, it might aim to show how your research:

• Addresses a gap in the literature
• Takes a new theoretical or methodological approach to the topic
• Proposes a solution to an unresolved problem
• Advances a theoretical debate
• Builds on and strengthens existing knowledge with new data

The literature review often becomes the basis for a theoretical framework , in which you define and analyse the key theories, concepts and models that frame your research. In this section you can answer descriptive research questions about the relationship between concepts or variables.

The methodology chapter or section describes how you conducted your research, allowing your reader to assess its validity. You should generally include:

• The overall approach and type of research (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, experimental, ethnographic)
• Your methods of collecting data (e.g. interviews, surveys, archives)
• Details of where, when, and with whom the research took place
• Your methods of analysing data (e.g. statistical analysis, discourse analysis)
• Tools and materials you used (e.g. computer programs, lab equipment)
• A discussion of any obstacles you faced in conducting the research and how you overcame them
• An evaluation or justification of your methods

Your aim in the methodology is to accurately report what you did, as well as convincing the reader that this was the best approach to answering your research questions or objectives.

Next, you report the results of your research . You can structure this section around sub-questions, hypotheses, or topics. Only report results that are relevant to your objectives and research questions. In some disciplines, the results section is strictly separated from the discussion, while in others the two are combined.

For example, for qualitative methods like in-depth interviews, the presentation of the data will often be woven together with discussion and analysis, while in quantitative and experimental research, the results should be presented separately before you discuss their meaning. If you’re unsure, consult with your supervisor and look at sample dissertations to find out the best structure for your research.

In the results section it can often be helpful to include tables, graphs and charts. Think carefully about how best to present your data, and don’t include tables or figures that just repeat what you have written  –  they should provide extra information or usefully visualise the results in a way that adds value to your text.

Full versions of your data (such as interview transcripts) can be included as an appendix .

The discussion  is where you explore the meaning and implications of your results in relation to your research questions. Here you should interpret the results in detail, discussing whether they met your expectations and how well they fit with the framework that you built in earlier chapters. If any of the results were unexpected, offer explanations for why this might be. It’s a good idea to consider alternative interpretations of your data and discuss any limitations that might have influenced the results.

The discussion should reference other scholarly work to show how your results fit with existing knowledge. You can also make recommendations for future research or practical action.

The dissertation conclusion should concisely answer the main research question, leaving the reader with a clear understanding of your central argument. Wrap up your dissertation with a final reflection on what you did and how you did it. The conclusion often also includes recommendations for research or practice.

In this section, it’s important to show how your findings contribute to knowledge in the field and why your research matters. What have you added to what was already known?

You must include full details of all sources that you have cited in a reference list (sometimes also called a works cited list or bibliography). It’s important to follow a consistent reference style . Each style has strict and specific requirements for how to format your sources in the reference list.

The most common styles used in UK universities are Harvard referencing and Vancouver referencing . Your department will often specify which referencing style you should use – for example, psychology students tend to use APA style , humanities students often use MHRA , and law students always use OSCOLA . M ake sure to check the requirements, and ask your supervisor if you’re unsure.

To save time creating the reference list and make sure your citations are correctly and consistently formatted, you can use our free APA Citation Generator .

Your dissertation itself should contain only essential information that directly contributes to answering your research question. Documents you have used that do not fit into the main body of your dissertation (such as interview transcripts, survey questions or tables with full figures) can be added as appendices .

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Copyright and publishing your dissertation: step 2: seek permission if needed.

• Understand Copyright Basics
• Step 1: Consider Whether You Need Permission
• Step 2: Seek Permission If Needed
• Step 3: Address Non-Copyright Law & Policy Concerns
• Step 4: Address Publication Issues
• Additional Resources and Support

Step 2: Seek Permission if Needed

⇒ If the copyright holder's permission is needed, how do you get it?

• If you couldn't answer YES to any question in Step 1, you'll need to seek the copyright holder's permission to include his/her work in your dissertation . Step 2 explains how to seek that permission.

⇒ Research & locate the copyright holder

In many cases, requesting permission to use published materials is straightforward. It’s best to start with the article or book publishers’ websites, which often have Web forms for making such requests. For example,  here is IEEE's page  spelling out how to make publication re-use requests.

In other cases, you might need to do some digging first to identify the copyright holder. Below are some suggestions if you need help. For more background, you may also wish to check out  Peter  Hirtle's   Copyright & Cultural Institutions, Chapter 8 .

U.S. Copyright Office Database :  Search a public database of all works registered with the U.S. Copyright Office after Jan. 1, 1978.

Materials from an Archive or Library Special Collections:  It is possible (though not guaranteed) that the library or archive you used has donor information (if the donor was also the copyright holder), or transfer data that accompanied the acquisition of the collection.

WATCH File :  The Writers, Artists, and Their Copyright Holders database contains primarily the names and addresses of copyright holders or contact persons for authors and artists whose archives are housed, in whole or in part, in libraries and archives in North America and the U.K.

Copyright Clearance Center :  Commercial services like  the Copyright Clearance Center can , for a fee, streamline the process by searching for the rights holder and  securing the license for you.

⇒ Ask for permission in writing, and covering intended uses

• Remember that your dissertation will be submitted to ProQuest  and  a copy will be available online in eScholarship - the UC system's online repository. So, when you contact the rights holder for a license, be sure that the rights you obtain cover online distribution. In addition, you may wish to request in advance worldwide rights for all formats if you intend to publish a subsequent book or articles using the same material; alternatively, you could go back to the rights holder later and ask for permission for these subsequent publications.
• Be sure to ask for permission in writing and keep records for your files, just as you did with a fair use analysis. This will be important not just if the copyright holder later challenges your use, but also if your later publisher asks to see these conveyances of permission. Written requests (even if unanswered) can at times also be considered evidence of good faith should your use be challenged. 
• University of Texas Libraries: Template letter for requesting permission
• George Washington University Library: Sample permission letter
• UCLA Library: Sample permission letter
• The University of Michigan also has an excellent guide  on securing permissions for copyrighted resources--including for films, book chapters, music, fine art, photos, and more.
• Keep in mind that, even if you believe your use would be fair regardless of whether you're subsequently publishing commercially, your  publisher  may require you to secure permissions merely as a matter of policy.   Ultimately, you'll have to make a judgment call about whether, in anticipation of future book publishing needs, you choose to ask copyright holders  now  for their permission to publish both in your dissertation and all subsequent commercial endeavors.

⇒ Silence is not permission  

• If you do not hear back in response to your request, this does not mean you automatically have rights to publish the material; a copyright holder can still later challenge your use. A copyright holder's silence turns the situation into one of risk assessment for you--you'll have to consider whether to keep seeking permission, the likelihood (or not) of the rights holder challenging your use, and (possibly) whether to use different material or leave it out.

⇒ Plan ahead

• It can take weeks (or months) to hear back from rights holders. And, remember you need to go through this permission process for each copyrighted work that you're using beyond fair use. So, it's best to get started early with permissions-seeking in the research and writing process.

Jump to Workflow Steps

Step 1:  Do you need permission?

Step 2:  Seek permission if needed.

Step 3:  Address non-copyright concerns.

Step 4:  Address publication issues.

• << Previous: Step 1: Consider Whether You Need Permission
• Next: Step 3: Address Non-Copyright Law & Policy Concerns >>
• Last Updated: May 23, 2022 1:16 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/copyright-dissertation

/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="how does your dissertation get published"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Filter by category, are all dissertations published automatically with or without embargo.

Date: August 2017

Dear Deans,

Within the coming months, I hope to submit my dissertation to the Graduate School. On the Graduate School website, we are instructed to submit our work through the ProQuest system and (if I’m understanding correctly) also told that our work will be put in the online Cornell Library Repository, eCommons. Does this mean all Cornell dissertations are automatically published electronically, with or without embargo? If so, do we have the option to opt-out of online publishing?

Hoping to Submit Soon Graduate Student

Dear Hoping to Submit,

Congratulations on nearing the completion of your dissertation! This milestone represents the culmination of years of research and, no doubt, includes insight and knowledge that builds off other scholars in your field. Putting your original work into the public realm where it will both inspire future researchers and be subject to challenge is an integral part of graduate study at Cornell. All doctoral students are required to submit their dissertation to the national dissertation repository hosted by Proquest, as well as submit copies for both print and online circulation through Cornell’s library system, so that the works will be publicly available. The  Code of Legislation of the Graduate Faculty  includes this language on page 35:

Access, Distribution, and Publication

To ensure broad public access to doctoral dissertations, each doctoral candidate must sign a contract with ProQuest/University Microfilms, Inc. (U.M.I.), and pay the required fee. This fee covers filming the dissertation and publishing the abstract, as well as the cost of mailing and binding library copies.

No thesis or dissertation may be classified or otherwise restricted in circulation except in time  of national emergency on specific authorization of the General Committee.

There may be times when the content of a thesis or dissertation will be fully or partially published elsewhere, or includes patentable technology. In these cases, it’s possible to embargo the thesis/dissertation for a set period of time (one or two years, with possible extensions) while the patents or publications are finalized. When an embargo is requested only the abstract is made publicly available. It’s worth noting that authors retain the copyright to their works. You’ll also have options to make your dissertation available for sale, allow it to be included in Google Scholar, or order bound paper copies for your own use.

If you have any other questions please don’t hesitate to contact me or send a message to  [email protected] .

Jason Kahabka Associate Dean for Administration

Academic Publishing

How to Get Your Dissertation Published in the UK

Congratulations on completing your dissertation! It is a great achievement, and now it is time to share your research with the rest of the world by publishing it. Publishing your dissertation in the UK can be a significant step in your academic career.  

It can also be a daunting task if you are not familiar with the process. In this article, we will guide you through the 8 steps and at the end of it, you will master how to get your dissertation published in the UK.

Choose a Publisher When Publishing Dissertation

The first step in publishing your dissertation is to choose a publisher. You can consider publishing with an academic publisher or a university press. Make sure to choose a reputable publisher with experience in your field of study.

Lambert Academic Publishing is a reputable publisher that specializes in publishing dissertations and scholarly books. We offer a wide range of services to help you publish your dissertation, including marketing. All you need is to check the steps on  how to publish with us . 

Check the Publisher’s Submission Guidelines

 Once you have chosen a publisher, check their submission guidelines carefully. This will help you understand what the publisher is looking for and how to format your manuscript accordingly. Some publishers have specific formatting requirements, so make sure you follow them closely.

Prepare your Manuscript

Before submitting your manuscript, you need to prepare it for publication. This involves proofreading and editing your work, making sure that it adheres to the submission guidelines, and creating an abstract and a table of contents. You may also need to format your references and citations in a specific style.

 Submit your Manuscript

Once your manuscript is ready, you can submit it to the publisher. Most publishers have an online submission system , so make sure you follow the instructions carefully. You may also need to submit a cover letter and a CV.

 Wait for the Peer-Review Process

After you submit your manuscript, it will go through a peer-review process. This is where experts in your field of study review your work and provide feedback. The review process can take several weeks to several months, depending on the publisher.

Revise Your Manuscript

If your manuscript is accepted for publication, you will need to revise it based on the feedback you received during the peer-review process. 

This may involve:

•  rewriting certain sections;
•  adding more data or references;
•  making other necessary changes.

Publish now!

Sign a Publishing Contract

Once your manuscript is revised and accepted, you will need to sign a publishing contract with the publisher. This contract will outline the terms of your agreement, including the publication timeline, royalties, and copyright.

Publish Your Dissertation

Finally, your dissertation will be published! Depending on the publisher, your dissertation may be published as a book , an e-book, or an article in a journal. Make sure to celebrate this accomplishment and share your work with your colleagues and peers.

In conclusion, publishing your dissertation in the UK can be a rewarding and challenging experience. Make sure to choose a reputable publisher, follow the submission guidelines closely, and prepare your manuscript carefully. 

Remember that the peer-review process can take time, so be patient and be prepared to make revisions. With perseverance and hard work, you can successfully publish your dissertation and contribute to your field of study.  

What are the Benefits of Publishing Your Dissertation in the UK?

The Significance of Publishing Your Dissertation

You’ve invested countless hours into your dissertation, and completing it is a remarkable achievement. However, what’s next? Have you ever considered publishing your dissertation in the UK? In this article, we’ll explore the numerous benefits of taking this step.

 Enhancing Your Academic Visibility

Publishing your dissertation is more than just a formality, it’s a significant accomplishment. It demonstrates that you’ve conducted original research and contributed new knowledge to your field. Sharing your findings allows you to take pride in your hard work and benefit others who can learn from your research.

Establishing Expertise and Reputation

Publishing your dissertation can significantly boost your visibility in the academic community. It helps you establish yourself as an authority in your field, a valuable asset when applying for academic positions or research grants. Moreover, publishing increases the likelihood of being cited in future research, further elevating your academic reputation.

Unlocking New Research Opportunities

Another compelling advantage of publishing your dissertation is the potential for new research opportunities. Sharing your work enables you to connect with fellow researchers who may be interested in collaborating with you or expanding upon your findings. 

This can lead to exciting research projects and opportunities for further knowledge and expertise development.

Honing Crucial Skills

Publishing your dissertation is a learning journey that hones essential skills. It involves receiving feedback and revising your work accordingly. This iterative process enhances your writing skills and your ability to articulate ideas effectively. Furthermore, it continues to develop your critical thinking skills, which are vital in navigating the publishing process.

 Achieving Academic Closure

Lastly, publishing your dissertation offers a sense of closure to your academic journey. After years of dedicated effort, seeing your research in print and knowing it contributes to your field can be incredibly rewarding.

In conclusion, publishing your dissertation in the UK offers a host of valuable benefits, including increased visibility, research opportunities, skill development, and a sense of accomplishment. Most importantly, it enables you to share your hard-earned research with the broader academic community. 

Don’t hesitate to consider taking the next step and sharing your valuable research with the world.

Exploring Publishing Opportunities with Lambert Academic Publishing

Are you a researcher or author wondering how to publish your undergraduate dissertation or master’s dissertation ? Lambert Academic Publishing is your solution! Our streamlined, cost-effective publishing process allows you to share your research with a global audience.

With no publishing contract required and comprehensive editing and formatting services included, publishing your thesis with us has never been easier. Plus, our extensive worldwide distribution network ensures that your work reaches a broader audience. 

Don’t let your research go unnoticed.

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Q. How do I obtain permission to include my own previously published material in my dissertation?

It depends on the publishing contract with your publisher, as sometimes copyright is transferred to the publisher. In most cases, you are free to include in their dissertation material that they have submitted for formal publication, but other times you will need to submit a permission request, and the publisher will indicate how to request permission, which is often through the Copyright Clearance Center.  If you don’t have copies of the contracts, Sherpa Romeo  gives you a quick overview of which publishers allow you to self-archive your work into an institutional repository. Most publishers allow institutional repository deposits, but others require your work to have been published for 12 months before it can appear in an institutional repository. Almost all publishers require that you provide a citation and link to the article from those publishers’ sites.     If you find that the journals you published with don’t allow repository deposit or self-archiving, there’s likely a strong fair use case for you to consider, in which case getting permission wouldn’t be necessary. Starting on page 14 of this document  is a good explanation of what to consider.  

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Watch CBS News

Haven't filed your taxes yet? Here's how to get an extension from the IRS.

By Aimee Picchi

Edited By Anne Marie Lee , Alain Sherter

Updated on: April 15, 2024 / 11:18 AM EDT / CBS News

If you're one of the millions of Americans who have procrastinated filing their taxes ahead of the April 15 deadline, there is a way to get some breathing room: File for an extension. 

The step gives taxpayers until October 15 to file their federal tax returns, and the process is fairly quick — and also free. About 90 million people have filed their 1040s with the IRS as of March 29, the tax agency says . But as it  expects about 128.7 million tax returns this year, that means almost 40 million people have pushed off filing until the last two weeks of the regular tax season.

Almost half of Americans delay working on their taxes, a new survey from tax prep company TaxAct found. Many are stressed by the task, but more than 1 in 4 is worried about owing money to the IRS, the study found.

"Some people don't want to pay the balance due, and say, 'I'll let the government come after me,'" Mark Jaeger, vice president of Tax Operations, at TaxAct, told CBS MoneyWatch. 

But other taxpayers may have had a major life event, like the birth of a child, that prompted them to put off their taxes, he noted. Sometimes an individual's tax forms can be delayed, which then causes the taxpayer to scramble, once the forms arrive, to get their 1040s filed by April 15. 

The good news is that getting an extension "is actually pretty simple," Jaeger said.

What time are taxes due on April 15? 

The regular deadline to file a 2023 tax return with the IRS is 11:59 p.m., in your time zone, on Monday, April 15. 

However, there are some exceptions. For instance, taxpayers in Massachusetts and Maine have until April 17 to file and pay taxes because of the Patriots' Day and Emancipation Day holidays. 

Taxpayers living in some areas affected by extreme weather have  extensions  to file, while individuals and businesses impacted by the Oct. 7  attack on Israel  have also been given more time. Certain active-duty military members and citizens living abroad are also eligible for an extension.

How to request a tax extension

The IRS will give taxpayers an automatic extension if they file  Form 4868 . This one-page document asks for basic information such as your name, address and Social Security number. 

There's another way to request an extension that's even easier, Jaeger said. 

"The simplest way is to go through a do-it-yourself tax software or go to the IRS website and make a payment," he said. "Simply by making a payment, you are filing an extension."

Indeed, the IRS says it automatically counts payments made by the April 15 deadline as an extension, and by taking that step, you won't even need to file a separate Form 4868. 

You can make a payment via the IRS'  Direct Pay , the  Electronic Federal Tax Payment System  or with a  credit or debit card or digital wallet . 

If I get an extension, can I delay paying the IRS? 

Nope. That's because receiving an extension to file isn't an extension to pay what you owe the IRS. 

"Taxpayers who owe should pay their entire obligation, or as much as they can, by the April 15 deadline to avoid penalties and interest," the IRS said on Thursday.

Knowing how much to pay the IRS can be tricky for people who haven't yet filed their taxes, but Jaeger recommends looking at your federal tax payment in the prior year. If you paid, for example, $5,000 in the prior tax year, but have only paid $4,000 in the 2023 tax year, you should send the IRS a payment for the $1,000 difference, he noted.

What is the penalty for failing to pay?

The IRS charges a penalty if you don't pay what you owe the government, the amount if which is based on the percentage of the taxes you didn't pay. 

For instance, if you file an extension and owe the IRS but don't pay by April 15, you'll face the penalty. The IRS charges 0.5% of the unpaid taxes for each month, with a cap of 25% of the unpaid taxes. 

What is the fine for failing to file?

The IRS also levies a fine if you don't file or ask for an extension by April 15.

The failure-to-file penalty is 5% of unpaid taxes for each month or part of the month that the tax return is late. The fine is capped at 25% of your unpaid taxes. 

People who both neglect to file and fail to pay what they owe won't have to pay both fines, however. The IRS said it reduces the failure-to-file penalty by the amount of the failure-to-pay penalty for that month, so that the taxpayer will face a combined total penalty of 5% for each month their return is late. 

What if I can't pay what I owe the IRS?

The IRS will set up a payment plan with taxpayers who can't afford to pay the full amount they owe the tax agency. 

Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.

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Coral reefs can't keep up with climate change. So scientists are speeding up evolution

Lauren Sommer

Ryan Kellman

Record levels of heat in the ocean are causing a worldwide mass bleaching event on coral reefs, as seen here on the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists are working on creating more heat-resistant coral to help restore reefs. Veronique Mocellin /AIMS hide caption

Record levels of heat in the ocean are causing a worldwide mass bleaching event on coral reefs. It's the second one this decade, where the delicate skeletons of corals turn a ghostly white.

With mass bleaching only expected to get worse as the climate keeps warming, coral scientists are urgently searching for ways to help reefs endure. Bleaching can kill corals, putting some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world at risk. So scientists are homing in on how bleaching happens.

It boils down to relationship drama between corals and a tiny organism that's too small to see.

Scientists estimate that a quarter of all marine species depend on coral reefs. Biologists say that's a best guess and it's very likely there are species yet to be discovered. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

Corals are the builders of reefs, their skeletons creating the vast infrastructure that tens of thousands of other species depend on. But corals are powered by the tiny algae that live in their tissue, which provide food for them.

"They're these microscopic, sort of nondescript algae," says Matthew Nitschke, research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, as he magnifies a few under a microscope, revealing golden-brown circles.

Scientists are breeding 'super corals.' Can they withstand climate change?

"People are like: why are you so interested in them?" he says. "And it's because they, for me, are really at the foundation of the ecosystem."

The tiny algae and coral make up one of the most productive roommate relationships on the planet. But as the climate gets hotter, that relationship is increasingly going bad. When ocean temperatures rise, corals get stressed and their algae get expelled. Without their roommates, corals can starve and eventually die.

Studies show that if climate change continues at the same pace, 99% of the world's coral reefs are likely to die off by the end of the century. To buy reefs a little extra time, scientists are breeding both algae and corals to withstand more heat, speeding up the natural process of evolution. But with oceans heating up more rapidly than expected, they're racing against the clock.

"I think anyone who wasn't worried, needs to be worried now," says Kate Quigley, coral biologist at James Cook University in Australia and the Minderoo Foundation. "Nature has time to make mistakes and then adjust. We don't have that time."

"There just doesn't seem be enough time," says Kate Quigley, coral biologist at James Cook University in Australia and the Minderoo Foundation. "We're going from one bleaching event to the next." Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

Natural selection in a bottle

The tanks at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, just outside of Townsville in Queensland, are full of delicate branching corals in a vast array of colors. Another lab there is somewhat less eye-catching – full of scientific flasks with clouds of brown algae in them. They're zooxanthellae, the algae that live in coral, but these have been isolated from their coral homes (the algae can live in the ocean without the coral, but coral can't live without algae).

"If you look at a coral, they look bright, they look colorful," Nitschke says. "They're actually mostly translucent and a lot of the color of the coral that you see comes from the algae."

The algae in Nitschke's lab have been grown over hundreds of generations, subjected to an accelerated version of survival-of-the-fittest. They've been exposed to heat, singling out those best able to handle higher temperatures, which then go to produce future algal generations.

"What we're really doing is natural selection in a bottle," he says. "We're really excited about the possibility for that to help corals persist into the future."

Algae in Nitschke's lab, grown over hundreds of generations. They've been exposed to heat, singling out those best able to handle higher temperatures, which then go to produce more heat-tolerant algae. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

Scientists are still trying to tease out exactly what happens between a coral and its algae when temperatures get hot. They depend on a carefully-balanced living arrangement. The algae get a comfy home and nutrients they need from the coral. In return, they do photosynthesis, using sunlight to produce energy for the coral.

But when the ocean heats up, that balance gets upset. Scientists believe one reason is that the warmer water stresses the coral, upsetting the nutrient exchange between the coral and algae. Another reason could be that the hotter water impairs how cells function, causing them to release too much of certain chemicals. The result is that most algae get the boot, leaving the coral without its main food supply.

"They begin to starve," Nitschke says. "That primary energy source – the loss of that during a heat stress event is potentially catastrophic for an individual coral. They are now in a race against time."

Corals bleach, turning ghostly white, when they're under stress from hotter temperatures. If the heat subsides, they can recover. But long periods of heat and repeated marine heat waves cause corals to die, wreaking havoc on one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Veronique Mocellin /AIMS hide caption

Buying time for coral

If the heat subsides, corals can recover, slowly building back their algae population. But if the heat persists, or if there are too many marine heat waves back-to-back, the corals die.

Bleaching events are becoming more frequent, putting corals on a path for a mass die-off by the end of the century if the planet warms more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit). The effects could be devastating for marine biodiversity and for human communities. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide live near coral reefs, relying on them for food and coastal protection, since reefs can reduce flooding by absorbing wave energy.

It's why Nitschke and his colleagues have focused on breeding algae. They're in the process of testing them, giving them to tiny brain corals the size of walnuts. In trials, they've found corals inoculated with the heat-tolerant algae seem to resist bleaching for longer .

Corals the size of walnuts have been inoculated with heat resistant algae by Matthew Nitschke and his colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. They've found corals inoculated with heat-tolerant algae seem to resist bleaching for longer. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

Researchers are also breeding corals themselves to be more heat-tolerant, in the hope that a combination of both a "super coral" and "super algae" can be used to restore reefs someday. Both are "assisted evolution" – a technique to speed up the natural process organisms use to adapt to their environment.

"Assisted evolution is an umbrella term for many things we've been doing in many other systems: agriculture, for pets." Nitschke says. "We're really only just starting to understand what we can do in the coral space."

Research aquarist Andrea Severati peers at large sheets over which coral larvae were released to settle. Once corals have picked their spot, each will be assessed for coral growth and survival. Ryan Kellman/NPR hide caption

Not a "get out of jail free" card

Still, in nature, there is no free lunch. Heat-tolerant algae may not share as many nutrients with their coral hosts, which means corals grow more slowly and reproduce later than they would otherwise. That could hamper their ability to restore reefs impacted by climate change. A key step will be testing the corals and algae on the Great Barrier Reef itself to see how they do.

"The last thing we want to do is make things worse," says Line Bay, a research program director at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. "We don't want to produce lab-adapted corals and then put them out in the real world where they don't do well."

Even if the heat-tolerant corals prove to be successful, the number of coral needed to restore impaired reefs could be enormous. The Great Barrier Reef is more than 1,000 miles long. And regulators will need to assess if the corals pose any risk to wild populations or the ecosystem as a whole.

The corals developed at AIMS are placed by divers on the Great Barrier reef. They are being tested in the ocean, as part of a large field trial.

Credit: AIMS

"Coral reefs are magical places," Bay says. "I think we need to be brave and we should use all the tools at our disposal in a humble and sensitive manner."

Coral scientists are clear about one aspect of the work: it's not a long-term solution. At best, it only buys coral reefs extra time until the effects of climate change become too much.

"It's not our 'get out of jail free' card," Quigley says. "Maybe that gets us to 2030, 2050 for a very few number of species that we can work with. If we don't have an ocean to put them back in that's healthy, no amount of incredible technology or money is worth it."

The hope is that giving coral reefs a few extra years, or even decades, will be enough time for humans to slow the pace of climate change. That means cutting heat-trapping emissions from the largest source – burning fossil fuels – and switching to alternative energy sources like solar and wind.

"We could all be despondent and be hopeless if there weren't great solutions on the table to turn climate change problems around," Quigley says. "We just need to get it on, now, really."

• coral reefs
• Great Barrier Reef
• conservation
• climate change

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A Weary Trump Appears to Doze Off in Courtroom Ahead of Criminal Trial

The former president flashed signs of irritation at times, but also seemed to fall asleep, before jolting back awake.

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By Maggie Haberman

• Published April 15, 2024 Updated April 19, 2024

Follow our live coverage of Trump’s hush money trial in Manhattan.

Former President Donald J. Trump seemed alternately irritated and exhausted Monday morning, as his lawyers and prosecutors hashed out pretrial motions before jury selection in his criminal case.

Even as a judge was hearing arguments on last-minute issues in a criminal case that centers on salacious allegations and threatens to upend his bid for the presidency, Mr. Trump appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest.

The former president’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche , passed him notes for several minutes before Mr. Trump appeared to jolt awake and notice them.

At other times, Mr. Trump whispered and exchanged notes with Mr. Blanche. He sat motionless while his own words from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape — on which he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals — were read from a transcript by a prosecutor.

At times, Mr. Trump’s emotions were characteristically on display. He smirked and scoffed, and appeared frustrated when the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan , did not immediately agree that he could miss court to attend the graduation of his youngest son, Barron.

But when Justice Merchan warned that Mr. Trump could be ejected or thrown in jail if he disrupts the proceedings, the former president indicated that he understood.

The only time Mr. Trump showed a flash of humor was when he laughed at one of his own social media posts, which attacked his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen , who is expected to be the prosecution’s central witness.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

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Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan took a startling turn when two jurors were abruptly excused , demonstrating the challenge of picking citizens to determine the fate of a former president.

Prosecutors argued in court that with a steady stream of social media posts, Trump had violated the gag order  imposed on him seven times, urging the judge overseeing the trial to hold him in contempt.

Our reporter joined “The Daily” to explain what happened during the opening days  of the trial against Donald Trump.

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Key Inquiries: Trump faces several investigations  at both the state and the federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.

Case Tracker:  Keep track of the developments in the criminal cases  involving the former president.

What if Trump Is Convicted?: Will any of the proceedings hinder Trump’s presidential campaign? Here is what we know, and what we don’t know .

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