Turning your dissertation into a publishable journal article

The dissertation and a peer reviewed journal article are rather different entities, and although there are similarities, each has their own requirements and audiences. This paper provides guidelines to assist a doctoral candidate to write up and publish journal articles based on their doctoral dissertation. The task of doing so requires thought and structured preparation to ensure that the draft article is in the appropriate format and is ready to be considered for publication in a peer reviewed journal. There are multiple benefits for publishing peer reviewed journal articles. Apart from making a scholarly contribution to the collective body of knowledge, it represents the possibility of making public and celebrating the voice of the research participants and/or service users, and so influencing practice and, potentially, effecting service provision. In addition, within a highly competitive job market, there may be potential employability advantages of having evidence of your work contributing to theory development or to practice in your chosen profession or specialism. A range of recommendations and suggestions are offered here to assist with the transition from an academic thesis to a journal ready, publishable paper. These relate to the preparation required in advance of writing the journal paper (an area which is often ignored), as well as issues relating to selecting an appropriate journal, decisions about which parts of the thesis may constitute the paper, and a variety of other issues associated with the writing up and the publication processes.