This is the first in the series of posts about publishing. Before we get in to how to publish your work, here is why I think at least attempting to publish your work during your PhD is a good idea.
1. Academic currency
It’s often said that publications are the currency of academia. There are certain rare situations* where other outputs are favoured but by and large papers are the most important research output. If you have any interest in doing a postdoc and carrying on in academia leading a paper to publication is great for your career and in some instances a necessity.
Papers form the cornerstone of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) which feed in to rankings so all academics are under pressure from Heads of Departments to create a steady output of high quality publications. Not only does producing papers put you in a nice position with your current department, if you have a track record then you’ll stand a better chance for future job applications.
2. Get your research out in to the world
It’s no good doing fantastic work and it being sat on a computer forever. Even if you include it in your thesis realistically not many people are going to ever see it. Publishing your work in a journal remains the main route to get it out in to the scientific community to add to the body of knowledge in the field.
Related to this, a lot of research is publicly funded so it’s important to publicly share your research outputs. There are sometimes requirements for the work to be publicly accessible. For more senior researchers who are applying for grants, creating papers is a necessary way to prove that productive work was done with grant money.
3. Easier now than later
You might consider trying to publish work from your PhD after you leave. In principle it’s a great idea so that you can focus on experiments while you have access to equipment and ultimately successfully completing your thesis. The downsides though are:
- If you wait until you leave, you’re likely going to be busy with another job.
Although you might feel motivated to publish it, will you actually get around to it with other commitments? I know several papers which are sitting on hard drives, almost all the hard work done but just not seen through to publication. Heck, I have one from my job before starting the PhD! Even if you’re staying on in the group you might have other work to deal with. - While you’re a student you’ll have access to lots of equipment.
It often happens that once you start writing you’ll want to do a few more experiments to improve the paper. What happens if you wait until you leave and can’t do those experiments any more? You may be motivated to get add a new author to do those experiments for you, often though it’s just another barrier which puts people off. - It makes sense that your supervisor will show you a lot of support up until you leave.
Now, once you leave it’s not that they won’t want to work with you any more but of course they have other students to concentrate on. I’ve not yet got to this point so can’t say it with certainly but I can only imagine you might have more difficulty getting feedback. Of course this depends on your supervisor and just how interested they are in what you’re trying to publish.
4. Demonstrate competency and productivity
There is a general expectation, in my field at least, for researchers to produce at least one first-author paper every year. Of course in reality no one expects them to come at a steady rate but averaged over time that’s the pace that someone looking over your CV would expect to see. Having some peer-reviewed publications shows that you know what you’re doing and are motivated to produce outputs.
5. Make your viva easier
Full disclosure: I’ve not actually had my viva yet…
Firstly at the fundamental level, to pass a PhD viva you have to demonstrably have done original research. If you’ve got something published you undeniably tick this box which means a big weight is lifted.
April 2020 update: I have had my viva now and can confirm that publishing does make the thesis defence/viva considerably more easy.
The second reason it makes for an easier viva is that reviewers of publications provide unfiltered critique about your work. Not only can this give you a new perspective and strengthen your work making for a better publication, it can also improve your understanding of the field. It’s much more comfortable to get asked a question about the validity of your work from the relative comfort of the peer review process, where you can discuss it with colleagues, rather than getting blindsided if an examiner asks you the question in your viva.
6. It’s satisfying
Having now gone through the process, it’s a nice feeling to have something published. In addition to giving confirmation that the work you’re doing is novel and interesting, I value the critique we received which has ultimately led to more rigorous study. Seeing something through to publication feels like the completion, and validation, of all the hard work which went in to it.
What about if you’re staying on in the same group as a post doc?
There is certainly slightly less pressure to publish if you’ve got a job lined up already in the same group. The advice above still holds true though that you may not have as much time available to finish off publications as you would like. Also, often positions have to be officially externally advertised which means you should be able to compete against people of similar experience.
Finally when you want to apply for another academic job it only goes so far to say you’re currently drafting something. Anyone can be drafting something, it doesn’t really count for much until it’s actually gone through peer review and been accepted.
What about if you’re leaving academia?
Even if you’re planning to not stay in academia I hope you’ll see that many of the points listed above show the value in still trying to publish your work. Even if you go into industry your publications themselves aren’t meaningless for two reasons:
- You might be wanting to work in a company in the same field and publications demonstrate that you’re excelling in the field.
- Even if you go and work in something completely unrelated, publications show productivity. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that a potential employer would like someone who is constantly producing using outputs.
So in my opinion whichever route you’re looking to go down, having publications aren’t a bad investment of your time.
Next in the series we’ll be looking at deciding the what, where and when of publishing your work. As always if you have any comments, or suggestions for articles I would appreciate your input!
* If you’re working in a research institution yet working to commercialise a product then there are reasons you may not be wanting to publish papers but instead you’ll be working on other outputs like patents, spin-outs and creating actual products. For the majority of us this doesn’t apply, at least during your PhD.
