Hello and welcome to the first in a series of short BiteWISe videos
which look at the process of turning your PhD thesis into a monograph.
Subsequent titles in the series will take a more in-depth look at key areas
such as writing a proposal and managing your relationship with your publisher,
but this introductory guide will provide a general overview of the process
and highlight some of the things you might need to think about.
Firstly, let’s consider why you would want to publish at all.
If you have made your thesis available via your institutional repository
and it is already available for other researchers to reference in their own work,
it can be difficult to see the benefit of reworking it into another format.
However, there are many different reasons
why you might want to publish your work more formally.
These might include
increasing its visibility to other researchers
sharing your work with a wider audience,
which might include people with a more general interest in your topic,
as well as academics
fulfilling a requirement of your funding
or to be put forward for a research assessment
for example the REF
Publishing your PhD research can also help enhance your career prospects
as most institutions will look at your publication record when recruiting to academic posts.
The next question to consider is why you might want to turn your thesis into a monograph
and what other options might be available.
In some disciplines, particularly in the Sciences,
it is more common to publish your findings in a series of articles
rather than as a scholarly book,
but in the Arts and Social Sciences, the decision may be less clear cut.
To help you decide, it might be useful to think about how your thesis is constructed
and what ‘story’ you want to tell.
Are your chapters self-contained or is there a narrative ‘flow’ from one to the next?
If each chapter stands on its own,
you may want to consider publishing each one as a separate article.
However, if there is a logical progression to your argument,
a monograph might be more suitable
Do bear in mind as well that you could do a combination of both;
for example, if you have one chapter or case study
that sits slightly outside the framework of your proposed book,
you could extract this and publish it separately as a journal article or in an edited collection.
In terms of when to publish
it is usually advisable to do it as soon as you can after submitting your PhD.
That way, the topic will be fresh in your mind
and there will be less work to do to update your literature review.
If there have been a lot of new developments in your area
since you last looked at the literature,
you may need to add extra material or another chapter,
but remember there will need to be a cut-off point somewhere!
If you do decide that a monograph is the most suitable vehicle for your research
you will need to choose a publisher.
This will be covered in more detail later in this BiteWISe series
but it is a good idea to look at other similar books,
particularly things you have referenced in your thesis
as publishers are more likely to be interested in your work
if they have a successful track record of publishing in the same field.
Most publishers have clear guidelines for authors set out on their website
so do read these before you submit a proposal
and make you sure follow their instructions
our BiteWISe guide on writing a proposal may be useful here.
The most important thing to remember
is that your thesis is a defence of your research,
whereas a monograph needs to draw your reader in
- these are very different purposes and you may need to do some significant editing
to turn your PhD research into a marketable product!
According to William Germano,
there are 8 key differences between a thesis and a monograph:
Your thesis was written to fulfil the criteria your institution has set for a PhD
but this does not necessarily make it interesting reading for a general audience
and you may have to rework large sections,
or even add additional material.
At the very least, you will probably have to rewrite your introduction,
summarising key points of your argument,
and cut down – or even excise – your literature review and methodology.
This information is vital for your examiners
who need to understand the unique contribution of your work,
but may deter casual readers,
who are usually more interested in the story you are trying to tell.
Even if your publisher has not given you an absolute word limit,
aim to be as succinct as you can.
Paraphrase, rather than quoting large chunks of text
and make it clear that these are your opinions
this may even involve switching from the passive to the active voice.
And while you still need evidence to back up your arguments,
you probably won’t need to include quite so many examples.
You also need to think about holding your audience’s attention.
If your chapters are very long,
you might want to break these down into smaller chunks,
or even restructure them
one approach is to try thinking about what would be useful to someone teaching a module on your topic!
A monograph also needs to bring all the narrative threads neatly together at the end
so you may need to rethink, and possibly expand, your conclusion.
It’s important to be realistic about the length of time it will take.
We will cover the publication cycle in more depth
in the video on Managing your relationship with your publisher,
but bear in mind that your editor and reviewers
may ask you to make additional changes
and your manuscript will also have to go through the copyediting and typesetting process
before being printed and bound or made available online.
While you can help things along by adhering to deadlines
and responding promptly to requests from your publisher,
remember it is not unusual for several years to elapse
between submitting your thesis
and the final bound copy (or ebook) of your monograph to be available to purchase.
Thank you for listening to this short introductory guide
and look out for more videos in the BiteWISe Thesis to Monograph series
