PhD Journey Simplified

Publishing during your PhD without derailing the thesis

Publishing during candidature builds the record an academic career needs. It can also consume the year you needed for the thesis. The difference is in what you publish, when, and why.

By Dr. Rafiq Muhammad, MD, PhDUpdated 28 August 20265 min read

Key takeaways

Whether to publish during a doctorate gets argued about more than almost any other strategic question in candidature, usually in absolutes. The honest answer is that it depends on what you want afterwards and on how you go about it.

If you intend to stay in academia, publications are close to non-negotiable: the job market treats a doctorate without them as incomplete. If you are heading to industry, policy or practice, a paper or two demonstrates rigour but the marginal value of the fifth is low. Either way, the risk is the same — time spent on publishing is time not spent on the thesis, and only the thesis is required for the degree.

What publishing during candidature actually buys you

Set against that: review cycles are long and unpredictable, revisions arrive at inconvenient moments, rejection is common and demoralising, and every one of those hours is unavailable to the thesis.

What to publish, and what not to

One rule prevents most of the damage: publish work that is already part of your thesis.

A systematic review that becomes your literature review chapter, a methods paper that becomes your methodology, an empirical study that becomes a results chapter — each of these is thesis work that also becomes a paper. The marginal cost is reformatting and responding to review, and the thesis moves forward either way.

The trap is the side project: an interesting dataset a colleague offers, a conference paper that grows, a collaboration that sounds valuable. Each is individually reasonable and collectively they are how candidates arrive in year four with four publications and two thesis chapters. If a piece of work will not appear in your thesis, be explicit that you are trading thesis time for it, and decide deliberately rather than by drift.

A useful test: before agreeing to any writing project, ask which thesis chapter it becomes. If the answer is "none", you are choosing to delay submission. That can be the right choice — but make it a choice.

Choosing where to send it

Choose the journal before you write, not after. Scope, structure, length and reference style all follow from it, and retrofitting a finished manuscript to a different journal's requirements is slow, dull work.

Timing it against the thesis

The central scheduling fact is that submission is not the end of your involvement, and you do not control when the rest arrives. A decision comes back in two to six months; revisions are typically wanted within four to eight weeks; a second round can follow. A paper submitted in month thirty can easily still be consuming your attention in month forty.

Two practical consequences. Submit early rather than late in candidature, so the cycle completes while you still have room. And never wait on a decision — move to the next piece of thesis work the day you submit. Candidates who pause for a verdict lose weeks to a process that was never going to be quick.

Reporting standards reviewers check first Confidence intervals alongside p-values, and effect sizes with them, are among the commonest revision requests. Convert between them here.

Authorship

Agree it before the work starts. Who is first author, what the order is, who else qualifies, and what would change the arrangement. Summarise it in an email so there is a written record.

Authorship should follow contribution. Most disciplines expect authors to have made a substantive contribution to design, data or analysis, and to have contributed to drafting, and to have approved the final version. Providing funding or heading the department does not by itself qualify anyone, though norms differ and gift authorship remains common in some fields.

If you plan a thesis by publication, this stops being an etiquette question and becomes a regulatory one, because those routes generally require first authorship on most included papers. Read your regulations before agreeing to author order on anything you intend to include.

Rejection, and how to read it

Most submitted papers are rejected somewhere. Experienced academics collect rejections routinely; the difference is that they have stopped reading them as verdicts on their competence.

A desk rejection within a week or two is disappointing but efficient — usually a scope mismatch, and you have lost days rather than months. A rejection after review is more painful and more valuable: you have free expert critique, and the paper that goes to the next journal should be visibly better for it.

The practical routine: read the reviews, then leave them for a few days, because first reactions are rarely useful. Then sort the comments into what you will fix, what you will address by explaining, and what reflects a reviewer misunderstanding — and treat the last category as a signal that something was unclear, since a confused expert reader usually indicates a writing problem rather than a stupid reader. Then send it out again promptly. The single biggest predictor of publishing is resubmitting.

Frequently asked questions

Should I publish during my PhD?

It depends on where you are heading. For an academic career, publications are close to essential and the doctorate alone is rarely competitive. For industry, policy or practice, one or two demonstrate rigour and further papers add little. Either way, the safest approach is to publish work that is already a thesis chapter, so the publishing and the degree advance together.

How many papers should I have by the end?

There is no universal number, and field norms vary enormously. Two or three is a reasonable target for someone aiming at an academic post in many disciplines, but the more useful question is what is typical for successful candidates in your specific field and country. Ask recent postdocs in your department rather than relying on general advice, including this.

What should I publish first?

Usually a systematic or scoping review, if your project supports one. It can be written before data collection finishes, it doubles as your literature review chapter, it establishes you in the field's citation network, and it teaches you the submission process on work that carries lower stakes than your main empirical findings.

How long does peer review take?

Two to six months to a first decision is typical, though it varies widely and some fields are much slower. Revisions are usually wanted within four to eight weeks, and a second round can follow. Plan on the whole cycle taking six to twelve months, submit earlier in candidature rather than later, and never pause thesis work while waiting for a decision.

How do I avoid predatory journals?

Be suspicious of unsolicited flattering invitations, promises of rapid review for a fee, and titles that closely mimic established journals. Check whether the journal is indexed where your field's journals are indexed, look up members of the editorial board and see whether they acknowledge the role, and ask your supervisor or librarian. If you have not heard of it and cannot verify it, do not submit.

Who should be an author on my paper?

People who made a substantive contribution to design, data or analysis, contributed to drafting or revising, and approved the final version. Funding or seniority alone does not qualify someone under most disciplinary standards, though practice varies and gift authorship persists in some fields. Agree the arrangement in writing before the work starts — and if you intend a thesis by publication, check what authorship position your regulations require.

PhD by publication P-value and confidence interval converter All guides