Turning Master's thesis into one article

[adel9216]

Hello,

any tips on how to turn a master's thesis into an article? I find it hard, especially in the results section, to narrow them down. I am a qualitative researcher.

[drbrt]

I am also a qualitative researcher. I recommend Wendy Belcher's book if you are just starting to write articles. It's what I used to take my first qualitative studies into article manuscripts. I think a new edition just came out even. The big thing to remember is that an article has an argument. You need to tell a coherent story with your research question, literature review, theory, methods, and results, which you tie up and relate to the larger field in your discussion. To narrow down a thesis to an article, start by looking over your RQ and results. How can you narrow the RQ on your thesis to tell a coherent story with the results you have? It might also be helpful to have someone else read your thesis with this eye in mind. You may be too close to your results to see which pieces don't need to be in the (first) article.

[adel9216]

thanks! this is really good advice.

[polly_mer]

To build on the idea that an article is telling the story, perhaps you might want to have two or three articles.  My master's thesis ended up being three articles because I could tell three good stories.

In my fields, it's not unusual to have a series of 2-5 articles that have similar background, but tell one story each and have related titles like:

The Carrot People of the SouthNorth: Part One: Weaving Baskets in Rows
The Carrot People of the SouthNorth: Part Two: Reed Versus Straw Baskets
The Carrot People of the SouthNorth: Part Three: Storing Grain and Water in Baskets