Article-based doctoral thesis

[Sun_Worshiper]

As a broader point, it seems to me that, aside from early course work, we shouldn't be asking PhD students to write much of anything that isn't publishable. So in paper fields the dissertation should be papers and in book fields it should be a book, but it is practically malfeasance to make students write a book in a paper field-- it has no value for their CV and isn't even training them for something they will likely ever do again.

I agree completely. The tricky thing is if you are in a field where the norm used to be books but is increasingly articles. In this situation some schools (especially SLACs) still expect a book for tenure but the most high-impact research is coming out of the top journals and R1s often prefer this. So having a flexible dissertation that you can use for a book and/or articles is useful.

[adel9216]

I know, but it has in the past.

What did your advisors say?

M.

He basically said there are pros and cons to both. An article-based thesis doesn't allow me to go in depth, but would help me to have a couple of publications. But I already have a couple of publications for a PhD candidate so it isn't a worry for him. He also said if I do a traditional thesis, I could turn it into a book.

[Kron3007]

I know, but it has in the past.

What did your advisors say?

M.

He basically said there are pros and cons to both. An article-based thesis doesn't allow me to go in depth, but would help me to have a couple of publications. But I already have a couple of publications for a PhD candidate so it isn't a worry for him. He also said if I do a traditional thesis, I could turn it into a book.

I would try to look at what other people in your field who landed the type of job you are interested had to their credit and do what puts you on that path. 

I also find that this can depend on the specifics of the thesis despite the field.  I am in an article field, but have had a couple students do a traditional thesis.  This is usually because some of the chapters would be weak as stand alone chapters (ie. negative results, science dosn't always cooperate) and we feel it is easier to write a stronger thesis in the traditional format. 

[Tee_Bee]

The comments about this being field specific are spot on. But fields are changing. I am in a public administration program, and in the last few years we have given the students the three research papers option. I was opposed to this and didn't want to advise students who were doing these. But PA (and to some extent political science, in some subfields) is moving away from being a "book discipline." And, in recent years, we are seeing some students who publish truly excellent articles in good journals. I don't see any reason not to allow including that sort of work in a dissertation. So my students are breaking about 50-50 on the dissertation format. I see the value of both formats, and I think it's fine to let students choose what they prefer.

[Wahoo Redux]

In English we write a dissertation which is a cohesive whole, essentially a book, but many of us chop up the diss into shorter publishable articles.  Others manage to get the diss published as a book.