Regarding Citing (Your Own) Dissertation

[Nightshade]

Hello All! I'm getting ready to submit an article for consideration in a top journal in my field and would appreciate your thoughts on a matter that I know has been covered in other ways on the board, but I'm still not sure what would be the best course for me. My article is based in part on material from my dissertation. I am currently also working on turning my dissertation into a book (no contract yet). Would it be appropriate to cite my unpublished dissertation in a footnote that covers recent scholarship on the topic? If so, would I need to eliminate it for the blind peer review process to keep my identity anonymous? I'm in a humanities field.

[traductio]

I see no problem with citing your diss -- it has been vetted (by your committee) and it does figure in the literature. (My test for citing my own work -- although I'm well past my dissertation -- is whether I'd cite it if someone else had written it. If I would, I cite it.)

As for anonymizing it, yes, you should anonymize it the same way you would for an article you had written. My practice lately has been to write things without anonymizing them and then, if needs be, doing a search-and-replace to turn "(Traductio 2020)" into "([anonymized for peer review])," and then delete the reference from the works cited page.

[Nightshade]

Thank you, Traductio, for sharing your advice and your own approach to this issue. I'll be sure to anonymize, as well.

[clean]

Would it be appropriate to cite my unpublished dissertation in a footnote that covers recent scholarship on the topic?

Your dissertation is not unpublished.  It is a dissertation.  There is a citation format to use.  It should be available online somehow,  or at least by ILL from your institution. 

Even IF no one can get to it, cite it correctly! 

worst case, use this link:

https://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/apa-format/how-to-cite-a-thesis-dissertation-apa/

[clean]

https://about.proquest.com/en/dissertations/

I found my dissertation here.

[traductio]

Would it be appropriate to cite my unpublished dissertation in a footnote that covers recent scholarship on the topic?

Your dissertation is not unpublished.  It is a dissertation.  There is a citation format to use.  It should be available online somehow,  or at least by ILL from your institution.

Some citation formats will treat it as unpublished even if it's in Proquest -- Chicago, for instance, which is more likely in the humanities than APA. But the point remains that there are formats to use.

[Nightshade]

Good to know. Yes, mine is available in the Proquest database as well so will be sure to use the correct citation format. Thank you!

[jerseyjay]

This seems to be discipline specific. In history, it is common to cite dissertations. In other fields, it seems to be less so.

As to citing your own dissertation, I think it is appropriate if it is appropriate. I am not sure I would cite mine in a literature discussion/historiographical review (although I would cite somebody else's dissertation). Before I published my revised (history) dissertation as a book, I published a few chapters as articles. I rarely cited my dissertation as staking out historiographical ground, but rather just said what I wanted to say. I did cite in footnotes about topics ("for more on basketweaving in Ancient China, see....") or for discrete information that was aggregated in the dissertation.

There is a whole wide array of opinions on self citations, but my opinion is cite yourself--dissertation, article, book--if you think it is relevant, but not just to show off.

I have always wondered why a dissertation is considered "unpublished," which is the way I usually cite PhD dissertations in Chicago Style. I mean, it's a dissertation, and almost all dissertation are equally published or unpublished. That is to say they sit in the university library but you can usually find a microfilm/pdf copy from Ann Arbor University Microfilms/Proquest. I have never actually seen a "published" dissertation. (A revised dissertation published as a book is listed differently than the unrevised dissertation it is based on. I have on occasion cited both in my research.) I always figured it was a holdover from the German model of having to "publish" a dissertation for it to become official.

[glowdart]

I see no problem with citing your diss -- it has been vetted (by your committee) and it does figure in the literature. (My test for citing my own work -- although I'm well past my dissertation -- is whether I'd cite it if someone else had written it. If I would, I cite it.)

As for anonymizing it, yes, you should anonymize it the same way you would for an article you had written. My practice lately has been to write things without anonymizing them and then, if needs be, doing a search-and-replace to turn "(Traductio 2020)" into "([anonymized for peer review])," and then delete the reference from the works cited page.

Interestingly, I've been criticized for not using my own research when I do this, so I just operate as if I'm not me as the author and I cite myself like I'd cite you or any other source. So, I keep the (Glowdart 2020) now & just make sure my wording doesn't include phrases like, "as I argued..." or the like.

OP, you'll likely need to include a "portions of this chapter appeared in X article" in the book manuscript, but that's totally normal (in my discipline, anyway.)

[traductio]

I see no problem with citing your diss -- it has been vetted (by your committee) and it does figure in the literature. (My test for citing my own work -- although I'm well past my dissertation -- is whether I'd cite it if someone else had written it. If I would, I cite it.)

As for anonymizing it, yes, you should anonymize it the same way you would for an article you had written. My practice lately has been to write things without anonymizing them and then, if needs be, doing a search-and-replace to turn "(Traductio 2020)" into "([anonymized for peer review])," and then delete the reference from the works cited page.

Interestingly, I've been criticized for not using my own research when I do this, so I just operate as if I'm not me as the author and I cite myself like I'd cite you or any other source. So, I keep the (Glowdart 2020) now & just make sure my wording doesn't include phrases like, "as I argued..." or the like.

That used to be my approach, too. It made a lot more sense to me, in part because if I'm writing about something I'm known for, and my own work is conspicuously absent, it's not hard to guess who the author is.

But I've dealt with enough editors who equate anonymity with the complete absence of any indication of identity that I've just given in. I find substituting "[anonymized]" for my name usually makes them happy, and for things like this, I'm totally a path-of-least-resistance guy.

[Parasaurolophus]

That used to be my approach, too. It made a lot more sense to me, in part because if I'm writing about something I'm known for, and my own work is conspicuously absent, it's not hard to guess who the author is.

But I've dealt with enough editors who equate anonymity with the complete absence of any indication of identity that I've just given in. I find substituting "[anonymized]" for my name usually makes them happy, and for things like this, I'm totally a path-of-least-resistance guy.

That's been my experience too. The main specialty journal in my subfield returns any manuscript that uses the third-personal strategy. Sigh.

[Nightshade]

Thank you for the additional insight, everyone! I appreciate it!