Writing for publication
Your Supervisors should discuss with you opportunities for you to disseminate your research and thus develop your communication skills. The transmission of research outputs and the development of personal transferable skills should be promoted by means of a number of activities as set out below. It is worth bearing in mind that academic journals typically have a long lead time from first submission of a paper to actually seeing it in print. It is therefore worthwhile aiming to submit a paper while your research is still in progress although others will no doubt follow on after completion.
- Research Seminars: as part of your agreed study programme, you should be required to present one or more research seminars. In the latter stages when research outcomes are being presented, you should be encouraged to develop an ability to defend your work and respond to critical questioning
- National and International Conferences: as your research progresses you should be encouraged to present your work at national or international conferences. Consideration should be given to funding options - by School, Research Council or sponsoring organisation. Inevitably there is variation in different Schools/Departments but in some cases the School will fund attendance where a member of academic staff is a joint author
- Publication: it is recommended as good practice that during the course of the research early consideration be given by you and your Supervisors to publishing the outcomes of your research. It should be made clear at the outset of producing a paper who is to be an author, what each author will contribute to the text, and what is to be the sequence of authors' names on the publication. In view of the respective contributions made by you and your Supervisor(s) it is to be expected that any such publication should normally be put forward on a joint basis. Practice regarding the sequence of authors will vary from one discipline to another, although it is essential that the student be given full credit for his/her contribution to the research by including their name in the list of authors. In this connection you may find it helpful to note that the criteria for the award of the degree of PhD includes the fact that the thesis should contain work which is worthy of publication in full or in part
