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Conclusions and Reflection Topic

Once you have completed your field work and data collection, you will have to draw conclusions from what you have found, reflect on what those conclusions mean and finish writing your dissertation or thesis. The learning units in this topic will help you to both form conclusions from your findings and to explain them, as well as covering issues such as effective writing and presentation, defending your thesis in viva voce examinations, and thinking about what you might want to do after you have finished your research.
Conclusions and reflection > Writing for publication > Distinctions between theses and journal publications

Distinctions between theses and journal publications

Alembic distillation apparatusIt is easy to presume that you can rearrange or distill some of your thesis or dissertation in order to produce a paper for publication. However, this may not necessarily be the easiest way to go about the task. The requirements for writing a thesis/dissertation and for writing a paper are quite different. Some of these differences are highlighted in the table below, or you can watch and listen to a more detailed discussion of the differences in this movie. If you cannot hear the sound on the movie, click on the "minimise" control on the player and then on the lined paper icon top left, for a script that will show as the movie plays. The script for the movie is also separately available here as a download (right click) or to view on screen (left click).

Thesis/Dissertation
Paper
Typically 20,000+ words in length Typically around 5,000 - 6,000 words in length
Literature review tends to be lengthy A short summary of relevant literature is required
Includes many definitions Is scholarly but does not include a large number of definitions
Focuses on the past tense Tends to be more future-focused
Includes detailed descriptions of statistical methods Statistical measures explained in brief
Short implication section Detailed implications section
Adopts university framework for presentation Targeted at the reader and adheres to the journal's format
Extensive use of references Selected references used and formatted in journal style
Extensive use of tables, charts etc Selective use of tables, charts etc
Adapted from (Johnson 1996)

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