Publishing your BA thesis

[qkhitai]

I've been looking to publish something during my time as an undergraduate, but things always seemed to conspire against me and I ended up doing more conferences than publishing. Now that I'm on the verge of graduating I don't really want to submit anything to an undergraduate journal, so I'm looking ahead to what I can do in real journals as a grad student. My current supervisor advised me to look into publishing my BA dissertation after I graduate, which I think could be a really neat idea and I would like to bulk up my CV during my time as an MA student over the next two years. Do grads often try to get their BA dissertations published in some form (I guess this might depend on discipline)? Did anyone here do that in their first year(s) as a post-grad? Any advice or stories?

[fuzzylogician]

1 hour ago, qkhitai said:

Do grads often try to get their BA dissertations published in some form (I guess this might depend on discipline)? Did anyone here do that in their first year(s) as a post-grad? Any advice or stories?

Often? probably not, but I'm sure it happens on occasion. Keep in mind that any publication you put out there is going to be there forever. Don't submit anything you aren't proud of or wouldn't want out there in the future. It's better to wait and produce quality publications that will go into top journals than produce half-baked mediocre papers. You do not need publications to get into a PhD program. 

Whether it makes sense to submit the work depends on the particular situation. For one, doing it means that you're continuing to work on an old project instead of starting new ones. Some advisors might not like that at all. You want to connect with your new program and new advisor and pick up new skills and projects. Beyond that, it's a question of the quality of the work vs what you'd be doing instead. Also a question of whether you'll have the support of your new program in doing this, which isn't obvious. Undergraduate projects are often less mature than graduate projects. So the more time you spend doing old work, the less you have to develop new skills and potentially better projects. So, again, one would have to decide how good the work is, the potential publication venue, and how much work would have to go into it. It's a conversation to have both with your old advisor and your new one. 

[shadowclaw]

I agree with Fuzzy - I don't think that undergraduates often publish their senior theses, but certainly some do. 

If you did a good job on it (did an adequate literature review, wrote it well, have good clean figures, etc) then packaging it up as a manuscript to submit to a journal (or wherever else you might be publishing, depending on what it is exactly) should be quick and easy and not deter you from putting effort into new projects in your MA program. Fuzzy makes a great point, though, about the maturity of your ideas. Even a well-done project might not really be a good choice for publishing if it doesn't really make a substantial contribution to your field. However, if your advisor thinks it is suitable for publishing, then there's a good chance it is. Do be aware that graduate school can represent a big shift in workload compared to your undergraduate program - there's lots to do and not always enough time to do it! This will certainly influence the amount of time available for you to pursue working on getting your paper published.

Personally, I did publish my undergraduate thesis while I was in my masters program. It didn't require a lot of effort on my part and my masters advisor was quite happy to see me working on getting my stuff published. Likewise, my PhD advisor was quite happy to see me work on getting my masters thesis published.

[AP]

I have seen BA theses published outside of the US, in countries I am familiar with academically. In general, theses publications make up ok books that are useful for general literature reviews or for tracing down archives. I have seen one BA or MA thesis published in the US that was an insult to my time. Badly written and hardly any real research. 

I sense your field is a book field, thus a book is an important contribution to the scholarship. It is important that you assess exactly how you are contributing to your field so that your book becomes relevant. I'm very surprised that an advisor suggested publishing a book because it takes so long to turn something into a manuscript. I applaud you determination to publish and your ambition to do it in a more professional setting than undergraduate journals. Yet, if you haven't published anything yet, I would consider presenting some of your ideas at a conference and publish an article before the book. You can get great feedback. 

I didn't publish my BA thesis but it is available online so I get cited  

[qkhitai]

Thanks all for the comments, I'll take the advice on maturity and time management to heart. I definitely wouldn't want to submit something half-baked (although if it were that mediocre would it really get accepted to a decent journal?) and I can definitely use my first semester or two of MA level research as a barometer. The thing is, there are very few people who work in my area, so my work has decent publishing prospects (I assume), since it fills a nice niche. This may also be partly why my BA supervisor suggested I put it out there. Plus my MA institution heavily emphasises professional development and getting students on to top PhD programs, and they stressed that I will have opportunities to publish work should I so want to (with monetary incentives, not that that's a big factor for me).

To clear up any confusion, I did mean publishing to a journal, rather than publishing a book. Just a relatively top tier journal, as opposed to an undergraduate/non-peer reviewed one. I know of one instance where a BA thesis was published as a book (after much revision), but this is quite rare in my field - at least in English; I know some MA students who have published books in Chinese. My BA thesis is only 12000 words though and even with some revision afterwards I doubt it will top 20000, because it's quite a narrow topic. A decent size for a journal article though. 

[Bleep_Bloop]

9 hours ago, qkhitai said:

(although if it were that mediocre would it really get accepted to a decent journal?)

The definition of decent is subjective, obviously. But yes, there are many, many half-baked articles out there. A lot doesn't need to be published but makes its way into journals, in part because programs push professionalization so much. And the academic-industrial-complex profits off it (there's real money to be made for publishers, of course). The structure of tenure also contributes to this, but that's a discussion for another thread. I'm not implying that this is true in your case because I haven't read your work. But in my experience (in the humanities), undergraduates really only publish for the novelty of it (and because they think it will get them into a top graduate program), not because the field really needs their research. The problem is that anyone with the proper training sees these publications for what they are. No offense, but you really should spend more time in the field before you approach publication. As an undergraduate you're just not prepared to produce the kind of work for a leading journal (the only work you should be striving to publish). How can you be? You don't even have a BA.

I would sit on it. There's no need to publish now, so why rush it? You have a long road ahead of you and your thought will mature. Let the article ripen. Put it aside and continue training in your discipline. Explore parallel fields. Learn additional languages while you still have the time. Continue to practice your writing and hone your style. This is time to grow, not to worry about the profession. Then go back to it; I guarantee you'll have a much better article. You'll be able to publish in a higher-ranked journal and it'll likely serve your career better. You don't want to waste your material by rushing a publication. I see this mistake a lot (I myself felt the pressure to do so). At the BA and MA-level, your job is to learn. Again: you won't need publications for PhD programs (you really, really won't). 

Edited April 3, 2017 by Bleep_Bloop