Should you consider a 3-article dissertation?

The three-article format for dissertations is becoming more common in archaeology. In my proposal-writing class we cover some professional issues, and students were interested in discussing the 3-article dissertation. I am not an expert here, but I did supervise creation of a policy and guidelines for the three-article thesis in my unit, and I am sitting on committees where students have chosen this option. I found a nice blog post (from 2014) on The Thesis Whisperer, "Thesis by publications? You're joking, right?" (guest post by earth scientist David Alexander). The (many) comments on that post contain many good insights and ideas, and I'll quote a bunch of them below.

First, here is a brief summary of our requirements (in SHESC) for a three-article dissertation:

• The dissertation will consists of an introductory chapter, three article-chapters, a conclusion, and a single bibliography.
• The paper must be considered publishable by the committee. This includes evaluation of the appropriateness of the target journal.
• If the student has gathered a significant amount of data that will not go into an article, then the data should be presented in an appendix to the dissertation 
•  

 Advantages

• Divides the thesis into manageable sections
• Less of a big push at the end to get the thesis done
• Professional critique and feedback at an early stage
• Articles improve one’s CV, and gives you a head start on publishing from the thesis.

 Here are some positive quotes from the comments on the Thesis Whisperer blog post"

For mine, the greatest advantage is that I now don’t have to sit down and write publications associated with my thesis.

It would be fairly hard for examiners to say that your research is crap when it has already been peer reviewed. 

What this discussion raises for me, or reminds me of, is that too often PhD students spend so much time on this one research project that they end up having narrowed their vision of the field that they are in. In addition, their actual amount and breadth of experience with research methodology is quite brief, because the research methods utilised and analysis of data/results is limited in scope.   I would argue that a PhD by publication can not only be rigorous, due to the peer review process, whether internal or external, but it also likely demands that the student demonstrate a variety of research skills across a number of research studies.   The PhD by publication is much closer to the real life work of a career academic, where quantity of publications is a ‘fact of life.'

Disadvantages:

• The format may not fit all dissertation topics
• Can be looked down on by humanities-oriented scholars or disciplines
• Can be looked down on by older, more traditional scholars
• Can be a big delay if all of the articles must be PUBLISHED before the Ph.D. is granted.
• The dissertation is less useful as a doorstop.

Here are some negative quotes from comments on the Thesis Whisperer post:"

I could imagine that a paper could possibly be produced from the lit review or maybe the discussion chapter from the end, but I can’t imagine how a chapter about theory, methodology or findings could function as a stand-alone paper??

I was strongly advised against it as the monograph plus 1 or 2 article is still the expected norm within English departments. I asked the same question, PhD by publication or PhD as monograph, at a conference a few months later where three scholars in my field (from UK, Australia and USA) gave a seminar for post grads on the job market, and was virtually scoffed at for even suggesting that a PhD by publication was a possibility in English.

I was incredibly surprised at the range of (often strongly voiced) opinions that academics and university administrators, as well as PhD students, have on the issue of PhD by publication. I’ve seen people having angry, loud arguments (particularly in the social sciences) about whether a PhD publication is a positive development for the academy.    I think the reason for the divergent opinions is that this issue goes to the very heart of what we think scholarship should be about. The monograph model suggests that good scholarship should be based on an ability to produce an in-depth, book length analysis of a given issue, whereas the publication model tends to correlate more closely to existing research evaluation frameworks, which value large numbers of papers more highly than other forms of research output (such as books).

So, here are some things to consider in making a decision about whether the three-article dissertation is right for you:

• Check your university regulations. Some British institutions (based on the comments on the Thesis Whisperer post) require the three articles to be completely published before the thesis is accepted (obviously a potentially dangerous source of delay). Some institutions promote this form of dissertation, others try to restrict it. Check your options.
• Is your archaeology more science- or humanities-oriented. The 3-article dissertation is definitely a development in the sciences, and it is more widely accepted in scientific disciplines. Humanities-oriented archaeologists, perhaps Classicists, who have spent their whole career on one type of building in one time period may be less likely to approve of the 3-article format. If you have such people on your committee, or if you intend to apply for jobs in programs consisting of such scholars, you may want to go with the traditional dissertation format.

Theses nailed to the wall in Uppsala

I wonder what they think about 3-article dissertations in Sweden, where they still nail their theses to the wall.

Why don't people publish articles from their dissertation !!!

This is a pet peeve of mine. Somebody writes a dissertation, and then does not publish journal articles from the dissertation. Perhaps they drop out of the field, or perhaps they publish only chapters for edited books. But a dissertation doesn't really exist as a professional publication; although dissertations have to be approved by a committee, they are not peer reviewed. There are some real stinkers out there.

In the past few days I've come across two more cases of this. One is a dissertation on a theme that I have long been interested in, but have been disappointed that there was not a detailed targeted study of the phenomenon. So I see a citation to a dissertation on just this theme, by a student of one of the archaeologists to popularized this theme. I can't get the dissertation online, and various searches turn up no publications by the author. Arghhhhh....... The second example was a text in which a young professional archaeologist (Assistant Professor, PhD ca. 5 years ago) waxes poetic over the important advanced he or she made on a particular topic in their dissertation. OK, let's take a look. There are a few book chapters on other topics, but no journal articles and nothing at all on the particular topic in question.  Arghhhhh........

Perhaps I am running up against people who wrote their theses following the "dissertation as process" viewpoint, in place of the "dissertation as product" viewpoint that I favor. The first views dissertation work as a learning experience; a student learns to set up a research design, gather data, analyze it, write it up, etc. It is not important whether the topic is important or not, or whether anyone cares about the research, or whether it gets published. Adherents to this approach think that graduate students should not waste time publishing articles - that takes precious time away from reading everying published in the field.

The "dissertation as product" viewpoint suggests that a dissertation is a professional work that should be judged in the same way that a published book or journal article is judged. The topic should be relevant to current disciplinary concerns, and the work should be an important contribution to knowledge. If one follows these concerns, then the student will learn to do research along the way. And when the dissertation is done, it should be easy to crank out a few journal articles in rapid succession

The "dissertation as project" approach sounds crazy to me. I can't imagine writing a dissertation merely as an exercise to learn methods. As a professor, I can't imagine accepting a dissertation on a non-important and irrelevant topic, so long as the student learned something along the way. But at a former university I had some colleagues who believed in this approach. I was completely baffled when they would say that students should not publish articles, but then reading Krathwohl helped put this into perspective; Krathwohl was where I found this terminology (diss as project and diss as product) (and Krathwohl is the best guide I know to organizing a social science research proposal).

Krathwohl, David R.
    1988    How to Prepare a Research Proposal: Guidelines for Funding and Dissertations in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. 3rd ed. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY.

Anyway, if you write a dissertation, please please publish some articles. Some of us out here might be interested in what you are doing. (and please keep this in mind for MA papers too).