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Theses with publications: Framing Matter

Theses with publications are an increasingly popular form of PhD thesis, especially in the sciences. To submit a thesis that includes articles that have already been published in reputable journals has many advantages. Not only does it show your examiner that your work is considered expert and significant within your field, but having a track record of publications gives you an advantage when it comes to applying for faculty and post-doctoral positions, and for research grant applications.

However, rarely will a group of publications on their own satisfy all the criteria for the awarding of the doctorate. What is almost always required is some kind of framing material to knit the narrative of your research together.

Why do I need to include framing matter?

A list of publications on its own does not constitute a thesis. You need to provide your examiner with a cohesive whole that represents the journey your project has taken in addressing your research questions. It also crucially allows you to state and comment upon the significance of your research.

 

What do I need to include in the framing matter?

There is no one way to approach the framing matter, but it is important that you provide sufficient and explicit explanation for your examiner of what you have done and where the important parts of the thesis can be found.

That said, an introduction and conclusion are often important in tying your thesis and its publications together. However, there are a couple of other sections that may be necessary or helpful to you:

  • You need to ensure that you have engaged substantially with the disciplinary literature around your topic; this may require a separate literature review section.
  • If you have a number of publications, it may be useful to synthesise these into an overarching discussion section.
  • It is imperative that you explicitly articulate the significant contribution your research as a whole has made to your discipline.

 

When and how should I get started writing the framing matter?

This aspect of thesis writing is best left until you have finished writing the articles you plan to submit, although there are elements that you can draft a little earlier.

 

Tips for getting started

One of the criteria for assessment of the PhD is that you demonstrate your:

‘ability to provide a critical appraisal of relevant literature and available research, to appreciate and understand the relationship of the investigations undertaken by the candidate to the wider field of knowledge in which these investigations are located, and to draw out the contribution to knowledge made by these investigations’

La Trobe Research Graduate School Policies

  • To determine whether you need a separate Literature Review section, collate all of the literature that you have used in each article. Have you engaged sufficiently with it?
  • Write a couple of paragraphs explaining the story of your research to someone unfamiliar with it. Can you use this somewhere?
  • Write another paragraph about why your research is important and what it contributes to your discipline.