Writing for Publication: My Experience So Far

PhD is about doing a good research and getting recognition in the research community and it is desirable to have a list of recognized ‘publications’ at the completion.  I'm a second year full-time PhD student from the school of computing and technology and the nature of my research is more amenable to progressive publication. So far, I have published two journal papers; eleven papers and posters in conferences, workshops and a doctor consortium; and co-authored three papers with supervisors and a colleague.  I have also participated in various events, students’ conferences and a summer school abroad.

Publishing is rewarding and intellectually satisfying experience. During this period, I have travelled to eight different countries and met with researchers around the world from engineering and the social sciences. It has provided a great opportunity to share my research experience, received valuable feedback and suggestions which will immensely help to improve the quality of my PhD thesis. But, due to limited available funding from the University, it has been an expensive experience of attending conferences and travelling.

The supervisor’s encouragement and support has played an important role but to manage resources and support necessary to facilitate publication have been challenging. Publishing is a time consuming process and writing coherent chapters for a thesis simultaneously and in time will not be easy. Because of this I have limited my academic and social activities within the school and outside.

However, by publishing in stages, it has exposed me to a process of continual review and criticism from a wider community within my research domain. I am also learning to deal with rejections constructively.  I find it an efficient strategy for researching in rapidly evolving technological context as it avoids a risk of publishing outdated information and data at the conclusion of a study. But publishing early is also risky as it is difficult to have a clearly developed idea to start with and changing the direction at the later stage can be problematic. However, my publication experience has been positive so far and the advantages outweigh the difficulties that I encountered during the process.