Is Your Thesis Publishable? Faculty-Level Criteria Used by Indexed Journals

Many Theses Fail at the Journal Desk Here’s Why 

Each year, Thousands of thesis scholars at postgraduate and doctoral stages strive to transform their works into journal articles before being instantly rejected by indexed journals. There is a consistent report by editors and faculty reviewers that most of the thesis-based submissions fail at the first screening stage - not because they have not been done, but because they are below journal standards. The faculty-level checklist applied by indexed journals is becoming regarded more and more as a requirement to publication success in those who are just starting their careers.

 A thesis can be a foundation to future publications, although usually it will need extensive modification to conform to the requirements of an indexed journal. The checklist below lists major requirements that faculty and journal reviewers consider when evaluating a research to be publishable in an academic

Thesis Publishability Faculty/ Reviewer Checklist

I. Content and Research Quality.

Originality and Significance: Does the research have novel results or a distinctive argument which contributes significantly to the field? Does the research gap in the introduction come out clearly?

Originality is one of the initial aspects that indexed journals evaluate. Reviewers among faculty members consider the ability of the study to delineate a research gap and make a significant contribution to the existing literature. There are slim chances that incremental work, descriptive work, or work which has not made a theoretical or practical progress will be advanced to peer review. Journals require authors to clearly state the way in which their work can be considered as an extension, challenge or refinement of what is already known.

Rigor and Reproducibility: Do the methods and data collection procedures are provided with a sufficient amount of clarity and detail to be determined to evaluate the work and possibly be reproduced?

Credible Results and Analysis: Do the findings accurately present results, using suitable data and are the statistical tests (where applicable) sound and clearly described?

Significant Interpretation: Does the discussion make sense of the findings, place the findings in a position within the existing literature, and how the findings build upon existing knowledge?

Avoid Exaggeration: Does the conclusion bring into focus the contribution made and does not overestimate the contribution of the findings?

II. Preparing and Formatting manuscripts

• Journal Fit (Aims and Scope): Does the topic, approach, and article type that includes full paper, review, case study, etc aligns with the target journal’s specific objectives and scope?
• Conciseness and Focus: Has the lengthy thesis been shortened to a brief piece that meets a journal word count limits? Compared to journal articles, these are ususally quite long and detailed.
• Compliance with Author Guidelines: Does the paper accurately adhere to the full set of instructions provided by the journal to authors (IFAs), both in formatting and structure (e.g. IMRaD), referencing style (APA, MLA, etc.), and figures/table requirements?
• Quality of Writing: Is the writing clear, objective and scholarly using common language use (e.g., American vs. British English) and free of grammatical or spelling mistakes?
• Best Title, Abstract and Keywords: Do the title and abstract provide engaging summaries that quickly grab the and reviewer’s  attention and help the article in be found?

III. Ethical Submission and Compliance.

• Originality and Prior Publication: Is the work original and has not been reviewed elsewhere? (Note Every journal has a policy regarding the acceptance of a university thesis in a repository; authors should check before submitting with the editor whether the journal will accept the thesis or not).
• Authorship Confirmation ensure that each of the authors mentioned satisfies the  criteria of authorship and that the level of authorship contribution is appropriately clarified(if required using CRediT )?
• Data Sharing: Has the manuscript adhered to the journal data sharing policies, and has an appropriate repository been used in case of mandatory data sharing?
• Cover Letter: Is there a formal cover letter that summarizes the goals of the study, its significance to the field,and confirms that it is ethical?
• This checklist will help authors improve the chances of their work moving past the first editorial review to peer review.

 Faculty View of Reasons of Common Rejection.

Senior academics working on editorial boards have claimed that the most recurring themes by which theses fail to be published are lack of focus, weak argument, outdated literature and inability to revise the content to meet journal standards. According to the editors, the success of publication does not relate to the length and complexity of thesis but how well research can be repositioned in order to be understandable to a scholarly audience.

Thesis Outlook: How to transform a Thesis into a Journal Article.

Scholars concur that no publication is an immediate result of submission of the thesis. When researchers are availed of faculty level checklists that faculty indexed journals use, they stand a great chance of acceptance. Through research question refinement, analysis enhancement, writing enhancement, and matching of manuscripts with journal requirements, the scholars can be able to make their theses into a research article that is impactful and capable of publication. With competition in academia becoming a fact of life, it is no longer a choice of what journals seek, but rather an important aspect of indexing of journal.

The greater the number of platforms a journal has, the better the more chance it has to construct a strong reputation in its field. 

The benefits include:

 assisting in making a journal accessible - to as wide an audience – as possible (thus increasing citations). 

• enhancing the reputation of the journal as a reliable one. pioneer in its field. 
• boosting the subscriptions of a journal and submission rate 
• going along with a few institutions and governmental. The work of researchers must be of the nature demanded by schemes. in well-indexed journals (such as, students of certain colleges and universities are obliged to write in. peer-reviewed journals indexed by Scopus) 
•  offering ranking measurements, referred to as metrics, to have a conception of the degree of success of the journal is in its field 
• increasing journal ranking of being indexed. and more esteemed data bases in the future. 
• enhancing the visibility and influence of journal in areas. such as the government policies and school curriculums. Worldwide Political Science Abstracts of ProQuest. An example of such a database is (WPSA). government officials and political researchers. 
• Enhancing references and influencing the impact factor. of the JournalAs the fully open access journals expand and grow, online-only journals, acknowledging predatory.
•  It has made it hard to access journals and their publishers. Indexing a journal in any of a set of known ones. A good indication that the journal is reliable is that it has databases. 

Indexing of Journal: The difficulties are evident in indexing journals. The choice of a journal with indexes is a significant one. one of the publishing processes. Indexing a Journal is also important. Nonetheless, there exist numerous challenges of Journal Indexing and determining a reliable. indexing body. There are some problems mentioned below:

• Medical case reports are not allowed in many journals.They do not have high citation rates. 
• hese databases are costly to gain entry into. Longer articles/Research papers are more often cited. 
• The majority of the journals that are not very available to the reader will never be able to attain a more whatever good the quality may be, impact factor be. 
• Other journals which are not written in English language, face language barriers. The difficulty with journals is that they have to be indexed. is based on a strict observation of editorial. best practices and standards on which to shortcut. lives and no print-publisher can conquer. 

Conclusion: 

So one can conclude that in the age of Journal getting indexed in online and open access Journal. there is no reputed indexing body but almost one of the basic. requirement. Indexing bodies are numerous. around the world, which most of them have acquired. edge. Numerous agencies that provide money to support research. work demand to receive the papers of researchers. published in some indexing organizations. Though these quality work is being encouraged by indexing bodies but some of them are prohibitively costly. Indexing has many both merits and demerits yet it can be said. that benefits are on the winning side.