Publishing

Publishing Your First Article


Few PhD candidates will get an academic position without having published at least one article. Most first articles stem from your PhD research, but on occasion they can come from a research paper you wrote for a grad seminar on which you received an A; your teacher will usually tell you if s/he thinks it is worthy of revising for publication. Papers written for the Proseminar/Seminar sequence are often likely candidates for publication. It is often a good idea to give a version of the paper at a scholarly conference in order to get feedback before preparing the final draft to send off to a journal. Indeed, editorial board members in the audience will often approach speakers to suggest that they submit to the journal on which they serve, which offers you a good ‘in’ at the journal.

Other Publishing Opportunities

Many graduate students seek other publishing opportunities in order to build the Publications section of their academic CV.  These include writing encyclopedia articles in your field, an opportunity that you can learn about from History list-serves, notices printed at the back of the AHA Perspectives (or other specialized journals), or from your mentor and other faculty members. You are often paid a small fee for these articles.

Students can also sometimes be asked to do a book review, particularly if you have begun to establish a reputation in the field so that scholars who cannot do a review suggest your name instead. Students can also publish translations or short articles online and claim credit for a publication.


Guides to Publishing

“Practical Advice for Writing Your Dissertation, Book, or Article” AHA Perspectives (2006)

The AHA Guide to Teaching and Learning with New Media, by John McClymer, 2005.  Available in a hard copy or online.

More information on Publishing.