Journals normally contain most of the latest research in their respective fields. Some is also contained in monographs, which usually take longer to get to publication but are long enough to contain more fully developed ideas.
Any new research needs to include a review of the state of research up to that time. Consequently, it needs to include a review of what has been written in recent journal articles.
Peer review means that a committee of qualified persons (academics or other researchers) reads the paper and gives a recommendation as to whether or not it is worthy of publication as new research that is valuable to the topic of the particular journal. If they go through this process, a journal is called “peer reviewed.” Not all journals go through this process, but if they don’t, they often don’t tell you.
Some journals might be refereed but the papers get published even if referees find serious faults in them and recommend that they not be published.
Agglomeration services usually differentiate so that searchers can search for only peer-reviewed journals.
Not at the same time. Most journals will ask you to confirm that the article is not under consideration for publication anywhere else.
If you submit it to a journal and the journal rejects it, you are then free to submit the article elsewhere.
It depends on the institution and on the advisor. Some institutions accept it as long as the student can differentiate between their own work and the work of the co-author.
The lead author has first authorship. This usually means the person who came up with the main idea and coordinated the work of other writers.
What if you did most of the work? The question is, what do you mean by “most of the work”? For example:
In fact, universities sometimes have rules about this because PhD supervisors have so much power over students that they can easily require that their name be prominent on work actually done by students. The rules are not always clear but the following might be helpful:
There is also the option of listing all contributors of content in alphabetical order of their surnames, so there is no “first author.”
Yes. The most common way is to take parts and edit them into a form that is suitable for journal articles. For example, the literature review and methodological innovations suit this well.
It is also possible to edit the whole dissertation into a monograph, but only if it will be of wide interest for a longer period. (Many dissertations are snapshots in fast-moving fields and are out of date quite soon.)
Of course. Just follow the submission guideline for the particular online journal. The question is how will it relate to your current academic program. For example does your dissertation supervisor support it and will it be part of your for-credit activities?
Many universities now put dissertations into online repositories as part of the normal process. They are not technically published
but are still publicly available. Most dissertations are not suitable for publication as monographs, but often have sections that are suitable as journal articles.
It depends. Some pay-to-publish journals are properly refereed and are included in the main aggregation databases. And some are free. As far as anyone else is concerned, nobody will know about the financial arrangement.
Some journals might be refereed but the papers get published even if the referees find serious faults in them and recommend that they not be published.
There is no magic number of papers that will assure tenure. It will depend a lot on the university's policies and openings for tenure. It might also depend on what you teach and how many successful PhD supervisions you have.
As a general rule, you should be able to show that you are at the forefront of research in a field that is valuable to the particular university and enhances its reputation. That is, the quality of papers is important, not just the quantity. The particular field is also relevant. It is not helpful to be prominent in a field that is unimportant or has little future prospects or is inconsistent with your university's goals.
Submit the article to the journal according to the journal's published procedures. They all have several kinds of criteria:
Otherwise, journals all have different rules. Some of them provide templates and expect you to do your own formatting. Some want an abstract or description of your work without a full copy, so they can decide whether to go ahead without reading the entire article. If you don't follow these rules, your article will be rejected without even being read.
If you are taking something from your dissertation:
The main way it is possible is to come up with something that can be patented and commercialized. That method could generate a substantial profit. The catch is that some PhD students have contractual arrangements (e.g. employment, funding) that gives any valuable intellectual property to another party.
True story … A PhD student was running out of time but still had to test something. The test at the time was clumsy and time-consuming so he quickly produced a simpler, faster, less expensive test that was just as good. He didn't patent it, but if he had he would have never needed to work again.
The second way is to do research on a topic that has enduring broad interest so it is worth publishing as a monograph that will stay in print for a long time. It must be very well written and reader-friendly. It is even better if it becomes a standard reference book for undergraduates. Two examples come to mind. Clifford Geertz's Religion of Java was his Harvard PhD in the 1950s and is still in print. D.L. Baker's Two Testaments, One Bible is now in its third edition.
These qualities are rare. Dissertations are usually highly specific, and not of wide interest. Longevity is rare, because most dissertations are one relatively small step that will soon be overtaken by subsequent research. Large print runs are rare for some kind of items; some publishers now produce academic monographs in very small numbers as print-on-demand to avoid the risk of unsold copies.
By now you can see that it is possible, but also extremely unlikely. At best, you might have a small income on the side, but do not expect an income that you could live on.
There is one unethical practice in some universities. A PhD advisor and a PhD student discuss something. The advisor then says, “You write it up. But I contributed an important idea so you must make me the lead author.” (Implying that if you don't, then I'll report you for unethical conduct and you'll fail your PhD.) So the advisor gets another paper on his/her resume as lead author for very little work. Sadly, this is quite common in universities where supervisors want to increase their number of publications and have almost complete power over their students. Some universities now have rules to prevent it.
The best advice so far is this:
With thanks to R. J. Rιtchιε.