Q: Is it okay to refer to the thesis while writing a review article for publication in reputed journals?

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Hello Basavant – Welcome to the forum!

Straight away, your question is not entirely clear. It seems what you wish to know is whether you can refer to theses (Master’s/PhD theses/dissertations) for writing a review article. The thing is, you generally can, but as you specifically mentioned that you are writing a review article and hope to publish it in a reputed journal, it would be better if your review article references articles published in journals rather than theses that are typically only published on the university site.

While theses and dissertations undergo review and scrutiny too, journal articles are reviewed by several industry experts and also published in a journal focused on a particular area and thus have readers by researchers in those areas. That is, journal articles by and large undergo greater review and scrutiny. However, if the thesis or a part of it has been published in a journal article, you could refer to this part.

Additionally, and this is again because you mentioned ‘review article’ and ‘reputed journal,’ note that review articles are typically assigned by the journal rather than the journal accepting an article that a researcher has submitted to them. So, before starting your review, it may help to write to the journal(s) through a presubmission inquiry asking them if they would be interested in publishing your review article. If one of them expresses interest, you can then begin writing the piece.

For the various points discussed in this response, you may find these resources helpful:

Hope that helps. All the best for your review article!

 

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