Q: Would the following consideration or course of action be a case of duplicate submission?

Detailed Question -
  1. Reconstructing a part of the doctoral thesis that was written in a foreign language
  2. Drawing a conclusion that was not presented in the doctoral thesis
  3. Writing a new paper in a language different from the language of the thesis and submitting it to a journal
1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Hello Yuta – Welcome to the forum!

What you have described is a bit intricate or complex, and we would not be able to provide an exact answer without knowing the specifics. [We received a similar query a few months ago, and responded in a similar manner. You may view the query here: Can I publish an article with the results of two different papers in a third journal in a different language?]

All the same, we will respond based only on the information you have provided here.

As you have mentioned ‘duplicate submission,’ this probably means that you have submitted and have had published some part of the thesis in either the local language or a foreign/international language. If so, this may not be a case of duplicate submission, but rather ‘salami slicing,’ where a researcher seeks to publish multiple smaller papers from one larger paper with the main aim to have an increased count of published papers.

However, from what we understand, you have modified some part of the thesis and drawn a different conclusion. Now, if this perspective on the thesis and the conclusion are different enough from what you originally had, this may make a case for a new paper. It is quite a common practice to derive multiple papers from one’s thesis, as a thesis is a huge document covering multiple topics and a journal article is a smaller document focusing on one topic.

If however the new proposed paper is not very different from the original one, you may consider submitting it as an addendum to the previous paper (to the same journal).

To help you decide and to help you proceed from here, you may also wish to discuss this with a senior or supervisor as well as with the editors of the previous and potentially new journals. You can write to the new journal(s) through a presubmission inquiry.

Hope that helps. All the best for deciding the best course of action!