Ph.D. graduates decide to publish their thesis as a book. We, as an institute helping students with publishing their works, get lots of those books. A short look at them shows that the writer is not aware of the differences between a book and a dissertation or thesis. S/he just sends the thesis as it is and asks us to publish it as a book. While in order to turn a thesis into a book you need to make some changes in your thesis.
In order to turn your dissertation into a book, forget about your dissertation. Just use the information you get during the process of dissertation writing, and write a new, more general version of it. However, at the same time, it is not going to be a completely new subject providing new information. The subject, the aim, the variables, conclusion, and all the information are the same.
The title
Before starting to write, define the topic of your book considering its audience.
The title of a thesis should be specific and limited, while books need a broader title to be interesting to a wider range of audience i.e. it should not be too specialized. Let’s say you are a potential reader, would you buy a book with that title? So choose the title of your book in a way that it is interesting enough to attract potential readers. The maximum characters of 70 are acceptable.
The scope:
Theses have a broader scope than books. A researcher studies several variables in a thesis or dissertation. A book needs to be narrower. It should cover a limit and a specific scope.
You can choose one of the variables and write on that in your book.
The chapters
Chapters of a book differ from a dissertation.
Every thesis is of five chapters which we discussed in “chapters of a Ph.D. and master’s thesis” post. While chapters of books are organized according to their subject i.e. you can divide the book into chapters based on subjects you are going to talk about, and make headings and subheadings for each one.
Note that the organization of a book is very important. A clear organization that its logic is easy to be understood is more possible to attract the reader.
To arrange your book, consult a table of content. It can be like this:
- Acknowledgment (optional)
- Dedication (optional)
- Preface
- Section/part one:
- Chapter one
- Chapter two
- [continue with other chapters]
- [continiue with other sections]
- References
- For further reading (optional)
- Appendixes (if it has)
As you see, books can have acknowledgment, dedication, and preface. It also ends with references and appendixes, as in theses. You can also ignore section/parts.
You need to organize each chapter, too. Each of them begins with a warm-up. After the introduction, go on with subsections and ends with a conclusion. Relate each chapter to its previous one, and in the last paragraph open a new subject in relation to what has been said, so that you can write about the new subject in the next chapter.
Make the Preface as effective as you can, so that motivates the reader to follow the book.
The content
The language you will use in a book differs from a dissertation. verbs are active. Jargon is eliminated or defined beside you should use a simpler language in your book. It needs to be understandable to a wider range of readers.
Theses and dissertations are full of repeat and their chapters are long. Eliminate the repeated sentences and make each section as short as it is readable.
In a book, you do not cite in the body. The “references”.
Review what you have written
When you are done with writing the book, leave it for a few days or a week, and then review it to revise.
Make openings of each chapter stronger.
Review the chapters, headings, and subheadings. Use strong and attractive phrases for them. The order of them also
Eliminate unnecessary content, extend the explanations and descriptions as needed, and add definition to terminologies.
To write a better version of your book, you need to know the differences between a book and a dissertation, you can follow “Differences between book and dissertation” for more information.
Hoortash institution offer publication services as well as training and counseling you to turn your dissertation into a book.
