Blog • Posted on Dec 16, 2025

The Right Way to do a PhD by Publication

A PhD by publication can be a super efficient way to earn a doctorate. But only if you can publish consistently. And for many candidates, that’s the sticking point.

You’re juggling experiments, revisions, co-authors, reviewers, and reporting deadlines, all while trying to ensure you’ll get the thesis over the line.

This guide covers core strategies that will help you publish faster, hit milestones earlier, and finish your PhD by publication sooner.

Key Takeaways

• You’ll only succeed doing a PhD by publication with a clear paper plan aligned to your thesis narrative.
• The fastest way to publish is to reduce friction in writing by focusing on telling a cohesive story.
• Most delays come from not knowing your paper’s central thread, slow co-authors, or wasting time with the wrong journal.
• Stronger papers mean a smoother thesis because your chapters integrate cleanly.
• You can speed up your entire PhD by treating writing as the core skill you are honing, not a last-minute thesis cram.

Table of Contents

What Is a PhD by Publication (And Is It Right for You?)

A PhD by publication is one form of doctoral pathway where your thesis is built around several peer-reviewed papers rather than one long monograph.

Instead of writing one big document at the end, you publish papers (thesis chapters) during your candidature, and then sandwich them between introductory and discussion chapters.

Most universities want you to publish three research articles (though some require more). More importantly, these papers need to form a coherent narrative once they are embedded into the thesis.

Some universities allow manuscripts that are submitted or under review, while others require at least two papers to be accepted before examination.

Institutional requirements vary pretty wildly depending on where you are in the world, so the first step to success is to check what’s expected of you.

But is it for you?

A PhD by publication is best for candidates who:

• are working on discrete studies or experiments that naturally translate into stand-alone papers
• want to graduate with a stronger publication record (hint: this should be you)
• want to master paper writing before they hinge their career on it post-PhD
• are motivated by incremental progress

In other words, if you have the opportunity to do your PhD by publication, you probably should.

That said, there are cases where a longer monograph just makes more sense. Like for candidates who have undertaken a single, large, long-term study. It also depends on your field of research.

If you’re unsure, check in with your supervisor. Or if they’re busy (that was a joke, of course they are), hop on a call with me. It’s free and you’ll leave with clarity about how to move forward.

How to Plan Your PhD by Publication From Day One

You can’t publish papers if you don’t know the story you’re trying to tell. Most delays, abandoned manuscripts, and messy theses come from not having a clear publication plan early on in your PhD journey. So it’s worth taking the time to figure out your overarching story.

Start by mapping out the narrative arc of your papers. Ask yourself:

• What overarching question is my thesis attempting to answer?
• How does each study (data chapter) contribute to that question?
• Which pieces of the larger story could form standalone papers?
• What is the logical order of these papers, both scientifically and narratively?

This will give you a rough publication roadmap. In all likelihood, three smaller stories that will be published as standalone papers, but, when ordered back-to-back, form a cohesive narrative for your thesis.

For each paper, it’s a good idea to brainstorm the following early:

• What are the key research questions?
• What results are you anticipating?
• What would the figures look like that would answer those questions?
• What data would you need to produce those figures?
• What methods would be required to acquire that data?

Do you see the pattern? You can essentially reverse engineer your papers before you write a single word.

That’s actually the exact system I teach my clients to write papers fast and without friction.

Once you have a plan, keep your supervisors and co-authors in the loop. Getting early agreement prevents scope creep later (which is usually what destroys PhD productivity).

It also helps you prioritize what to work on first. If paper 2 depends on having the results from paper 1, you know where to spend your effort.

Lastly, revisit your publication plan regularly. Experiments notoriously go awry. Results aren’t always what you expect. And funding can be swept out of projects at the drop of a hat.

Pardon my French, but—sh*t happens. And when it does, you’ll need to adapt. So stay flexible.

Writing Papers Efficiently: The System I Teach My Mentoring Clients

Most academic writing advice sounds the same: “Start with the introduction.” But that’s the worst advice you could get. It tells you precisely nothing about how to move closer to a cohesive narrative and, in reality, sets you up to fail miserably.

I teach researchers to write papers backwards. Don’t worry, there’s a method to my madness. You want to write papers backwards because it reflects how papers are actually judged, read, and remembered.

Don’t write just yet.

Before you write a word, you need to be sure of one thing: what did you actually find?

The narrative of your paper doesn’t come from vague research questions that slowly become clearer through laboured writing. It comes from the results you already have.

Now that might not sound like the scientific method. Afterall, we’re supposed to form hypotheses and then test them, right? Wrong… kind of.

The reality is that most of us go into a research project idea with a rough idea of what we expect to happen. But sometimes those expectations differ considerably from what we observe.

Or more commonly, we’ve already got some data and found some interesting patterns that we need to contextualize with matching questions or hypotheses to communicate them.

Do we just throw them out the window because we didn’t have the hypotheses before we began? Of course not.

You take a long hard look at your results and ask: Which closed, explicit, and reduced questions do these results answer?

Design the figures before the manuscript

One of the most powerful steps in materializing your paper’s narrative is asking: “What would the figure need to look like to convincingly answer this question?”

Figures aren’t visual aids; they are the argument. When you design them intentionally you clarify the story of your paper before writing ever begins.

It’s at this stage that many of my clients realize they either:

• need a different analysis,
• need to combine or split figure, or
• are trying to force too many ideas into one paper.

Plan the entire paper before you write

Only once the results, questions, and figures are clear do we move to writing. But even then, not immediately.

First we need to plan the paper structure. And what better way to do that then by writing the abstract.

You might have been told to write your abstract last. But that’s terrible advice. Here’s why.

Your abstract is your entire paper summarized in 6 sentences:

1. The hook
2. The problem statement or knowledge gap
3. Statement that you solve the problem or fill the gap
4. How you did it
5. What you found
6. What it means

That’s precisely the six ingredients we need to plan our paper.

So do yourself a favour, read my guide to the 6 sentence abstract, and use the end product to guide your papers’ narrative.

Once you’ve done that, the introduction and discussion become much simpler to write because you already know the story you are telling. The results and methods can then be written whenever suits you.

Why this approach works for a PhD by publication

The single greatest thing PhDs by publication can do to speed up completion is reducing the friction of writing and publishing papers. It:

• prevents half-written papers from stalling,
• keeps each manuscript tightly aligned with the thesis narrative, and
• helps you device early where a chapter should be published or if it needs rethinking.

I don’t teach this entire system publicly, because it works best when applied to your data, your field, and your publication goals. But this results-first, story-driven mindset underpins all of my 1:1 mentoring. And it’s one of the reasons my clients publish more consistently.

FAQs

Conclusion

If done right, doing a PhD by publication can be the fastest path to gaining a doctorate and a strong publication record. Focus on keeping a clear plan, reducing writing friction, choosing the right journals, and keeping your thesis narrative tight. With the right system and cultivated habits, you can publish consistently and finish your PhD miles ahead of your competition for that dream job.

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Dr. Matt Biddick is Founder & Mentor at RURU. You can book a free call with him here.