When you are working on an MSc dissertation, it is customary for students to consult previously published papers and include the relevant content in their dissertation after proper referencing. The question is, can you get your MSc dissertation published without enough novel content? Let’s find the answer to this query in the discussion below.
Can I Publish My MSc Dissertation If It Has Not Enough Novel Content?
While crafting your MSc dissertation, you must remember that one of the purposes of your dissertation is to produce original and novel information for your readers. Using prewritten studies or research will not only hinder your dissertation from being published but can also cause you an academic failure.
For example, suppose you are researching the impact of technology on the everyday activities of teenagers. In that case, other people in your field might have already researched this topic. If someone else has done their research and written their dissertation on the topic you have chosen, your work will be mostly similar to their one. You would not be able to claim the novelty or originality of your work. It might not even be considered for publishing by your university.
The Dependence of Novelty of Your MSc Dissertation on the Subjects You Are Studying
The novelty of the ideas and data included in your MSc dissertation depends greatly on the subjects you are studying. For example, if you study subjects that majorly contain theory, such as Law, English Literature, Psychology etc., your dissertation will most likely lack novel ideas. However, suppose your subjects in the university are related to tech and innovation. In that case, you will have many fresh and novel research problems, questions and discussions in your MSc dissertation. You will be expected to present a clear methodological and philosophical framework for your writing, enabling you to craft a detailed and targeted critical analysis for your papers.
Quick Solution:
You can take MSc dissertation help online from a good dissertation writing service to write the best and custom dissertation tailored to your requirements. The writers in the team of such writing services will ensure that they craft an original, plagiarism-free, subject-focused dissertation per your custom guidelines. You can ask your writer to craft all the papers from scratch; there should be no hint of plagiarism in the papers written by them.
Can You Reuse Your Previous Relevant Work In Your MSc Dissertation?
If you copy your previously written content in your fresh MSc dissertation, it will be considered self-plagiarism. Doing so will lead you to the following consequences:
- Suppose you reuse any material you have used in your final dissertation in your previously submitted academic papers to your university or elsewhere. In that case, your MSc dissertation will be explicitly declared as reused. To reuse the original content in your final dissertation, you will need to upgrade it per the requirements of your dissertation set by your academic institute.
- The upgrade report will not be published or used to confer your degree. Resultantly, the upgrade report will be a form of a “dissertation draft” owned by the student. Generally, institutes encourage the reuse of the novel content of the upgrade report in your final dissertation.
Top Tips for Reusing Your Content but Keeping the Dissertation Novel
The following tips will help you in writing a new dissertation, even by using the content from existing literature on the topic. Ultimately, it will assist you in publishing a novel MSc dissertation.
Upgrade the Content
We strongly recommend you upgrade the content you might have used in the previous thesis or dissertations. You will need to upgrade the content in the format and style you will follow in writing your final dissertation. It will help you plan the format of your fresh dissertation, and you can upgrade the existing material in your dissertation – as much as you like.
Keep the Initial Drafts of the Papers
We also recommend you keep the initial drafts of your academic papers to use in the final thesis. This way, the papers will be written in your voice (not the ideas picked from your co-authors, supervisors or journal editors), and it will be less likely that any copyright issue may arise with the publisher. It does not mean that you cannot incorporate the corrections made by your supervisor in the final text of the thesis; however, all the content and text of your dissertation should be written by you and not copied from anyone else. You must not rephrase, edit and rewrite someone else’s work in your own words and present it as your original dissertation. It will make your academic success difficult and result in the university’s rejection of your dissertation for publishing.
Planning the Entire Dissertation from Start
As a responsible student, you should plan your dissertation structure from the start of your writing process. It means considering the structure of your dissertation, the time of progression reviews/upgrade reviews, and the selection of the chapters which can be turned into publications later on and when they should be published.
Also, as you start approaching the final months before the submission deadline of your dissertation, you should start prioritising the dissertation over other conflicting priorities, such as publications. Your sole focus should be on completing your novel MSc dissertation and not on stressing about whether your papers will be considered for publishing by your institute or not.
Conclusion:
Since your MSc dissertation will rely heavily on concrete and title-focused data, it will contain the results of several research reports. When you perform practical work for your research, you will usually collect the data through various lab activities. The bottom line is that your MSc dissertation should have enough novel content to be published by your university. Although it does not need to be as sophisticated as a PhD or an MPhil dissertation, you are still expected to provide an original dissertation and critical analysis.
