Most frequently, we assist recent graduates of doctoral programs who are seeking to take the next step in their academic careers and publish their approved dissertation research. This support takes two main forms: developing a publication plan and manuscript revision. Of course, we quite often work work with researchers who are conducting new research, and can provide comprehensive support throughout the academic research process, including topic development, literature review assistance, methodological specification, data analysis, and interpretation.

We assist hundreds of researchers pursuing publication with their qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies each year, in nearly every field and methodological approach. Our staff is comprised of specialist researchers with PhDs in their respective fields, including psychology, economics, healthcare, and business, to name a few. QandQ’s comprehensive consulting and editing services ensure academic researchers can confidently submit their work for publication.

Publication Plan

Many of our clients who are new to academic publication seek us out to help them develop a long-term plan to publish their doctoral research and establish their voices in current scholarship. While most newly-minted PhDs are well aware of the main journals within their discipline, it can still be challenging to develop a concrete plan to begin to publish and target the publications best suited for your work–especially if you’re also balancing a full-time job!

With more than a decade of experience providing academic research consulting, we can help you prepare a clear set of goals and target journals to help you begin publishing your work. Our process to develop your publication plan consists of three steps:

• In-depth analysis of your dissertation: In this step, we’ll first identify threads that run through the different parts of your dissertation, particularly the problem statement, research questions and hypotheses, literature review, methodology, data analysis, results, and discussion. In so doing, we will group information by theme to determine how many cohesive “wholes” we can compose from the single, larger “whole” of your dissertation.
• Identification of sources: Here, we’ll take the many cohesive “wholes” that we compose through the analysis of your dissertation and use them to survey and develop a list of sources where your work may be able to be published. We’ll also take into account your goals for the possible future direction of your research and any “big name” journals you’d like to explore as a potential home for your work. This will allow us to determine a “short list” of perhaps two or three prospective publications to target with the results of our work from step one.
• Rhetorical analysis of exemplar articles: In this final step, we’ll examine the archives of each publication to identify articles that resemble yours in terms of topic and methodological approach. In addition, we’ll identify a number of articles from more recent volumes and issues that are representative of the work the journals and magazines publish today. After identifying those articles, we conduct a thorough rhetorical analysis of each, making determinations about purpose and audience, which will allow us to determine such things as how to “get in” to your dissertation research in article format, what knowledge can be assumed to be known by the reader, and what must be explained (and exactly how much and in what ways).

After presenting you with our findings, we then consult with you to determine how you’d like to proceed. Our search might result in a number of ideal publications for your research, and we can then turn to the manuscript itself to frame your study for review and publication. Selecting an appropriate journal would be the first key step, and we could assist you in this by sharing a list of 4-5 peer-reviewed journals that are a promising fit for your study.

Manuscript Revision

For clients with a publication plan or target journal already in mind, we can assist with shaping your dissertation into an actual manuscript for submission. And, if you’ve worked with us to develop that plan, we’re ideally suited to efficiently and effectively assist you with this comprehensive revision and update of your dissertation research!

• Identifying journal aims: Once you’ve settled on a specific journal, we can take it from there, using the journal’s online submission criteria as a guide for our work to develop your manuscript. This would entail framing your dissertation research such that its aims clearly map onto those of the journal, and then using your dissertation itself as a source for developing each required section of the manuscript.
• Revising for specific journal criteria: Journal submission criteria vary quite a bit, and making sure that your manuscript matches those of your chosen journal is important to ensure that your work makes it through to actual peer review. Many journals have requirements for front matter, sections, word count, and formatting that must be met to avoid screen-out. Shaping the manuscript to comply on all points invariably requires trimming dissertation writing extensively. For context: it’s common for journals to have word count limits of 3,500 to 15,000–while most dissertations are 50,000 to 100,000 words or more!
• Highlight key sections of the dissertation research: The extensive trimming and editing required also necessitate identifying the essential segments of your work in areas like the literature review and methods that tend to run very long in dissertations, and then presenting this key information much more concisely to fit the journal’s requirements. We’ll also ensure the final draft is presented according to the appropriate style guide (most often APA 6.0 format or some slight variation), updating your dissertation formatting, citations, and references, as needed.
• Emphasizing current and relevant scholarship: Finally, trimming and focusing the study requires selection of only the most recent and pertinent sources for inclusion, which then requires extensive reworking of the references list to match the sources cited in the manuscript. The end result of this option for assistance will be a fully drafted article manuscript that matches the submission criteria of your selected journal.

Research and Analysis Consulting for New Studies

For clients ready to contemplate and complete new research, or for established academics who need to continue to generate new publications to meet their personal and professional goals, QandQ’s PhD researchers and dissertation consultants can assist you–across a broad range of disciplines–to define and conduct a compelling and publication-ready study in your field.

• Topic Development and Literature Search: For researchers at the early stages of the process, we can work closely with you to guide you through the initial phases of topic generation and research specification. Using our full-text access to scholarly journals from large databases such as EBSCOhost, ProQuest, Blackwell Synergy, JSTOR, and ScienceDirect, our analysts comprehensively and critically review your topic with respect to previously conducted research. We’ll also identify works for inclusion in your literature review, and provide you with an annotated bibliography of these studies and a comprehensive outline that allows you to verify that our process conforms to the needs of your topic. We then assist in the generation of the complete literature review. Through this standardized and tested process, you can be assured that your topic will receive the most comprehensive review available, and this in-depth assistance with literature search and review is one of our most popular services for researchers drafting and editing their article manuscripts.
• Methodology Support: Once you have an idea for your topic, a conceptualization of where you may get your data, and a completed assessment of previous works on the topic, our team of quantitative and qualitative research analysts can provide you with expert methodological consulting. The key to producing exceptional academic literature that will stand up to a rigorous peer-review process is the development of an appropriate methodological design, be it qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods. As with our support for clients seeking dissertation or thesis help, this step typically includes the wording of your research questions and hypotheses, your instrumentation and data collection plan, and the identification of the correct methods to analyze your data. Our team can assist you with the development of each of these aspects across all academic disciplines. We are experts in experimental designs and clinical trials in addition to both standard and complex quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
• Analysis and Results Discussion: Once you’ve completed data collection, QandQ’s qualitative and statistical analysis team can conduct your data analysis following your methodological plan in the statistical or qualitative software package of your choice. These include SPSS, SAS, LISREL, AMOS, STATA, R, EQS, MATLAB, NVIVO, Atlas.ti, and MAXQDA. Our analysts take pride in conducting the most complex analyses efficiently for our clients, as well as explaining the results and findings clearly for presentation at conferences and to peer review committees. Based upon the analytical results and the initial hypotheses developed through the review of previously conducted studies, we can also assist you in crafting detailed and critical interpretations of your findings. Having published hundreds of studies in virtually every field, our team of expert analysts know exactly what it takes to generate intriguing discussions and exceptional interpretations for both qualitative research and analysis and statistical analysis.
• Final Editing and Manuscript Review: At QandQ, we are committed to assisting our clients throughout the entire research process. With this in mind, we also offer a high-level editing service that can be tailored to meet the requirements of your target journal. We bring a unique level of academic rigor to your research project to maximize the likelihood that your study will be accepted for publication by its reviewers.

Given our team approach, expertise, and organizational size, we’re able to offer very affordable fees to work with your personal or institutional budget at each step of the process. Furthermore, we stand by our work – and should your work be accepted with additional questions, we will be there to help you answer them and get your research approved for publication.