Dear Academic Staff Members and Graduate Students,
Academic Writing Centre is pleased to announce a talk by Assoc. Prof. Elvan Eda Işık, Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University (METU), Türkiye, entitled “From Thesis to Research Article: Recontextualizing Graduate Research for Publication”.
About the Speaker
Elvan Eda Işık is an associate professor in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University (METU), Türkiye. She received her PhD from METU and was a visiting scholar at the Universities of Cambridge and Birmingham. Her research interests include genre and discourse analysis, academic writing, and applied linguistics for TESOL. Her research on academic and professional communication has been published in international journals such as English for Specific Purposes and the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. She has co-edited books and contributed chapters to edited volumes in the fields of English for Specific Purposes and applied linguistics, including English for Specific Purposes in the 21st Century: Innovative Perspectives and Practices (2026), published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Abstract
Many graduate students are expected to publish from their theses for graduation, funding or academic positions. Publication also makes their research available to others in the field. Completing a thesis and publishing from it, however, require different kinds of writing. A thesis shows a committee that the writer can conduct research independently. A research article addresses a specialist readership that expects a focused contribution within set word limits. Students often discover that shortening thesis chapters does not produce an article. The changes involve purpose, structure and voice.
This session treats the move from thesis to article as a process of recontextualization rather than reduction. It will compare the thesis and the research article as genres with different readers and purposes. It will then consider the main decisions writers face when they shift between the two genres. These include deciding what the article contributes, reorganizing content for a new readership, and adjusting the writer’s voice. Since participants come from a range of fields, the session will also consider how disciplines differ in their expectations of research articles.
The session also covers practical matters. These include journal selection, author guidelines, text recycling policies and authorship decisions with supervisors. The session combines short input with discussion and hands-on work. Participants will have the opportunity to relate the issues discussed to their own research and writing. The session is open to graduate students from all fields who plan to publish from their theses.
Talk Details
Date: Friday, 23 October 2026
Time: 18:00 – 19:00
Platform: Zoom
Join the Talk: https://zoom.us/j/6090907842?pwd=oh6IVGI3frgkhiojc1KEhyEd9R7EJE.1&omn=91545196718
Meeting ID: 609 090 7842
Passcode: 164374
We would be pleased to welcome you to the talk and hope you will be able to attend.