Skip to Main Content

Writing and Publishing the Dissertation: Publishing the Dissertation

Print/Hard Copy

Dissertations are often bound in black buckrum (like a cloth) with gold embossed lettering. Most local bindery or printers can bind it for you. Expect it to cost about $125 each. Pay attention to the paper they print it on, as you want good quality paper to last 100 years on the shelf without becoming moldy or brittle. Consider donating a copy to your undergraduate library or to your local public library. If that library catalogs it, your dissertation may be entered into WorldCat, which is searchable by all. It cannot be read there, but someone could determine which library has a copy of your dissertation and initiate an interlibrary loan for it.

ProQuest

ProQuest Dissertations

Visit ProQuest Dissertations to learn more about the possibility of publishing your dissertation through ProQuest.

Online Publishing Aggregators

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

You could register with Social Science Research Network (SSRN) and if they accept your research, you can then upload your abstract or your whole PDF copy and it will be searchable on the web thereafter. You can decide if you wish to charge for the PDF or make it freely accessible. SSRN produces regular citation analytics. Google Scholar automatically searches and indexes all the entries in SSRN.

Google Scholar

If you are comfortable with your research being searched by users of Google Scholar, go to Google Scholar’s website and set up a public author profile. Input the unique URL that leads to your literature, either its abstract or full-text. Google has well laid out rules about what they will link to or what they will allow you to upload to Google Book Search. The Google Scholar Citations keeps track of citations to your articles and is a good data source for citation analysis. You can see who is citing you and create citation metrics. If your articles have been accepted in Social Science Research Network, that content will already be indexed.