A researcher expected to publish just a few papers after his PhD but ended up publishing far more as his interests shifted. He argues dissertations are starting points, not finished work, and that turning dissertation research into journal articles lets a wider audience benefit from it.
I will tell you, when I finished my degree, I said, "I'm gonna publish 5 times in my life. That's it. I wanna get tenure someplace, and I'm never gonna publish again." And my dissertation chair, really nice guy, just looked at me and said, "Okay." He was right. I published a lot more than 5 times. You know, I found things I was interested in, and I continued doing it. You may do the same. One phrase I like I've heard recently is, "Your dissertation is a foundation. It's not the final product." Your committee's gonna see your dissertation, but if you can get it into a journal, a lot more people are gonna get to see it. See what you've done.
