Scholarly Communications Guide

Graduate Students & Scholarly Publishing

Graduate students enter the world of scholarly publishing through working on research with faculty mentors and peers, publishing theses or dissertations, and beginning their work as early career researchers. Understanding the research lifecycle, trends and best practices in their field, and funding opportunities is important for graduate students who want to further their education and contribute to the scholarly communication.

At UTK, we have several departments and sources that provide support to graduate students who are beginning to publish their work:

• UTK University Libraries
• The Graduate School
• The Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development
• OIT

On this page:

• Tools
• Guides
• Developing Research Questions
• Types of Research Methods
• How to Write a Research Methodology

Publishing & Research Tools for Graduate Students

• List of Publisher Policies Regarding Theses from MIT Libraries
• Guidelines on Using Previously Published Work in Theses and Dissertations from Rutgers
• Choosing and Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research
• Academic Integrity Toolkit from the University of Reading
• Scholarly Communication Support: Planning, Conducting, Disseminating, Promoting, and Assessing Research
• Creating a Research Agenda
• Dissertation to Publication
• What to do When Your Academic Research Agenda is Stalled
• Methods 101 Video Series from the Pew Research Center

Guides for Graduate Students

• TRACE User Guide: Graduate Students
  • Help with submitting your thesis or dissertation to UTK's institutional repository, TRACE
• The Graduate School: Theses and Dissertations
  • Guidance on formatting, policies, and other tips for your thesis or dissertation
• Public Access Policy Toolkit
  • Help with navigating public access policies and federal grants
• Research Posters
  • Examples and advice for creating research posters
• Systematic Reviews
  • Definitions, examples, and guidance on how to create a systematic review
• Data and Digital Scholarship Services
  • Resources and services for all things data, digital scholarship, and GIS 
• About Research Impact
  • Understanding and strengthening your research's impact
• Citing Sources
  • Help with various citation styles
• Student Basic Needs Guide
  • "A comprehensive collection of the food, housing, and miscellaneous resources available on and off campus"
• All UTK Library Guides List
  • Search for your subject area and find databases, journals, articles, writing tips, and more

Attribution: UK Data Service

Types of Research Methods

Below is a non-exhaustive list of various research methods. Use these terms and examples when considering the best method for your research.

• Autoethnography
  • "Essentials of Autoethnography" from the American Psychological Association
• Archival research
  • "Getting Started with Archival Research" from Sage
• Case study
  • "What is the Case Study Method?" from Harvard Business School
• Content analysis
  • "A Hands-On Guide to Doing Content Analysis" from PubMed Central
• Experiment
  • "Experiments" from Pressbooks
• Focus group
  • Spotlight on Focus Groups from PubMed Central
• Found-data analysis
  • "10 Easy Data Analysis Methods and Techniques" from UMass Amherst
• Interviewing
  • "Interviewing" from Sage
• Legal analysis
  • "Sources of American Law: An Introduction to Legal Research" from CALI
• Longitudinal
  • "Longitudinal Studies" from PubMed Central
• Machine analysis
  • "What is Machine Learning, and How Does it Work?" from the Pew Research Center
• Observation
  • "What is Observational Study Design and Types" from Elsevier
• Surveying
  • "Writing Survey Questions" from the Pew Research Center
• Systematic, scoping, and other literature reviews
  • Systematic Reviews Guide from the UT Libraries
  • "Conducting a Systematic Review" from Pressbooks (includes SALSA method information)
  • PRISMA framework from PubMed Central
• Text mining
  • "What is Text Mining?" from IBM

Attribution: This list has been adapted from Sarah Ryan's (2025) "Research Will Save Us" course.

Attribution: Scribbr