This course addresses PhD students who strive for publishing their work in international journals. Most journals publish guidelines on how to submit suitable manuscripts, however, the rules that shape the game of writing, revising, and resubmitting manuscripts are mainly implicit. In this course, we will try to make these rules explicit or at least experienceable, and to enable PhD students to publish their work successfully.

Our focus will be on deductive quantitative research, meaning that researchers ground their hypotheses on theory and test these hypotheses empirically. PhD students who pursue a different research approach will also benefit from joining this course, as it is about structuring and phrasing academic papers rather than designing the underlying studies.

After completion this course, students will be able to choose a high-potential topic, and to craft a state-of-the-art

• introduction,
• theory and hypotheses section,
• methods and results part, and
• discussion

that together constitute the „obligatory“ parts of any manuscript published in an empirical management (marketing, finance, …) journal.

Sessions will take place in the class room if possible but be held online if necessary. Minimum attendance is 80% of course hours, giving presentations is compulsory for every participant.

The course is structured by six sessions and will respect every PhD student’s phase of developing a manuscript for their thesis.

1. Getting started
   Course instructor gives an introduction on writing manuscripts for submission to academic journals and maneuvering through their review processes, assigns tasks for the remainder of the course to participants, and gives a preview on how to choose a promising topic for a project.
2. Choosing a promising topic
   Students who are an early phase of their projects pitch the topic they envision for their projects. Based on this presentation, fellow students and course instructor provide off-the cuff-comments for further development of the idea. Course instructor gives a preview on how to write an attractive introduction of a paper.
3. Writing an attractive introduction
   Students who have a clear idea of what their project will be about share a draft of their introduction section with all participants via Learn@WU and present it in the session. Fellow students write reviews and present their comments in the session; an open discussion will follow. Course instructor gives a preview on how to write a compelling theory and hypotheses section of a paper.
4. Writing a compelling theory and hypotheses section
   Students who are in the development of the theoretical grounding of their hypotheses share a draft of their theory and hypotheses section with all participants via Learn@WU and present it in the session. Fellow students write reviews and present their comments in the session; an open discussion will follow. Course instructor gives a preview on how to write a clear methods and results part of a paper.
5. Writing a clear methods and results part
   Students who have already produced empirical results in their projects share a draft of their methods and results part with all participants via Learn@WU and present it in the session. Fellow students write reviews and present their comments in the session; an open discussion will follow. Course instructor gives a preview on how to write an impressive discussion of the implications of a paper.
6. Writing an impressive discussion of the implications
   Students who are in the final phase of their projects share a draft of their discussion of the implications with all participants via Learn@WU and present it in the session. Fellow students write reviews and present their comments in the session; an open discussion will follow. Course instructor sums up the key learnings of the course.

• Presentation of a section of a paper (early-stage students present their topic): 25%
• Written draft of a section of a paper (early-stage students submit a written draft of their projects only after presentation and discussion in the session): 50%
• Reviews of other students’ drafts of a section of a paper: 25%