Is it worth delaying a PhD thesis submission to gain more publications?

Question

I'm currently my fourth year into a PhD in computer science. The PhD hasn't gone nearly as smoothly as I would have liked. There was a lot of changing the scope, and trying to re-identify a good research contribution. There was also a substantial prototype project involved that inevitably had bugs that took far too many hours to solve. I started trying to submit papers for conference by the end of my second year... but I have not met much success. There are only two major conferences that I am aware of that my research is directly applicable to, as well as a couple more general conferences. Since you can't submit the same paper to more than one venue at a time, and because a lot of the submission dates overlap, each year I've been making 2 or 3 submissions.

Each rejection I try to take the criticism on the chin, and use their recommendations for improving the next submission but it's still pretty disheartening. The most recent submission had 2 accepts and 1 reject on the peer review, and the paper was ultimately rejected for publication. As it stands I have a single paper from a PhD symposium giving some early results, and I have a conference publication from my Masters on a separate topic. Unfortunately, no one else in my department is working on the same material, and my supervisor has very little experience in the area, so I don't have any real opportunity to collaborate and bump up my publication count as a co-author.

I'm certain there is a real research contribution there and that if I keep revising and submitting the paper that it will eventually pass the reviewer-lottery and it will get published. I had wanted to become an academic, but with my lack of publication success I do wonder if that's still a viable career path.

So my question is- is getting published important enough that I should actually delay thesis submission until I finally get the main paper published?

Answer 1

I think you should consult with your sup regarding your situation to complete the Ph.D. and your future. Are the publications important for your graduation?

However, I think I have a more important question: Are you on scholarship or financial constraint? Can you live on your scholarship while waiting for the publication?

If this is not the case, I would suggest that you should submit your thesis, regardless of your publication status. After you submit the thesis, you can still be in the circle, such as doing casual teaching, marking, etc.

However, if your scholarship allows you to do that, then yes, you may wait. Nevertheless, publications while doing Ph.D. are not necessarily the only thing for you cross the bridge, but it is the experience. It is very difficult to get your paper accepted especially in a high-rank conference if you hardly get any proper supervision. With a good team, you may find publishing easier than right now.