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I wrote my bachelor thesis about a topic that recently deserved a lot of attention because of global media and geopolitical development (See Title below [1]). Therefore I know would like to publish it. But because I changed my research field from European Studies to Sustainable Development, I am not in the right networks anymore to get official assistance with the publication and I am not really aiming for a peer-reviewed paper either. But I still would like my finding to be "out there". Therefore reach is also my priority. If possible I would of course not be upset, if I could be financially reward-ed for each download, but that is rather a minor priority and bonus.

So far, I have found and considered platforms like StackExchange, Scribd, reddit, Academia, ResearchGate or LinkedIn. And now I would like to get some insights from practitioners or experienced academics what to do. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I have decided to go with GRIN now. Thanks for all people commenting and taking time. [2]

[1] "Theories of Democracy in Comparison: The Russian Case - Output-oriented Legitimacy, Defect Democracy, Political Culture, Path Dependence and Public Opinion" - Why would Russians, interested in democracy, vote for Putin, while being aware that he is not beneficial for a democratic future of the country?

[2] Theories of Democracy in Comparison: The Russian Case. Output-oriented Legitimacy, Defect Democracy, Political Culture, Path Dependence and Public Opinion, Bachelor Thesis, 2013.

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    You could publish it on SSRN, under the field Political Science.
    – Olorun
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 11:55
  • This one might be useful for people looking into the same issue: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1316/…
    – T-Saurus
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 13:10
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    -1 "if I could be financially reward-ed for each download"... Really? Pay for downloading an undergraduate thesis?
    – Alexandros
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 14:08
  • If you want to spread information, have it in well written form, and would like to get paid for it, the traditional approach would be selling the story to a newspaper or magazine.
    – Peter
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 16:48
  • 1
    I don't think asking for anything with minimum effort is not proper in academia. You have to spend a lot of effort to get a tiny bit.
    – padawan
    Commented Mar 4, 2015 at 23:29

1 Answer 1

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In the following, I will assume your thesis is indeed of excellent quality, and brings interesting new insight into the field.

First, your goals: you say you are primarily interested in reach, with potential for (I am assuming financial) rewards being a nice-to-have. The options you have proposed were:

StackExchange and Academia

Not the right place. More or less by definition, Stack Exchange sites do not want to have original research. Your research would also definitely be out of scope here.

Scribd

No personal experience. Maybe somebody can edit this in?

ResearchGate

As I and others here have experienced, ResearchGate is a terrible place to communicate ideas. Honestly, this one is probably just a waste of time.

LinkedIn

In my experience this is similar to ResearchGate, but, for academic topics, even worse. I do not know anybody who uses LinkedIn to discover interesting content. Probably also a waste of time,

reddit

This could be an idea, but not to write the content on, but as a means to advertise the content you have hosted elsewhere.

What I think you should try is make a blog. First, start off by summarising your main theses and results in a poignant way (and linking to your full thesis for those interested in details). Keep the blog up-to-date by following recent events (in your topic, there are new events almost daily at the moment). If you get questions, address them.

Advertise your blog heavily, on Reddit, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on other suitable platforms. In terms of monetization, you can either get your own server going, host the blog yourself, and make some modest money via ads, or use a free Wordpress (or similar) account. In the latter case, all ad money will go to Wordpress, but you will have very low setup effort and do not need any upfront investment.

To wrap this up, one word of warning - having a blog, or really any widely known published material, on such a sensitive topic may well be actually, physically dangerous to you. People have certainly been threatened and harassed for less than publishing unpopular opinions about Russia.

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  • Thanks a lot for your resourceful comment. I am in the midst of publishing it at GRI (www.grin.com/en/) since a friend of mine tried it out and was amazed by the success of her paper. The blog idea might have worked as well, but would have required more time that I am willing to invest in a side-project. And thanks a lot for the warning as well, but I think I have kept an academic distance that protects me from harm. KnockOnWood
    – T-Saurus
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 13:05

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