Monograph with published data

You can use already published results that you have generated yourself in your dissertation. However, these results must be marked properly.
You can also include results contributed by co-authors in your thesis, but you must clearly indicate that these are not your own results! It is your own work that is assessed and not the work of a team.
Translations must be made freely and not verbatim. Otherwise you could unintentionally create a plagiarized translation.
The introduction and discussion must be rewritten independently.
The methods section must be more detailed and go well beyond the description of methods in your previously published manuscripts.
You can show previously published results in the results section if you mark them accordingly. You should write the results section of your dissertation independently.
It is normal for the number of matches with published texts to be higher in dissertations based on previously published data compared to completely unpublished results. However, in the case of more than 30% similarities, the supervisor must justify in the statement on the iThenticate report why there should be no suspicion of plagiarism.
When using unaltered or only slightly altered figures and tables from publications, you must obtain permission from the copyright holder (usually the original publisher), both for use in the printed and in the electronic/online version of the dissertation. Please enclose a copy of the permission with the dissertation.
You can find further explanations on handling your own, already published data in the citation guidelines of the Faculty of Medicine.

How should I identify content from my own publications properly?

Your own publications must also be cited. If you use content or results from a publication of which you are an author, the source and extent of the reused material must be clearly identifiable.

In principle, any source must be cited whenever published content is paraphrased. However, if larger, clearly defined sections of your dissertation are based on the same publication to which you contributed, you may identify the source for the entire section. For example, you may:

add a footnote to the heading of a chapter or subsection or
include an explanatory statement directly below the heading.
Please always cite the correct source and licensing information for all figures and tables that have already been published!

Such a statement could read: The results presented in this chapter have previously been published in Mustermann et al. (2025).

The statement must clearly indicate the section to which it applies. A general statement covering the entire results section is therefore not sufficient.

A section-level citation does not permit the verbatim reproduction of published text. The dissertation must be written independently. Any wording reproduced verbatim must additionally be clearly marked as a direct quotation. Further information is provided in the Faculty of Medicine’s citation guidelines.

What should I do if the dissertation and manuscript are being written at the same time?

A manuscript presenting the same data, or parts of the same data, is often prepared while the dissertation is still being written. The correct citation requirements depend on which work is published first: the dissertation or the article. The relevant date is the publication of the dissertation through the University Library, not its earlier submission for evaluation.

The dissertation is published first: The unpublished manuscript generally does not need to be cited as a source in the dissertation. When the manuscript is subsequently published, it may be necessary to cite the already published dissertation.
The article is published first: If the paper is published before the dissertation, it must be cited in the dissertation in the same way as any other previously published source (see descriptions how to proceed above).

If it is still unclear during while writing the dissertation which work will be published first, we recommend referring to the manuscript while writing the dissertation. Instead of a regular citation, you can initially indicate its current status, for example:

Doe et al.: manuscript in preparation
Doe et al.: manuscript submitted
Doe et al.: manuscript under review

Use these references at the relevant passages or for clearly defined sections that are based on content or results presented in the manuscript. The manuscript should also be included in your list of publications, stating its title, authors and current status. As it has not yet been published, it should not be included in the regular reference list at this stage.

Check and update all references before submitting the final version of your dissertation to the University Library:

If the article has since been published, replace the provisional references with a regular citation, for example (Doe et al. 2025), and add the full bibliographic reference to the reference list. Please don't forget to include the publication in your own list of publications.
If only the status of the manuscript has changed, you can update the description accordingly, for example from manuscript submitted to manuscript under review.
If the manuscript has not yet been published when the dissertation is submitted to the University Library and the dissertation will be published first, the references to the manuscript may also be removed all together. In this case, make sure that the information in your list of publications also reflects the manuscript’s current status.

Downloads

Guidelines for monographic dissertations with previously published data (PDF, 78 KB)

Monograph with published data