Academic or scholarly publishing is a way for researchers (including you!) to describe the research that they have completed and to communicate and disseminate that work to others in their field. Academic publishing creates a record of research efforts that helps to advance knowledge and preserve the work for future use. Academic publishing is also a mechanism for you as the author to be recognized for the contributions you have made to your field of study.

Traditional academic publishing has meant publishing in a scholarly journal, but these days Stanford students can publish their important course projects, honors theses, capstone projects and more in the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR). Students benefit by having their work discoverable and published online at a persistent Stanford link which can be reliably cited throughout their academic and professional careers.

By depositing in the SDR you'll be distributing your work out into your broader community for others to find, read, and expand upon. You can refer to your published works in resumes, CVs, and online profiles like LinkedIn or ResearchGate.

Each deposited work is added to the library's catalog, SearchWorks, where it can be discovered along with other works by Stanford students and faculty and will be picked up by search engines like Google for users around the globe to find.