• This website is very thorough and has a lot of information
• This includes lots of thesis writing tips
• More information

Different PhDs have different thesis ‘rules’. Make sure you are clear before you start what your institution expects from you (do you have a page limit? what line spacing should you use?) and go through your plan with your supervisor to make sure they are on board, before you start writing.

I attended a course about 6 months ago called ‘dealing with long documents’. This gave lots of tips about creating a thesis in Word and setting up templates to make life easier as the thesis is created. Make sure you are familiar with the software you will be using to write your thesis (especially the software you are going to use to manage your references). If you don’t feel confident with the software, find out if there are any courses at your institution and/or look online to find helpful tips, tutorials and advice.

I have decided it might be useful to start writing down everything in a notebook. So I can record where I have saved my files, what parts I have finished and to-do lists as I write my thesis. This weekend I went out and bought one, and hopefully this will help keep me happy, organised and on track as I write up.

My Thesis Notebook

• Set out what your aims are at the start of your PhD (and let your supervisor know) for instance if you would like to spend time in a different lab or learn a specific technique.. TELL THEM. They aren’t mind readers
• Plan, write plans (revisit and revise plans) and keep showing them to your supervisor (even if your supervisor appears uninterested)
• Get to know your supervisor, learn how they work and how to get the most out of them
• Learn to communicate what you are doing to someone outside of your field (and your parents/loved ones)
• Adapt, learn that plans are not set in stone and things have to change and shift. Learn to live and love(if you can) this
• Things will take longer than you plan them to
• Read the PhD comic strips (http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php)
• Join a select number of societies related to your field (when the time comes to present work at conferences most societies insist that you have been a member of their society for 12 months in order to apply for travel funds/grants – I wish I had known this!)
• ‘The Unexpected’ WILL happen. You can’t plan for it. You don’t know when it will happen. But it WILL ARRIVE. Promise.
• There will be additional courses, learning and support you can get from the university along the way (for example presenting, writing or computer skills courses). Identify where your weaknesses are and find out what courses will be able to help you
• Learn to communicate with your supervisor and lab mates/others in your group
• Gain a set of friends who are all at different stages of their PhDs, you can draw on their experiences, pass on your experiences and go for tea breaks with them when ‘the unexpected’ happens 
• Politics will probably create more problems and stresses than your research
• Not all research is ground breaking or exciting, but it all helps
• Something you have to do will be incredibly dull
• Something you have to do will be exciting
• You will find yourself in a different world where only your PhD project exists (try not to spend too much time in this world, it helps to get out from time to time)
• At some point someone will ask you to teach someone else
• Blog it. Blogging the trials and tribulations of your PhD can help get you through it and you might make some friends along the way
• Think about (and plan for) what you want to do when it ends. Although it may not feel like it eventually you will finish it!
• You will not tick off everything on the plan you created at the start of your PhD
• Your PhD is your project you need to OWN it, manage it and be responsible for it.

I probably need to add something about ‘being organised’ and ‘writing everything down and filing it properly’ these two will probably become more of a concern as I try to put all my work together in the thesis!

“I’ve found out the hard way that a PhD does not make you more employable outside of academia, unless the job in question is explicitly related to the PhD. Most employers won’t know what a PhD entails, and you’ll be at least three years behind everyone else in the job market.”

Given that Vitae tell us over half of PhD students will leave academia (only 48% of PhD graduates working in the UK remain in the education sector), most of us need to be prepared to account for that 3 (or 4, or…) year gap in our employment history when we eventually face the interview panel.

So what does the PhD graduate have to offer to the real world?

Independence
We have got to be among the most well versed in working without a manager’s direction, or agenda, or oversight. Surely this is an attractive prospect for any potential employer? Although, entry level positions might require you to show that this quality doesn’t simply mean we’re stubborn hermits, and can submit to authority when appropriate!

Commitment
Were you listening to the bit about it taking 3 years or more? That’s a long time to be working on one project. Completing a PhD shows that you can be dedicated to a task and to getting it finished, whatever that takes.

Time management
Again, the PhD is a long project. By the end, we’ve learned to identify our tasks, accurately predict their demands, prioritise them, and get them finished, often while working on more than one thing simultaneously.

People management
It might seem lonely and isolated at times, but we do encounter a number of people, and so can give evidence of working successfully together. We manage upwards when we engage with our supervisors or other academics in our home departments or at conferences. We work with the administrative staff in our universities, and comply with the regulations of our funding bodies. We organise things together, attend things together, and advise each other.

Problem-solving
We don’t start our research knowing the answer. Doing a PhD demonstrates the ability to work on something new, cope with the uncertainty, and find a solution.

Quick to learn
By the end of the PhD, we’re the experts in our chosen field (even if it is rather niche): that’s what the assessment criterion of originality really means. By that time we’ll have taught ourselves what we need to know to get there, demonstrating independent learning.

Writing skills
90,000 words. Legible ones. Comprehensible ones. Interesting ones. Structured ones. Engaging ones. Necessary ones. This is the bit most ‘normal’ people find most incomprehensible, so celebrate your achievement.

Can you think of any other ways of articulating what skills we doctors of Philosophy can offer to potential employers?

P.S. If you’re an English Lit student, like me, you don’t have to worry. See here for a vision of your future.

I found the transition fairly straightforward, although it did take me a few months to completely settle.  I am glad I made the move and so far I have really enjoyed my PhD. My workplace was extremely busy and organised and I found academic life to be a lot quieter and a little more….haphazard (in some respects). There are a whole range of ‘transferable skills’ that can be taken from the workplace straight into a PhD. Presenting & organisational techniques I learnt whilst working, alongside many other attributes from the world of work have supplemented and enhanced my PhD over the past two years. On a day to day basis, what about the similarities and differences between The Real World and PhD life?

Similarities

Mostly I find myself working 9-5 although sometimes I do work the odd evening and weekend (no different to when I was in The Real World). I have goals, targets and deadlines to meet. I am responsible for the work I am carrying out, I need to make sure everything is organised and conducted properly. I do get stressed about how much work I have to do. I worry about how well I have completed tasks and about what other people think about my work.

Differences

Being a PhD student gives you the freedom to explore, to make mistakes and learn freely, that time wasn’t available when I was working. In my PhD project, I am the boss, I own it and it is up to me what happens to it. I can plan my work and get on with it without being dragged into meetings and moved projects because the company plan has changed. One negative difference I find is the solitude of a PhD, although I work in a lab full of people I am working alone on my project and sometimes that can make me feel incredibly lonely. There are no rewards (not really, until you finish). No matter how much work you do, you will never get a pay rise, the best you can do is get the satisfaction of getting a paper published, getting your name on a patent and/or giving yourself a big pat on the back.

They both have problems and they both have good points, good days and bad days. If you want to leave work to escape pressure, I am not sure that starting a PhD is the answer. If you are incredibly passionate about a particular subject, can work without instant gratification, can work well on your own and are sure the move is right for you, then go for it!

Sharing research with others can offer an ego boost, you will probably other people that are incredibly interested in your research topic. Even if you are convinced that your topic is the most obscure research topic in the universe there will be something within it that is interesting/applicable to others.

There are many ways to share your work,  for example writing a blog or writing articles for newspapers. Universities often want to showcase what research is being carried out at their institution and the University communications team/department equivalent can help you do this. One thing to remember is, you want to make your research accessible, understandable and engaging. An ‘easy’ way of doing this is to practice, try explaining your research to your grandparents/parents/siblings/friends (provided they are not researchers/experts in the same field as you). Alternatively you could film yourself (a scary prospect) but listening to yourself on film can really help you pin point where you can make yourself clearer.

There are of course more innovative ways to share your PhD topic… why not explain your research through the medium of dance. You could even enter the ‘dance your PhD’ competition, there are some great entries on YouTube if you need any inspiration!

1. Every lecture should make only one main point: One mistake which we all are prone to making is putting too many things in a single presentation.  A presentation is more effective if there is a single theme and the theme is explained gently and highlighted by examples. Rota, gives the analogy of the audience as a cow herd which needs to gently steered to the central point.
2. Never run overtime: Rota really stresses this point. It is true that even if a presentation is great, it can be irritating for the audience if the speaker does not keep track of time. Interestingly, in a conference I attended, the program chair stressed the same point but ended up running over time in her own presentation. One could hear chuckles in the room.
3. Relate to your audience: Rota also writes that making a connection with audience is helpful. It is certainly helpful in breaking the ice, easing the nerves and also making the presentation more personalized and conversational. The talk should be tailored according to the audience. Yeats once said, “Think like a wise man, but communicate in the language of the people”.
4. Give them something to take home: This is one consistent habit, I have witnessed in all good speakers. Some speakers even emphasise to the listeners they might want to listen to a certain particular point as the take home message. The take home message also pleases the listener as one can remember something useful from an involved talk.

With so little information per slide, many, many slides are needed. Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another. When information is stacked in time, it is difficult to understand context and evaluate relationships. Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is shown side by side. Often, the more intense the detail, the greater the clarity and understanding. This is especially so for statistical data, where the fundamental analytical act is to make comparisons.

It is easy to criticize but what is the solution? In terms of alternate presentation methodology, there is a lot of literature. One recurrent theme is the ‘assertion-evidence design’. The assertion-evidence design is aimed to rectify two problems in traditional designs namely unclear assertion and unclear linking of evidence:

For one thing, identifying the main sentence assertion of each slide requires more thinking than simply identifying the slide’s topic word or phrase. In addition, coming up with cogent visual evidence to support each assertion is more demanding than coming up with a bullet list of subtopics for each slide topic. Another hurdle to adopting the design arises from overcoming the weak defaults of PowerPoint for type size, type placement, text anchors, bulleted text, and distracting backgrounds.

The conclusion is that irrespective of one having strong feelings for or against specific softwares, a ‘bullet-point ridden’ presentation is not ideal. Complex ideas require innovative presentation and logical flow. Finally, the main message of the presentation should always be emphasized by well chosen headings and backed by useful pictures.

The main purpose of the project Videolectures.Net is to provide free and open access of a high quality video lectures presented by distinguished scholars and scientists at the most important and prominent events like conferences, summer schools, workshops and science promotional events from many fields of Science. The portal is aimed at promoting science, exchanging ideas and fostering knowledge sharing by providing high quality didactic contents not only to a scientific community but also to a general public. All lectures, accompanying documents, information and links are systematically selected and classified through the editorial process taking into account also users’ comments.

Apart from just being a video portal, the company managing the website helps synchronize presentation slides with the speaker’s talk. This is helpful for viewers to maximize the benefit without physically attending a presentation. If you have further inquiries or want to get your conference to have a truly global audience, then the following contact information may be useful:

info@videolectures.net - Support / General Inquiry

partners@videolectures.net – Partnerships

services@videolectures.net – Services for recording, post-production, synchronization of video content

He also points out a mistake which I am prone to making:

Do not try to do too much in a talk. About one slide per minute is a good pace (possibly more if lots of your slides are animations that take only moments to present). If you try to fit the entire technical content of a paper into a talk, you will rush, with the result that the audience may come away understanding nothing.

This is especially true if one has some lengthy proof to explain and one gets into the details of the proof. It is better to spell out the result and give some insight into how the proof works rather than explaining each step of the proof. Ernst summarizes this approach well by saying that:

It’s better to think of the talk as an advertisement for the paper that gives the key ideas, intuitions, and results, and that makes the audience eager to read your paper or to talk with you to learn more. That does not mean holding back important details – merely omitting less important ones.