• 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!

It seems ’tis the season…not just for mince pies and mulled wine, but for PhD assessments, as Heather’s last post coincides with some thinking I’ve been doing on the subject lately. Yesterday I attended a workshop on ‘Ensuring Successful Confirmation of Registration’ to talk about my experiences, so I’ll share my musings here.

(Note: here at Reading we have an annual review process throughout a PhD student’s studies, plus a meeting in the second year – or part-time equivalent – to confirm your registration as a PhD student, transfer to MPhil, or discontinue your studies. As always, my perspectives below are largely arts and humanities biased.)

I’m sure Heather’s not alone in her grumbling about preparing material for her review! It can seem like it’s just a hoop to jump through, but there are ways of making the experience productive and forward-focussed. For me, it’s helpful to think of the interview part of the annual review system as a great opportunity to train myself for the viva. Learning to listen attentively to eminent academics whilst remaining calm and composed, and acknowledge their criticisms or defend your work as appropriate, are vital skills.

If, like me, your review interview is conducted by a panel of assessors, one of them will be a member of academic staff with experience of your subject area. This person is therefore a valuable resource, not just in their ability to comment on the piece of work you submit, but as a chance to expand your circle of contacts. Impress her or him, and you just might hear about some proposed conference, or publication in the pipeline, or the possibility of a postdoctoral research post.

Speaking from a slightly painful (though self-inflicted!) experience, my strongest advice would be to submit your best work to the review: this is primarily an assessment procedure, not a developmental one. Particularly if you’re approaching your penultimate yearly review, you need to think a little strategically: if you’re planning to apply for academic work, applications are likely to commence almost a year in advance, meaning references will be needed before your final annual review, and certainly before your submission and viva. You want to give the panel confidence to write shining testaments to the quality of your work and your ability to handle your research and personal development. I submitted something tentative and first-drafty, with the intention that it would help me develop the piece for publication. With hindsight, the opportunity to have a number of experts focussed intently on my writing is one I should have offered my best work to, in the hope of real improvement, rather than wasting on something I already knew needed improving.

Finally, one of the most difficult things about the transition between taught MA and independent PhD research for me has been the lack of milestones. There’s no way to tangibly measure your achievement and progress: no grades, no end of term papers, no seminar discussions by which to reassure yourself you fit amongst your peers. So take heart, the annual review is a chance to be formally encouraged that you are in the right place, doing the right thing, and that you will make it through!

I grumbled a lot about doing this. I didn’t really see the point of being forced to create conclusions for results that weren’t quite finished yet. I also heard a lot of reports from others that they completed their assessment and received no feedback, and therefore thought that the whole process was a waste of time.

I found, in practice, that doing the assessment was actually very useful. It is useful to spot holes in the research that I have carried out. It was also a welcome opportunity to pull diagrams and figures together properly and think about different aspects of my research work, bringing them together as one. I was also pleasantly surprised to receive feedback about my report from my advisor this week. It is very reassuring to know that an ‘outsider’ has taken a look at the work and deemed it to be on track and of a good quality.

So my advice, although it may be hard work, time consuming and a bit of a pain.. make sure you take part in any of the assessments available to you. If there aren’t any available, suggest one. Or if you find there are flaws in the one you have been asked to do, suggest how it can be made better. It’s not productive to sit grumbling to yourself at your desk and worrying if the work you are doing is any good.

But how do you deal with conflict? Do you keep quiet and agree with everything your supervisor says and suggests? When you disagree,  as a student, how do you get your point of view across without completely sabotaging your relationship? Is a harmonious relationship necessary? Or does conflict breed better work?

I asked people who have been dealing with this kind of situation if they had any tips to share…

“I think the first rule is having the confidence to stand up for your self, and the second is knowing when to pick your battles.  There is no point breaking out into war over little things, but you have to put your foot down sometimes, otherwise you will lose complete control of your project.

There are times when my supervisor (Prof A)  asks, “why have you done that?” And I want to reply with “because you told me too”, knowing fine well Prof A has simply forgotten that she told me to do something. I shrug and keep quiet,  for a quiet life.

When Prof A tries to take control (when I write anything) I let them make the changes and I then work through each one, and I decide if I like it or not. Then do my best to put it into my words. I have had to stand up for myself, explain that the project is mine and argue for my point of view.

An important point, always question why your supervisor wants to do something, don’t just blindly obey. Knowing the end point they want to reach, allows you to choose how to find the answer.  9 times out of 10 the student will know a quicker/better way(s) to get to that answer (or will already have it!).”

Have you ever had to deal with a conflict? Do you and your supervisor argue on a daily basis? Or are you the best of friends?

“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.

Most PhD students will quickly discover new depths of the human tendency towards procrastination. We develop an irrational compulsion to immediately complete any given task that pops into our heads, as long as it’s of the order of check emails/make enquiry/arrange meeting; for some baffling reason, the same urgent desire is rarely directed towards the meat of the (humanities) doctorate: writing.

Don’t get me wrong: checking emails is important, and making enquiries or arranging meetings can have significant and energising results. But they’re not The Main Thing. With the third year of my doctoral research looming, I need to make sure The Main Thing gets the lion’s share of my day. So in an attempt to wrest back some control over my skittish thought-train, I’m going to be trying out a few time management techniques.

The first to have privileged access to my precious work-life balance is The Pomodoro Technique®. Developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, and named after a tomato-shaped timer, it’s designed to quite simply get things done. Even better, it’s extremely straight-forward. Each pomodoro is a unit of time: 25 minutes. First, you decide on your task. Then set a timer to alert you when your pomodoro is completed (dedicated downloads for Mac and PC here). You work for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break: repeat as required. At every fourth break you take longer off – at least 10 minutes, maybe half an hour for lunch.

I convinced a friend and fellow PhD-er to partake of a day’s tomatoes with me. No doubt her presence gave me added incentive to behave (read: turn off the wifi and stay at my desk), but the value of the little red fruits (three cheers for botanical pedantry) was marked. My task for the day was re-reading and editing a chapter I’m writing for a book, for which the technique worked well. I imagine it would also work for writing from scratch – although perhaps not so effectively for reading and note-taking, where interruptions might do more harm than good.

Firstly, the concentrated time spent working really adds up, so at the end of the day you know you’ve worked solidly for X number of hours. Compared with a day of slightly more diluted focus, even if that was over a longer period of time, that meant I got the feeling of having achieved something. Which makes me feel confident re achieving more things the next day. Which is good.

Secondly, the fixed bursts of activity slowed down the way I work – but in a good way. Rather than wanting to do every aspect of the task all at once, it made me more systematic, and so more attentive to details.

Thirdly, repeating the pomodoros made me aware of the pattern of my concentration, as it ebbs and flows. Often, I’d spend the first ten minutes getting my head calmed down, then have a flash of insight or inspiration, then toil away on it for the remaining time and arrive at the end before I knew it. Whilst it can be disheartening to realise how long it takes to settle into a task, the Pomodoro Technique® meant I had many more such flashes than I would have done had I tried to focus for an extended time.

Fourthly, the regulated timing helped me begin to realise what’s realistic and possible to achieve, and what’s just wishful thinking. No longer will I start each day planning to ‘finish [insert whatever it is I've been working on for three weeks]‘ – and inevitably end it feeling disappointed. Learning to manage your time over a long period, and make accurate projections about what you can do in a month/six months/a year is an extremely valuable transferable skill. This little tomato will bring your ambitious schedule into line with reality.

So I’d definitely recommend you try it – and please comment below on your experiences! Why not also let me know of any other time management techniques you use, and I’ll give them some blog-space.

Happy pomodoro!

These are the questions I asked her:

1)      Do you think I can finish in 1 year? Am I on track?

2)      Is my PhD so far, ‘good’…  – what would make it better?

3)      What would make me more employable as a scientist?

4)      What do I need to focus on?

5)      Do you think I am performing to my potential?

Before speaking to her and while I was putting these questions together I carried out a little self assessment. Where did I think I was, where did I feel I could do better? I did this so I could target the discussion towards issues that would really help me, to be better.

I had the meeting this afternoon, it went really well. We had a very open, frank but relaxed chat about my PhD using the questions that I had asked as a guide. She liked the idea of the appraisal, felt it was lacking from the PhD structure and was pleased I had put these questions together. I gained an awful lot from the discussion we had and have pin pointed some things that I should focus on. Mostly though, this discussion helped me think clearly about how I work and about what I would like to do once I finish my PhD.

If you are feeling a little lost, confused or are just at a decisive point in your PhD (or anything for that matter).  I would recommend arranging to have a discussion with your supervisor with some targeted questions and the idea of getting some constructive feedback/criticism out of them! Don’t be afraid of asking, or wait for your supervisor to ask you. A PhD is your own project and you, not your supervisor, has to manage it.

1) Sit down and spend a good amount of time going through what I have done already

2) Work out what is a) Useful and finished b) Useless and rubbish c) Useful but needs finishing off d) What is missing

3) Put a plan together to finish the unfinished and tackle the missing bits

4) Put a realistic, priority focused timeline together on what I want to acheive and by when – I don’t want to try and do too much and end up not finishing any of it. What parts are essential and what is ‘nice to have’?

5) Start putting a plan of attack together for the thesis writing…

I am interested to know why people fail to write up their PhD. Please share any reasons you know of or have experienced, all the better if you can share how you overcame them!

I’ve noticed there are lots of great opportunities to receive training and advice for the Big Wide World (the one where you have A Job) available at the moment. Last week I was at Life Beyond the PhD at Cumberland Lodge, which was wonderful, and on 13th September I’m off to Vitae’s Careers in Academia day in Birmingham. I also know that the Guardian are running a half-day workshop on 24th September, in London. Does anyone have any others to share – especially from further north, or the other countries of the UK? Post a comment here and help other beleaguered PhD students on their journey to employment!

p.s. An interesting fact for you, for free: the title refers to the OED’s first definition of ‘career’ as from the French carrière, meaning racecourse.