Halfway My PhD: Time to Check and Recheck Your Thesis
A PhD project includes both task as well as education which is pursued to become a researcher. The first part, ie. the task includes working for and with senior researchers and thus contributing to their research. The second part, ie. education, includes guidance and supervision from senior researchers, along with doing small research projects, communicating regarding the research both orally as well as in written, collaborating with other researchers, attending conferences and a lot more. Half way through the PhD project… it’s time to check and recheck the thesis. Listed below is a halfway checklist that outlines some of the most essential aspects of a Ph.D. project – which are important to get a synopsis of the project in order to be able to plan the rest of the project so that changes can be made, if something doesn’t work as desired. Structure your literature systematically As a major part of the writing will take place in the second half of the Ph.D. project, it would be prudent for the student to get started with his own digital workflow. The PH.D student has to setup a system for collecting, annotating and structuring literature systematically. When the PH.D student will start writing journal articles, conference contributions, and finally the Ph.D. dissertation, these writing processes become a lot easier, if the literature is easily accessible and clearly organized. Indexing and Tagging Indexing and tagging can be done when one has the overview of the PhD project. But halfway through the project, the student should have a fairly clear overview of the different parts of his project and organizing literature. At this point, indexing and tagging will help the student in advancing his work and in writing documents. Writing small literature reviews helps in getting an overview of the topics Writing small literature reviews is useful both for understanding and writing documents and research notes. Publish a journal article One of the most difficult and challenging parts of a Ph.D. project is to publish a journal article. They not only take a long time to finish, but the student needs to have worked really hard to get them accepted, and critical peer-review feedback might be difficult to grasp. Attend workshops or summer schools Participating in workshops and summer schools can be instructive, inspirational and fun experience. It allows interacting with fellow Ph.D. students as well as senior researchers in the field and it provides plenty of perspective for the Ph.D. project. Submit your work in conferences Submitting your work to one or more conferences can be a good starting point for publishing some work. An external research stay is recommended It is advocated that part of the project is performed externally, preferably in a new location. This helps in gaining experience with other research...
Read More