It has now been more than 3 months that I have finished my PhD. Having seen a post by a current PhD student about tips for anyone writing now I thought I would jot down some of what I think worked for me and what didn’t. These are three of the things which I think were important in me finishing on time.
Write everytime, all the time
I’m lazy. My target was to not have to read the same paper twice unless I knew that it had the information I needed. This meant that as I read any paper and found something I might need at some point in the future (however slight that possibility might be), I jotted it down into a document named after that topic, reference and all (I used EndNote to manage my references). When I had a decent amount of notes jotted on any topic I then organised the points into a coherent report, generally with just a little more extra reading to fill in some background I hadn’t yet come across and maybe to go into depth a bit more. This also meant that if I had to refresh my memory on any topic I would have the information already at hand.
The same goes for methodologies etc. I considered all of my lab work to be similar to my undergrad laboratory sessions. After every coherent chunk of work I would write a lab report with an introduction, methods, results, discussion and conclusion finalised to a degree that is coherent should I send it to someone who wants it now and is not expecting perfection. The two lab report I had to write a week for the two years in 6th form and the 4 years of undergrad certainly came in handy!
My advice would be to write anything and everything! I did make some documents which I didn’t use, but most of the information in these documents made it into my final thesis or at least into some paper in some shape, way or form. These reports saved me a lot of time later on.
Outline
My upgrade, especially compared to most other departments/universities, was very basic: I had to submit a 5000 (max) word document including background, scope of work, aims, objectives, research questions, methodology, what I have done, what I plan to do and chapter outline (including a paragraph on what I planned to write in each chapter) – pretty much by the time I wrote one paragraph under each headline I was done. I then had to submit one piece of writing which could be anything (I submitted a paper I had published), and you must have done a presentation. You then submitted the documents the morning of the departmental meeting and got a reply by the afternoon. Considering that at the meeting mine was discussed I think they discussed around 10 other upgrade documents I am not sure they were read at all – all in all it wasn’t a useful exercise.
The one thing that I found useful was that when only a year in I had an outline I could start working with. My advice would be to write an outline (heading, subheadings) early on to get an idea of how the final thesis will look like. This will also help you locate any areas you are yet to cover, or what you might have missed in the story you are trying to present. Over the years I then started filling in the sections bit by bit at my own pace, or at least making sure I had material for each whenever I didn’t feel like doing anything else – It’s amazing how much writing you can manage when that is not what you should be doing and how little when you should!
Know your supervisor’s calendar
Make sure you check calendars with your supervisor for the last few weeks/months if you would like their input! The same goes for anyone you would like their help during that time (friends for proofreading, image making, technical support and whatnot).
During the last month my supervisor and I were only in the same country for a few days as my supervisor had conferences to attend and his summer holiday, while I had my brother’s wedding to go to a week before the decided submission date (perfect timing huh?). This meant extra stress for the two of us to make sure that we finished our work before we were off or the other were off, as well as downtime as we waited for the other to return from wherever they were. It also resulted in a meeting late on a Saturday night in a coffee shop near Green Park as my supervisor got off the Piccadilly line from Heathrow airport so that I could finish all the last edits by Monday (for submission on Tuesday). It worked, but not ideal.
Summary
Write everything and anything as you go along
Have an outline early on and start filling in the sections in your downtime
Compare calendars with your supervisor (and anyone else you need) for last weeks.
Filed under: Research Process, calendar, outline, PhD, references, reports, submission, supervisor, tips, writing