101 Top Tips for PhD Students

by Iain Woodhouse

“I wrote the book I wish I’d had when I started my PhD.” Professor Woodhouse knows a thing or two about PhDs. In December 1994 he submitted his PhD after 3 years, 1 month, and it won the Best PhD thesis award from the Remote Sensing Society. As a Professor at The University of Edinburgh he has supervised more than 50 MSc and 16 PhD students to a successful thesis submission. He has also acted as external examiner for a number of PhD students, both from UK universities and world wide, including PhD candidates at universities in Finland, Australia, Canada, South Africa and the Netherlands. He has even failed a first submission at a Viva Voce as an internal examiner! Drawing on these experiences, as both a graduate student and as a supervisor, Prof Woodhouse provides a straightforward checklist of 101 key bits of advice, from how to choose a PhD in the first place, through writing the thesis, to finally getting your first job. The advice is non-disciplinary-specific, so applies to students conducting research in any field. Before you start Getting The Right Mindset Being Effective Self Improvement Time management Working on Your Network Going to Conferences Oral Presentation Conference Dinners Poster Presentation Writing your thesis Getting Started on the Thesis Structure The Beginning Middle End The Other Bits Abstract Preface Appendices Footnotes and Endnotes Postscripts and Afterwords General Comments Size Does Matter Writer’s Block Don’t Write Forever Figures Peer Reviewed Journal Articles Checklist Finishing The Viva Voce Getting a job. Afterword

87 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 25, 2015

Reviews

[Jamie Bowen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice easy book to digest with some useful tips for every stage of a PhD. I suppose the rating should only follow after I've completed my PhD in 3 years time.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The kind of book I wish I had read at the beginning of my PhD...

... and not mid-way through my master's thesis, where it makes me completely overthink this and gets me wondering whether I will ever get a PhD position and whether my course in studies has completely gone awry these past 5 years.

Nonetheless, good advice, nice tongue in cheek humor and if the formatting was not so Word-y and the cover not so ugly, I'd give it 5/5.