ThePhDninja

From the Psych to the -ology, everything you need to know about getting a PhD* Find us on Twitter: @ThePhDninja Wordpress: http://bit.ly/1efkPAr *Disclaimer - we don't actually know everything you need to know to get a PhD, but we'll get you pretty close!

[theyuniversity]

Grammar Nazi Pirate.

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**PhD Checklist**

Before the application process

During the application process

Things to consider after the application process

And remember, always have fun!

- Dr. Double D

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Survival Guide for a PhD Student

We're ending this week with our final scheduled blog posts that are all to do with the actual PhD process, and being able to survive throughout, up until the very end! So here is a survival kit we've knocked together for you:

A Diary or an electronic Calendar is your best friend!

To-Do Lists are also good chums of yours

  Compile a useful list of resources for reading material

Make and keep a Reading/Writing schedule

Find some motivational quotes and articles. Maybe stick some on your wall. And fridge. And on all your clothes so that you’re constantly reminded of why you’re doing what you’re doing and why you should keep at it!

Make sure you have de-stressing activities (exercise, books, video games, knitting) at your disposal, and use them wisely (not for procrastination!)

Have a Happy Place/Thought that you can 'go to' when necessary

Officemates (if you have an office)/Colleagues/Other PhD Students, people who are also doing what you are doing – find them, and keep them.

Put “No” in your toolbox. Learn how and when to use it and you just might not end up having to do everything all at once whilst juggling 15 coffee cups and leaping through flaming hoops all the while belting out "Oh My Darling Clementine" at the top of your lungs.

Confidence – believe in your work and your work will believe in you! (Also, other academics and your supervisor)

Perseverance. When the going gets tough, the tough get going! But not you, you stick it out!

Most importantly – make sure you enjoy the ride! It won’t be easy but it doesn’t have to be hell.

Dr. Neo, out!

[thephdninja-blog]

Necessary Skills for a Successful PhD student

So you have got the PhD checklist and you have brushed up on your time management skills but what other skills are you going to need to get through this PhD?

So that chart may look a bit scary (particularly as this is not even an extensive list) but here’s the good news – you must already have some of those skills otherwise you would not have come this far in your academic career.

However it is a good idea to identify any weaknesses you have at the START of your PhD. That way you can you can:

a)      Plan for where you have difficulties / tasks will take you a bit longer to complete

b)      You will be less stressed when it comes to the really important stuff like doing the data analysis, writing up and getting published.

c)       You will finish your PhD with more and / or stronger skills than you had before

One way of improving your skills (particularly IT skills) is through sessions that your University might provide. Although you may be tempted not to sign up to these sessions because they can take time out of your working week, they will be worth it in the end. So if you sign up to these early (in your 1st year) then at least these sessions won’t be eating into precious time to write up your work.

The careers service at your university should also be able to point you in the direction of workshops / seminars etc. both internal and external to help you with your personal development.

Sounds like a good idea? But wondering how you are going to fit it all in and keep track of it all?

Well there are tools that can help you with improving your skills and help you keep tabs on your progress!

One of the good resources that I know of is the Vitae Researcher Development Framework Planner

(http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/291411/RDF-Professional-Development-Planner.html)

This tool allows you to identify areas of improvement and keep records of what you have done to make improvements. What I really like about it is that it allows you to set deadlines for improvements which helps motivate you to actively change your skill set so you do make improvements at your own pace.

Alternatively you could set up plans / time scales using programmes such as Excel and Project planner*.

Well that’s it from me. I hope my final piece of advice is useful to you, putting you ahead of the game before you have even started. Have fun and good luck!

-Dr Fran-kenstein

*other programs available.

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Tips on Time Management from a Serial Procrastinator

During your PhD you will have a lot of demands on your time (including: research, lab work, classes, teaching duties, meetings etc.) and it will be your responsibility to manage said time effectively in order to meet all your deadlines. This means that good time management skills are absolutely essential for a PhD student, so if you know this isn’t a strong point of yours then it might be worth getting into good habits now to prepare yourself.

As a serial procrastinator myself (semi-reformed!), I know how hard it can be to break the habit of a lifetime and actually start your work ahead of time; there are so many time-wasting traps and temptations to lead you astray...

Top ten things NOT to do when you’re on a deadline:

1.       Think that just making a list of important tasks counts as an important task. Yes, it’s very important to make task lists and schedules and suchlike to help you keep track of things. But it’s also very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that, because making the list is work related, it therefore counts as work. If you’ve put more time into making your work schedule than you have into any of the actual work on it, then you’ve probably procrastinated enough. 2.       Think that colour coding the list also counts as an important task. Seriously, put down the colouring pencils! And the highlighters. And the multi-coloured biros... When you make your task lists or schedules, start from the current day and make sure you put in a task for that day, to be completed straight away. This will encourage you to make a good start, otherwise you will have already ruined your beautiful list, and it will help you feel as though the schedule is helping you already, making you more likely to stick to it in future. 3.       Pretend that cleaning the whole house down to the skirting boards counts as a productive day. This is another tricksy one as you’re doing something that needs to be done, so you feel less guilty about not working than if you’d just watched TV. 4.       Stay up late working but then use it as an excuse to sleep all day afterwards. If you’ve been up late working hard, odds are you’re going to feel pretty tired the next day. So you’ll have a nice long lie in as a reward. The only trouble with this is that if you’re have to catch up on sleep then you will probably want to sleep for longer than normal, which then wastes more time than if you’d gone to bed a little earlier and got up and started working again at your normal time. 5.       Start reading Game of Thrones just before your dissertation is due. This is equally true of watching Breaking Bad. Or getting Candy Crush on your phone... Just say no!

6.       Make unrealistic time plans that you know you won’t stick to. To plan your time better you need to know how you work best. Do you prefer to work for long stretches so you don’t lose focus or do you prefer to take lots of little breaks so you don’t overload your brain? Are you better at focusing on one assignment at a time, or switching between assignments to keep your interest up? Thinking about your work style like this will help you to plan your time more effectively.

7.       Kid yourself that even though you can’t be bothered right now you will definitely, absolutely, 100% get it done tomorrow. Yeah right! Once you start putting things off its all too easy to keep doing so until suddenly its snowballed out of control and you only have 2 days left to write 3 assignments! Try to make a start, even if it’s something small like reading a couple of papers or making some notes and before taking the rest of the evening off. Having something down already will make it easier for you to write it up later, you might find that simply starting a project inspires you to keep going and get even more of it done. 8.   Think that, because you’ve started something you don’t need to work again for ages. This is a very common trap for people who struggle with time management (in fact, this is actually my personal weakness!) You’ve started a project ahead of time; you’ve got some research ready, a few notes or a plan; you’re feeling pretty proud of yourself for making a head start. So you think it will be fine if you leave for a couple of weeks. After all, it’s not due for ages! The problem with this approach is that you will get other assignments in the interim so the work can sneakily pile up with you noticing. Also, by the time you come back to it you may have forgotten some of the details and end up having to go back and re-read a lot of the research you already did, which means that the time you spent making a good start, was effectively wasted. Once you have started working on a project, try to come back to it at least once a week to add more research or work on the next section. This will help you make slow but steady progress and keep the work fresh in your mind. 9.    Have Facebook and iPlayer set as your internet homepages. Try getting rid of these sorts of things from your home pages as it will merely tempt you to procrastinate every time you open your laptop. If you’re on a really tight deadline then blocking them for a little while might be a good idea; it may sound silly but just making it that little bit harder to access your procrastination tools, will help you think twice about whether you should be doing something else. 10.   Tell your friends you can’t come out because you’ve got too much work. Denying yourself any time for relaxing/socialising won’t help to keep your motivation or energy up. Try to allocate some time for friends/ family/downtime each week to keep you motivated (and sane!) Just try to keep your work and social lives in a healthy, manageable balance.

The above advice may seem like common sense, but for less organised people, myself included, it can be very easy to get off track and end up with a huge stack of work, deadlines looming and a week of panic and sleepless nights to look forward to.

So I’ve told you what NOT to do, but here are some tips on what you can actually do to improve your time management skills:

Plan well ahead of time.  This applies to both long-term and short-term goals. Make sure you keep an eye on how well your PhD is progressing and whether you are on schedule to finish it, as well as planning your smaller task and assignments.

Leave enough room in your plans for flexibility.  Unexpected things happen in life and in a PhD. Make sure that you’ve left enough flexibility in your schedule to adapt and stay on track if life throws you a googly once in a while.

Learn to prioritise tasks. When you’re making your task lists try to think about how important and how urgent a task is and prioritise accordingly. Complete tasks that are both urgent and important first and then continue with important but not urgent tasks etc.

(Image retrieved from: http://www.positive-change-tools-for-success.com/Time-Management-Matrix.html )

Know your own working style and capabilities. Only you will know how you can work most effectively, so take some time to honestly consider your own style, how you can be most productive and plan your time accordingly. For example: are you more productive if you take frequent short breaks, or do you find it easier to focus on a task for a long time and rest afterwards?

Learn to say ‘no’ sometimes.  It can be very hard to say no to your supervisor when they ask you to do something but you have to be realistic about how much you can take on at once. There’s no point agreeing to a task if you KNOW you won’t be able to complete it in time or to the desired standard.

Respect deadlines!

If you’re getting behind, tell someone! Speak to your advisor if you feel that you are falling behind, and don’t wait too long to do this. The sooner you address the problem, the easier it will be to fix.

Use your time effectively/Learn to multi-task.

Update and refine your task lists every day. This will help you keep track of your progress and which tasks you need to prioritise the next day.

Keep a good lab notebook. Keeping detailed notes about your methods, lab protocols and analysis as you go will help you write up these parts of your thesis later on.

Meet with your supervisor regularly. Part of your supervisor’s role is to help you to make the most of your PhD and keep you from going way off track and wasting time.

Make some time for yourself!

I hope these tips will be of some help to you lovely ninjas as you progress through your PhD’s. For further information on effective time management and a truly inspiring lecture, check out this link: http://www.awakenedamerican.com/content/randy-pausch-lecture-time-management

Finally I’d like to say a huge thank you to Dr Emily Cross from Bangor University for letting us source information from her  Introduction to a PhD presentation “Getting the Most Out of Your PhD: Expectation, Organisation & Strategy” . Her presentation featured excellent advice and information on time management, which really helped to shape this post.

-Dr L

[thephdninja-blog]

Diagram from "The Scientific Century" by the Royal Society. Their caption reads "This diagram illustrates the transition points in typical academic scientific careers following a PhD and shows the flow of scientifically-trained people into other sectors. It is a simplified snapshot based on recent data from HEFCE, the Research Base Funders Forum and for the Higher Education Statistics Agency's annual Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey. It also draws on Vitae's analysis of the DLHE survey. It does not show career breaks or moves back into academic science from other sectors.

Source: Dr. Emily Cross, Bangor University - "Getting the most out of your PhD: Expectations, Organisation & Strategy" (presentation)

[mylifeasagradstudent]

Academia, especially in the humanities and the social sciences, is a total culture. It colonizes most aspects of your life. You are never not an academic–the little mental tape recorder is on all the time, or it had better be if you want to be good at this life. Anything is grist for my mill as a teacher and a scholar, and that is as it should be. Graduate school is, if anything, even more totalizing than this. It gets into your pores. Somewhere in the back of your head, your dissertation or your oral exams will be burrowing outwards through your brain tissue with incisors of fear.

Should You Go to Graduate School? | Easily Distracted (via mylifeasagradstudent)

I couldn’t agree more!  

(via gradschoolmeditations)

[thephdninja-blog]

Interview Dos and Don'ts

DO dress appropriately and professionally – whether this means wearing a suit or just a sensible (think visiting conservative relatives) outfit, make an effort, be tidy, and tick that “good first impression” box!

DON’T make inappropriate comments, rude jokes etc. Remember this is a professional setting, so even if you are made to feel very comfortable, watch what you say very carefully! The interview lasts from the moment you see the interviewer to the moment you are no longer in each other’s company. Even if you are not answering a formal question, or are just having a chat, you are still being assessed, so make sure you don’t say anything you wouldn’t say during an interview!

DO make sure you know exactly where you’re going and how to get there. It is important to show that you are able to think ahead and plan successfully. And on a related note:

DON’T be late! Leave at least half an hour before your appointment if you don’t know the area or building, to allow yourself time to get lost! If you know the place well, then arrive at least fifteen minutes in advance.

DO prepare. There are plenty of resources online with example questions, read them, practice answering them, and make sure you are comfortable with your answers. Look in your application for questions that might arise, make sure you can answer just about everything concerning your research!

DON’T PANIC! The panel knows you are nervous, and they expect that you might make some mistakes. If you do, don’t flail or make a big deal out of it, compose yourself and move on.

DO study up on your interviewers (if you know who they will be in advance), and make sure you know how to address them and how they are relevant to the position you are applying for!

DON’T ask your interviewers what their work is on, if you would like to talk about it, do your research, read a couple of their papers, and bring it up if relevant!

DO say if you don’t know something! They WILL know if you are making something up, and it will make you look much more unprofessional than admitting that you don’t know the answer to a question, then offering possible solutions like where you would find the information from.

DON’T take all the time in the world to answer questions! No one will be timing you (in most cases) when you are given a certain amount of time for questions, so make sure you are on the ball and aren’t wasting time. Even if what you’re saying is impressive, if you take 40 minutes to complete a 20 minute interview that will create a bad impression.

DO ask questions. You can either prepare these in advance or wing it, but having a couple of interesting questions about the post or the work is what makes a lot of interview candidates stand out. Be one of them! But,

DON’T ask stupid questions. Now while it’s true that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, there are some that you just shouldn’t be asking in an interview setting. These are anything practical to do with the position that you can find out via admin routes (hours, pay etc.) and especially anything that was already in the grant/proposal/advert. 

And anwyay, what's the worst that could happen??

[thephdninja-blog]

Interview Questions

Hi Ninjas, as you may or may not have noticed yet, this week’s posts are all about preparing for interviews and presenting yourself. As part of this I’ll be talking about the types of questions you might get asked in an interview and why you’ll be asked them and giving you a few tips on how to respond.

Unfortunately there’s no way you can ever prepare for every possible question you might get asked, but practising on similar style questions will make it much easier to interpret and answer such questions in your interview. So my advice to all of you is to find a friend you’re comfortable with and practise asking and answering interview questions with each other; even if it’s really informal and degenerates into silly answers and giggling, if it gets you thinking about the questions then it is all good practice! Also, if any of you have any examples of super-tough interview questions, or want to share your own interview stories, then please go ahead and comment. We’d love to hear them and your fellow ninjas may find it useful.

Interview questions can often sound very challenging but most of the time each question will have a specific aim that can be identified by simply breaking it down and considering exactly what qualities that question is trying to assess. Take the classic example: “What is your greatest weakness?” This is a tricky question to answer as you will probably feel as though admitting to a fatal flaw could jeopardise your chances of getting the position, but nobody is going to believe you if you say you don’t have any weaknesses.

What an interviewer wants to find out with this question is whether you can honestly and accurately assess your own abilities AND also to take steps to reduce the impact of any weaknesses on your work. An ideal answer to this question would be to identify a real weakness of yours and either talk about what you do to overcome it, or how you have turned it into a strength (or both!).

  Broadly speaking there are five main types of questions you will get asked during an interview:

Questions to assess your academic knowledge/skills. These will depend on the PhD you are applying for, so make sure you swot up on the main topics and methods in your area beforehand. It is also worth bearing in mind that, depending on who is conducting the interview, your interviewer may not be as familiar with the topic as you are, or they could be an expert in the field. So try to pitch your answers at the right level; avoid using lots of jargon as it may not be understood by a non-expert, but also don’t skim over important or difficult concepts as an expert may think that you don’t really know your stuff.

Questions about why you want this specific PhD, or why you want to work in that specific department. These questions are designed to assess both your passion and your knowledge, so again make sure you do your research about the course and the department. They want to know that you’re interested in them and their work, not just any PhD you can get your hands on. They may also want to know about how you plan to approach your research should you get the PhD, so make sure you’ve considered things like: the time course of your project and how you will complete it on schedule, some details of the methods you want to use, what you will do if you don’t find what you’re expecting, and what sort of resources you will need. This is where having to write those darn research proposals will come in handy!

Questions all about YOU. (For example, about your personality, work ethic, experience, academic/research skills, ambitions for the future etc.) Think ahead about the qualities you want to portray and some instances when you have displayed those qualities or skills. While it can be ok to use examples from your personal life, they are likely to be more interested in examples from a university or work setting as they will want to assess how you will deal with the challenges of a professional, academic environment. Having said that, interviewers will of course want to get a sense of your personality during the interview as well, so some personal touches wouldn’t go amiss as long as they are appropriate for the context.

Scenario-based questions. (Such as: ethical dilemmas, problem solving, dealing with challenging work situations etc.) This type of question will almost definitely come up if you are applying for a PhD that involves working with a clinical or vulnerable population or one that will include some teaching duties. For the former, I would recommend familiarising yourself with general ethical guidelines for the type of work you would be doing as this will help you to give a more informed answer if you are presented with a scenario involving an ethical dilemma. For the latter, try to think ahead about: how you would approach teaching and motivating students, what sort of teaching strategies you find effective as a student, or whether you have had any experience teaching others and how you approached it. For example, if you have worked as a tutor before or even just helped your friends when they have had trouble understanding a topic, think about what sort of methods you found most effective and how you could apply them in a classroom situation.

Oddball questions. These tend to be more common in job interviews than PhD interviews but you might still get a couple, so it is worth being as prepared as you can for them (luckily these ones tend to be the most fun to practise with friends!) Some of these sorts of questions may sound strange but there is usually a reason the interviewer is asking them. A good example I heard recently was: “Explain your undergraduate research project as though you were talking to your grandmother”.  For an interviewer this is a great question as it allows them to assess your ability to think on your feet and your ability to present relevant information in a way that is accessible to everyone, whilst also giving them some insight into your previous research experience.

The key points to take from the above list are: researching your topic, course and department is vital for an interview; and learning to break down questions (and practising doing this) will help you to give the best possible answers in an interview.

A few other quick tips:

Dress appropriately!

Prepare key qualities and skills you want to mention along with examples of times you have shown them.

Try to build a rapport with your interviewer, but remember to take the lead from them. If your interviewer is being very formal then cracking jokes may not be a good idea, but if they are treating more like a friendly chat then you should treat it the same way.

Avoid just saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question as it doesn’t demonstrate any further knowledge, thought or skill and it won’t help the conversation to flow smoothly.

It’s ok to disagree with your interviewer. They will want know you have your own opinions and can back them up with facts and research and they may welcome a certain amount of friendly debate about a topic. Just remember to keep it as a FRIENDLY debate; getting into a fight with the interviewer is not the best strategy...

Come with your own questions about the course or the university (though preferably not questions you could have easily found out yourself!)

To help you get practising I’ve listed some example questions below along with some links to other articles on preparing for interviews. I hope you have fun practising with your friends and I wish you all the best of luck for your future interviews!

-Dr L

Example Questions:

Give an example of a time when you showed initiative.

Give an example of a time when you showed resilience.

Why this course?

What are your greatest strengths?

What makes you different from any other candidate?

How do you cope with failure?

How would your undergraduate/masters supervisor describe you?

How would you handle a disagreement with your supervisor?

Describe the statistical analyses you used for your undergraduate research project.

Is there a place for social media in academia?

How would you approach teaching statistics to an undergraduate class?

How do you cope with time pressure?

Where do you hope to be in 5 years?

Are you applying for other PhD courses?

What do you think you would find most difficult about this PhD?

Some useful/interesting links:

http://www.postgrad.com/editorial/advice/phd/interview_dos_and_donts/

http://www.studential.com/postgraduate/study/PhD/interviews

http://studylink.co.uk/postgraduate-advice/the-top-10-interview-questions-and-how-to-answer-them/

Also, when saying “I don’t know” in an interview can be useful: http://business.time.com/2013/10/21/three-little-words-to-never-ever-say-in-an-interview/?iid=obnetwork

[thephdninja-blog]

Impactful Impact statements and more

Applications are something we all have to fill out so...

Here’s my stress-free guide to an easy application process

*ideas don’t necessarily have to be awesome but, write it so your personality shines through and please.... DON’T LIE.

- Application forms and all their subsections are a way to get to know a prospective PhD candidate. It allows them to assess your knowledge, passion and motivations to working in an academic environment over the next three years. Don't panic, if you're this far into the process, you are clearly interested in academia in one way or another, find your niche, show your passion and put that across in your written application

                         -    Write down things you are involved in; both academic and extracurricular activities and identify the role you take and what you've learnt. Provide some examples of teaching, as PhD studentships often have an element of teaching undergrads. 

- Everyone has had interesting experiences, WRITE THEM DOWN!

- Not everyone goes on gap years or has travelled round the southern hemisphere (other hemispheres included) but that doesn’t matter. At least identify things you've done that relate to the position you're applying for.  Just because you scaled Everest blindfolded, doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to walk into a PhD. Make sure you have relevant experience which shows you can use your initiative, are hard-working and that you can communicate with a variety of people. Potential supervisors want to know that you are reliable. 

-   Show your passion for research and your ideas about the current direction your chosen field is going in. 

Running low on ideas?

Here’s some buzzwords to help you through >>>>   

Self-Motivated

Creative

Deep thinker

Passionate

Productive

Reliable

Outgoing

KISS - NO, Not that type of kiss.

Remember to: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID

More importantly.... Don’t let this be you!!!!

There's more helpful titbits here:

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/ris/funding/impact.html 

- Dr. Double D 

[thephdninja-blog]

Presentation, presentation, presentation!

Presentations......”yay!” Nobody particularly likes having to give presentations but we all have to do it at some point and you will almost definitely be asked to prepare one for your PhD interview. So Dr. Neo and I have a few tips to help you prepare.

So there are 3 different things you need to think about:

What you are presenting

How you are presenting it

How are you presenting yourself

What you are presenting.

-Research what you are going to talk about.

- Have you narrowed the area down to the relevant bits? Nobody wants to hear the whole history of something (unless that is literally what the title of the project is – but even then you need to focus on the main bits).

-Put your own spin on it. Make sure that your point of view is expressed (with evidence to back up your opinion of course).

 How are you presenting it?

Yourself

-          Tone of voice. Keep it appropriate to the subject but make sure it shows your enthusiasm. Also if you tend to have a monosyllabic voice try to work on this. It is likely to make any topic sound dull and that you are not that enthusiastic about it when you rally are.

-          Choice of language. Colloquial terms are not appropriate and if you are going to use abbreviations explain them first.

-          Posture. Stand tall and face the interviewers. This will demonstrate that you are confident and that you know what you are going to say. Try not to turn your back to the interviewers for long periods of time when you are explaining graphs etc

-          Are the interviewers straining to hear you or are you too loud? Practice with some friends to get a feel for how loud you need to be.

You also need to think about your presentation slides:

-          Are they clear?

-          Too many words on each slide?

-          Appropriate images / graphs /tables etc?

-          Logical flow e.g intro à main body à summary

  How are you presenting yourself?

You may think that this was all covered in the previous bit but there is more!

You also need to think about what you are going to wear. You may think that this is not really that important and that you have more important things to be thinking about, but you do need to put some thought into it. How you physically present says a lot about you as a person.

-          Without a doubt you need to dress in smart clothes. This means guys really should be in suits with a tie and guys should wear a smart shirt and skirt / trousers or dress.

-          Think about patterns and colours. This applies to girls and guys! If you wear colours that compliment each other and you haven’t put lots of different clashing patterns together then it shows that you have thought about your outfit and that you are a “well put together person”.

-          Make sure that no matter what you wear that it is clean, it actually fits you and that you have ironed it.

  So to sum up my tips:

-Research your topic.

-Practice your presentation.

-Think about how you are coming across as a person.

And generally:

“Prepare to fail, don’t fail to prepare!”

Good Luck

-Dr Fran-kenstein

[thephdninja-blog]

Pr                                                         es

                                    ent                               ation

                                                                                                matters.

(Moving on swiftly..)

  So Dr. Fran-Kenstein’s already addressed quite a few practical presentation tips, and I won’t labor the point! Instead I’m going to talk about a couple of secrets I’ve learned from my experience giving multiple types of presentations, and evaluating my fair share too, in the hopes that I can alleviate some presentation jitters.

During my undergraduate course we had to attend a class, led by a fellow student, whose sole purpose was to enable presentation and public speaking practice in an academic environment. I spent two years leading some of these classes, and I can easily name the one thing that stands out to me as the most hair raising, cringe worthy faux-pas a presenter could ever do. Cue the “I’m sorry I’m just a little nervous”. STOP right there. You NEVER start a presentation by telling your audience that you’re nervous. The same goes for nervous fidgeting, sighing, or any overt behavior that displays nervousness. It is completely unnecessary to inform your audience that you are feeling nervous. I can tell you there is not a single person out there that doesn’t know what it feels like to address a room full of people, and the terror it can induce! Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t be feeling nervous, it is a completely natural and justifiable experience in this context. However, this is precisely why when you tell your audience that you are feeling nervous; it’s like admitting that you are more nervous than is expected. And this can easily be interpreted as lack of preparation, a lack of practice, or a lack of confidence in your abilities. And if the first thing you do before you’ve even started, is tell your audience that you’re going to try to convince them about something you can’t even convince yourself about, you’re not getting off to a great start. “But I hate public speaking!” I hear you cry. Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to love it, you just have to BLAG it!

  B: Be Prepared. If you’re a nervous speaker, you want to make sure you know your presentation like the back of your hand! If you don’t rely on cue cards, you can move around freely, look at your audience, point to the screen, and generally allow yourself the freedom of being fluent in your topic so as to create a more confident appearance.

L: Leave Room for Error. Sometimes, things just go wrong, and it’s important that you don’t let technical errors, word finding problems, or a difficult question spin you into an irrecoverable panic. Again, your audience is not alienated from you, they have all been in the same position as you, and they have all probably encountered some issues whilst presenting before. They really are more forgiving than you give them credit for! Smile, laugh it off, take a deep breath, apologise for the error, just say if you don’t know something and carry on with your presentation.

A: Act Confident! Don’t tell your audience that you are nervous or unprepared or insecure. Don’t fidget, stand your feet comfortably so that you have a firm base on the ground. Make sure your hands aren’t wringing together, or playing with something while you talk. Speak loudly, clearly and at a good pace (practice at home, film yourself and nail your presentation voice!). Look at your audience, and don’t worry, this doesn’t actually have to involve looking at anyone specifically! Scan your eyes over the room slowly and make sure you’re paying equal attention to every part of the audience, and focus your eyes on items that are in between speakers or to the back wall of the room. Engage with them!

G: Gesture, Gesticulate and Gesture Some More. Body language matters! Making sure your hands are free is important not only because it will stop you from fidgeting nervously, but also because you can then use them to emphasise your points, by employing useful, informative movements. On the other hand, don’t let your nervousness or excitedness get the better of you, if you’re flailing around the room like seaweed in a whirlpool (how’d you like that metaphor huh?), this will have the complete opposite effect, and detract from your presentation instead of add to it.

  And with that I leave you with the ever inspirational Ron Swanson and his words of wisdom:

Dr. Neo

More information on giving kick-ass academic presentations:

http://getalifephd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/how-to-give-fabulous-academic.html

[thephdninja-blog]

The PhD chooses the academic, remember?

On picking the right PhD subject

So you have decided that for the next 3-4 years of your life you want to toil over research. To pour blood sweat and tears into a huge piece of work that will be yours and that will serve as (for most of you) your initiation into the world of academia. The first thing you should know is that you have to be prepared to work hard. The second is that if this thought fills you with dread, make sure you are making the right choice to pursue an academic career! To quote Dr. Emily Cross (BangorUniversity), “If research is your passion, this [working 50-60 hour weeks] is actually easy to do. If it isn’t your passion, then you are probably in the wrong field. You should be going to work because you want to, not because you have to.”

Now that I have hammered that point home a little more, time to address a very important question that we have been requested to cover; how do you pick your area and subject for your PhD?? For a few of us, this decision might be a little easier. If you have applied to work on a specific research question, or you have already been working in a lab as an undergraduate, postgraduate student, or research assistant, you might already have the field narrowed down. In general though, even if this is not the case, you want to be able to say with certainty that there is at least one area that you know you could spend the next 4 years of your life exploring.

If however you find the possibilities are endless, and that you have no idea where to start, here are a couple of tips.

1. The first rule of Academia is: You do not talk about Academia.

Err.. I mean, read read read!

 No ideas (or no good ones anyway) will come to you if you have no theoretical background to place them in. In order to be able to come up with interesting questions, you need to be aware of interesting things. Hopefully by this stage in your career you will be familiar with reading papers, and if not, make sure you start getting familiar with doing so. Read as much as you can and as broad as you can! Get to know your general area(s) of interest right from the first key papers in the field, all the way down to the newest studies that are currently making waves. Once you start accumulating this knowledge you will naturally find yourself asking questions. These are the questions you want to then continue to explore until you find yourself with a question that hasn’t already been covered. And as soon as you think that you’ve got there, go out and read some more! Change fields, browse biology, marketing and linguistic journals – make sure you have come up with something truly novel, a question just burning for an answer.

2. When life gives you lemons, come up with a badass research question!

 Now that you have your golden apple, the hard work really starts. You want to look at this baby from every angle possible, scrutinizing every nook and cranny, poking holes in it and questioning everything about it, until you make sure your Helen is truly safe inside Troy’s walls. Ask yourself why is this an important question? What does it offer that hasn’t already been given? This is not the same as ‘Has this question been asked before’, your question really needs to provide the opportunity of revealing some truly valuable information. And the only way to do this is to make sure you have thoroughly addressed every part of it to make sure that the end goal is a finding that contributes to science but also has implications for real world applications.

  3. Bring it all out, and then rein it back in again.

 So your foundations are laid, you have your big world changing question, and you’re ready to build your own lab, employ 5 grad students and spend the rest of your life funneling millions into your wonder-project of joy! (Or, you think you have a question that you might just be interested in enough to consider studying for the next 4 years, and that someone might just consider employing you to study). Now comes the real hard work. You need to make sure that your question is actually answerable within the time frame that you have to answer it. No matter how ground breaking your research might be, if your supervisor/program/university doesn’t allow you the funds and time to carry it out, you won’t be the desirable candidate. Your population needs to be reasonable and your methods obtainable; don’t propose an fMRI study if you cannot get access to an MRI machine, and don’t propose a developmental study with 7 month old babies if your university does not have a resource for infant recruitment. Be practical and sensible, make sure you have small manageable projects, suitable for producing a good few studies (at least 3) throughout your PhD, that all tie together to address one big issue.

Next consider the topic of supervision. Here are a just a few things to consider when picking a supervisor that is right for you:

How much freedom will I have to come up with independent studies?

How much guidance will I get given with design, data collection, analysis and write up?

What methods is my supervisor able to use and what will I have to teach myself?

And most importantly, is my supervisor a researcher in my field of interest, and someone who can promote me as a new academic in this field? It is very important to choose supervisors wisely, and whether picking someone to work with is the first or the last thing you do, it should definitely influence and shape your PhD question when that decision is made, based on their interests and input.

  Finally, be aware that the chances of you choosing a topic now that you will remain interested in for the rest of your life are pretty slim. But don’t fret! Research isn’t rigid and your idea will almost definitely change from what you originally have planned. Other questions will come up; other areas might become relevant, and your supervisors, research committee, peers or grandma might each offer up some insight that could help keep your interest going for the entire time it takes to finish. Also, know that all PhD students get bored and frustrated with their subjects at some point; it is natural and is bound to happen when you spend most of your time doing one thing.

  So, I invite you to join me in some serious studying to find the topic that is juuuust right!

Dr. Neo

More on picking the right poison:

Discusses practicalities of coming up with an original question http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/choosing-a-phd-subject/210079.article

Good advice both for choosing and progressing your PhD project http://www.findaphd.com/advice/finding/choosing-phd-research-project.aspx

Written for a non-psychology degree but still generalisable http://srem-mentoring.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/how-to-choose-dissertation-topic-four.html

Tips on choosing the right supervisor http://www.findaphd.com/advice/finding/choosing-phd-supervisor.aspx

  *We would like to say a special thank you to Dr. Emily Cross from Bangor University for allowing us to source material from her Introduction to a PhD presentation “Getting the Most Out of Your PhD: Expectation, Organisation & Strategy”. Her presentation has served as an excellent source of first hand information on the PhD process, what supervisors expect from you, and how to make the most of it all, and we’ll be featuring a lot more of it throughout the blog.

[mermaidsandmistletoe-archiv-blog]

“some scientists agree”. what does that mean. some scientists. that could be two scientists. two scientists agree. two agreeable scientists isnt very credible. do it again. more scientists.

[transhumanisticpanspermia]

[the-gallium-knight]

this is my favorite post

[thephdninja-blog]

How to write a PhD Research Proposal – a step-by-step guide (with added cats!)

Hello again ninjas, I hope your PhD searches are going well so far! As you may have guessed from the title, my post today is going to be all about writing a research proposal for a PhD. Not the most exciting of topics I know (and its going to be a long one too!), but a solid research proposal is a really important part of your application. It’s your first chance to really show off your knowledge, academic skills, and ideas to the folks who’ll be choosing between you and all the other bright young things vying for the same PhD. So, to help you get started, here’s my step-by-step guide to writing a research proposal. Also, there will be CATS.

STEP 1: DON’T PANIC!

Now I don’t know about any of you, but many peoples’ initial reaction to having to write a research proposal is something akin to:

 maybe if I hide under this newspaper long enough it’ll go away and write itself....

But there’s no need for this fear of research proposals! Hopefully, if you’ve been following the advice in our previous posts, then the PhD’s you’re applying for should be in subjects that you’re passionate about. Writing a proposal is a great opportunity to find out more about your chosen topic and really get to grips with the research area around it. Also, your PhD proposal isn’t fixed forever based on this proposal; you will be able to refine it once you’ve started, so try not to think of this as having to decide and plan your whole PhD right now, but more as a chance to explore possible research questions in your area. You should find reading around your topic and coming up with your own ideas to be an interesting, enjoyable and even inspiring process.

  STEP 2: READ THE GUIDELINES!!!

If you only remember one step from this blog then please make it this one. Different Universities and different departments will often have slightly different expectations for exactly what should be in a research proposal.  Most universities will have a section on their website with basic guidelines on what they expect from a research proposal, including things like: what sections you should include, the word limit, and what features they feel are important. Remember, your ideas may be brilliant but if you submit a proposal that doesn’t meet the university’s criteria then they may think that you either cannot follow instructions or haven’t bothered to read them, neither of which are desirable qualities in a prospective student!

This instruction manual is a very moving read but so far there’s not been much on how you actually kill mockingbirds...

STEP 3: RESEARCH & GENERATE IDEAS

If you’re applying for a PhD then odds are you’re probably fairly practised at researching a given topic AND you’re probably fairly familiar with the area you’re interested in already, so I’m not going to go into loads of detail here, just a few key things to bear in mind.

The first is to try and keep your research instinct under control! Of course you don’t want to have too little research in there, but it can be very tempting to waste a lot of time searching for the elusive “Perfect Paper” and end up not having enough time to write it up properly, or not having enough words to cram all your wonderful research and ideas into.

Research cat WILL find the “Purrfect Paper”!

My second tip is to keep notes as you’re researching, which should include the name and authors of the paper you’re looking at, and the key points you want to take from it. This may seem ridiculously obvious but keeping notes will help you keep track of things you want to mention and where you found them. It will also help you to organise your thoughts and arguments when it comes to writing up your proposal, and I promise you will appreciate having them when you are writing your reference list. Along with scribbling down notes about what you’re researching, also make a note of questions and ideas you have as you go, as these will help you to generate your research questions.

When it comes to generating ideas for your proposal, you must make sure that your idea is both novel and testable. As you research, try to find gaps in the literature which would be within the realms of possibility for you to test/investigate, and which would bring something new and valuable to the area.

Finally, try to keep your ideas as simple as you can; if your question is too huge or complex then your application may not be accepted simply because they didn’t feel that it would be achievable within 3 years.

It’s so simple!!

STEP 4: CONTACT SUPERVISORS

Contacting potential supervisors before applying is a great opportunity to check how well your research interests match up with theirs and whether they would be interested in your ideas about the area.  Discussing your ideas with potential supervisors will also help you to narrow them down into coherent research questions, and it will give you the opportunity to begin articulating them in an academic style, both of which will help you when you come to writing them up.

So tell me more about this ‘Liquid Cat’ theory of yours

STEP 5: PLAN -> DRAFT -> WRITE

This is another point that you’ve probably all heard before but I really cannot stress enough how valuable planning is to academic writing, and this is especially true when there are defined criteria you need to meet and a word limit to keep to. Try sketching out your plan within the framework of the guidelines for the proposal, so that you have some idea of what you will be writing for each section. Then each subsequent draft will simply involve fleshing out your original plan more and more.

Most universities will expect you to include the following sections in your research proposal:

Title: Your title should give the reader a clear and concise view of the intent of your research (i.e. remember to include key words and make it obvious what you will be focusing on)

Overview: This section should give a BRIEF overview of the key issues in your research, why they are worthy of investigation and what sort of approach you will take. Many universities will also want you to include in this section why you want to work in that specific department or with a specific researcher (they want to see how your project will complement the strengths of the department or supervisor).

Brief literature review: This should ground your ideas in the previous literature and show the context of your ideas.This section should be structured so that you go from broad to narrow, beginning with a review of the major topics in the field and then slowly narrowing the focus until you arrive at your research question. You should also make sure that your argument highlights the novelty and importance of your question; a research proposal is a lot like a persuasive essay in that your aim is to persuade the reader that your research will be valuable, so you want to make it very clear what new and interesting things you will be bringing to the area with your work.

Proposed Design, Methodology & Timescale: Generally this section would include: the exact questions/hypotheses, the main research methods you plan to use, the main stages/timescale of your investigation, and any problems, challenges or delays you may face.

References

  Don’t forget that part of the reason universities want you to write a research proposal is so that they can assess your academic knowledge, critical thinking/analysis skills and writing skills. They will be looking for you to display a good academic/scientific writing style, a cogent analysis of previous literature, and a well-supported and well-argued proposal. They will also expect it to be clear, concise and coherent. Planning and drafting your work will help you to achieve this, as having something in which the order and flow of your ideas is already decided makes it much easier to focus on your style and tone when writing up.

  STEP 6: SEEK FEEDBACK

 Find some people you trust to give you truly honest feedback and ask them very nicely to proofread your work (here is where it really pays off to have made good contacts in your time as an Undergraduate or Masters student). Ideally, you would want both: someone who is familiar with the field (such as a lecturer or previous supervisor) and someone to whom the area is completely new (such as a relative or a friend from a different department) to read your work. This will allow you to get feedback both on how good your academic content is and on how clearly you have expressed yourself.

STEP 7: REVIEW

Before you send your proposal off, always be sure to make time for a final proofread. I personally like to leave it a few days/a week between finishing a piece of work and proofreading it, as it allows me to look at it with fresh eyes and makes it easier to spot mistakes.

Think about:

Have you met all of the university/department’s criteria?

Have you addressed any problems that came up when you were getting feedback?

Is everything referenced properly?

Is my spelling and grammar absolutely perfect? – this is especially important as at PhD level you will be expected to have extremely good writing skills. A research proposal that is littered with typos looks sloppy and will make you stand out for all the wrong reasons.

This is not the cat you’re looking for.

This is the cat you’re looking for.

STEP 8: SEND! And breathe a sigh of relief...

Your proposal should now be ready to send off with the rest of your application, so be very proud and put your feet up for a bit. Unless this was only your first proposal of many you have to write... in which case: back to work you sluggards!

One helpful link:

http://www.findaphd.com/advice/finding/writing-phd-research-proposal.aspx

Some examples of different university’s proposal criteria:

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/sociology/postgraduate/research_degrees/apply/how_to_write_an_MPhil_PhD_research_degree_proposal.page

http://www.lums.lancs.ac.uk/phd/PhDproposal/

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/edres/study/postgrad/proposals.htm

http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/research/postgraduateresearch/writingaresearchproposal/

[mastercatscinema]

My pizza! Via the Chive. 

[thephdninja-blog]

Cats and Pizza.

This needs no further explanation

*edit* and here you were, thinking I wouldn't deliver on my promises of cats and pizza. Well you were wrong!

Love, Dr. Neo

[thephdninja-blog]

Writing a CV

So you are filling out that application form and a CV is being requested. As if there are enough ways of formatting your CV it’s slightly different when applying for jobs in academia. For jobs academia (including PhDs) you are really being asked to produce your academic CV. As I’m sure you have already guessed this type of CV should be focused on the academic work such as your undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and any relevant experiences.  This is not to say that you cannot mention a part time job that wasn’t in an academic environment such as being a sales assistant, but that this type of work should not take priority on your academic CV.

So what should you include?

Education

For your undergraduate and / or postgraduate degree(s):

 -What was your degree?

 -What degree classification?

 - Title of your dissertation

 - Who supervised this project?

 - What grade were you awarded for your dissertation?

Relevant Employment

In this section you need to mention any paid employment that is relevant to the job. For example if the PhD that you are applying for is in the field of Dementia then you would want to mention any relevant experiences such as working in care home for people with Dementia.

-          Position held

-          Name of organisation

-          Start – end of employment mm/yyyy  e.g  June 2013-December 2013

-          Brief description of your role. Note the emphasis on keeping it brief. Potential employers will have several CVs to read. Therefore you want to make sure that they have a good idea of who you are and what experience you have without having to trawl through pages and pages of info!

Other Employment

This is where you can mention part time / summer jobs that you have held but aren’t relevant to the field of work that you are trying to enter. It’s still important to mention this type of work because usually they demonstrate that you have other key skills such as working in a team or using supervision effectively. However as previously mentioned you don’t want to end up with a CV that is more than 2 or 3 pages at the most*! So if you already have your CV filled by the above sections and your contact details then consider not including this section.

Academic Achievements

This is actually quite an important section. This section is where you need to include conferences that you have presented your work at, any publications or if you were awarded any scholarships for your undergraduate postgraduate degrees.

Voluntary Work / Other Achievements

So if you have done some voluntary work that’s great! It’s a great way of gaining some experience and may give you an advantage when you are looking for paid work. But it is generally not rated as highly as paid employment. Therefore this is another section that you may not wish to include if you feel that it does not add anything to your CV other than to the length of it. 

(You can format this in the same way as you have done for paid employment).

Contact details and Referees

So hopefully you have a professional email address by now! If not now would be a good time...

Your contact details are important – so make sure you get them right. You want them to contact you, particularly if they are going to invite you to an interview right?

You may want to include referees on your CV but you need to think about this. First of all if you want to list referees and contact details make sure that the referees are happy for you to do this beforehand. Second, by doing this you are basically giving out the message to potential employers that you have referees that are

a) going to give you a good reference

 b) happy to be contacted at whatever stage in the application process – meaning that the potential employer could assume that you are giving them consent to ask for references. Therefore employers may not notify you that they have done this until afterwards. This works for some people but others may want to check that they are still going to get a good reference first. You may want to check this if it was some time since you worked with that person. Do they still remember you?  Are you still on good terms? If you are using a referee you worked with a some time ago are they still appropriate?

Formatting

As if knowing what you should / should not put on your CV, how you should / should not phrase it (and actually having the motivation to do it) wasn’t stressful enough, there is the issue of formatting it.

Key point of your CV – It’s to get you SHORTLISTED for an interview. Therefore you want to make sure that the format that you use makes your CV clear, simple and easy to read. Let the information do the talking not the format. That means don’t do things such as using different coloured text to make your CV “stand out” or to make you appear “creative”. (Yes people have been known to do this for these purposes and it has made them stand out as UNSUITABLE)!

There are some pretty cool websites out there like visualresume.com that can help you build / format your CV. Although it may be tempting to go for one of those funky looking formats they are generally not suitable for academia.  

Just keep it simple:

-Black text, 12pt in fonts that are widely used such as Times New Roman, Arial and Calibri.

- Separate section with spaces (not too large though) or with horizontal lines (they don’t need to span the whole way across the page).

-Make headings / titles clear using bold or making the text slightly larger.

Finishing touches

Finally when you have developed enough motivation to write your CV, using a checklist (such as the one below) may help you feel that you produced something that you would be proud to show others, a sense of achievement and confident that it will shortlist you for that interview.

CV Checklist:

-Is your name is on it? (Ideally at the top)

- Checked it for grammar and spelling?

- Do you have a copy to keep?

-Does it accentuate your skills?

-Does this CV give an overall positive impression of you?

- Should you get shortlisted for interview would you be happy be asked questions about the information on your CV? (You haven’t lied have you)?

  Hopefully this has inspired you to get writing your CV for that application. So open up that word document and get typing!

 -Dr Fran-kenstein

*Once you get into the world of academia then longer CVs are acceptable (as long as it’s all relevant info). This is because the length of your CV should have increased if lots of you work has been published! Also be careful when looking for any other info regarding academic CVs – it might be more relevant for after you have completed your PhD.