How to Get a PhD

Course Work and Contemplation Research Proposal Literature Review Research Paraphernalia Publications Disserta
HOW TO GET A PHD
Muhammad Adil Raja
Roaming Researchers, Inc.
March 29, 2015
cbnd

OUTLINE
1 COURSE WORK AND CONTEMPLATION
2 RESEARCH PROPOSAL
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
4 RESEARCH
5 PARAPHERNALIA
6 PUBLICATIONS
7 DISSERTATION
8 DISSERTATION DEFENSE
9 MANAGING YOUR PHD BLUES
10 CONCLUSIONS

COURSE WORK AND CONTEMPLATION
Under normal circumstances you enroll in a graduate
school before formally embarking on a PhD journey.
Choosing a discipline that you like is natural.
In certain universities you have to do considerable
coursework before landing on your research work.
American Universities.
Other Universities allow you to start research work outright
as a postgraduate master’s student.
British and European universities and research institutions.
Contemplate during this period what you really want to do
as a researcher.
Learn to ﬁgure out what you really love to do.
Ask yourself this question again and again: Do I really
want to do a PhD?

RESEARCH PROPOSAL I
Many institutions can assign you a problem as you enroll
for a PhD.
Beneﬁts: You don’t have to do any labor in ﬁguring out
what you would love to do.
Drawback: You would be forced to fall in love with the
fantasies of your supervisor.
The best thing is to have an idea about what you want to
do.
Review the literature thoroughly.
Normally this has already been done due to years of
studies in the graduate school.
Choose a problem (or a problem domain) that fascinates
you.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL II
Write a research proposal about that.
Develop good writing skills, reading comprehension, and
perform a thorough literature review.
A research proposal is all about what you would really like
to do as a researcher during your PhD studies.
Components of a Research Proposal:
Abstract.
Introduction.
Literature Review.
Methodlogy.
Include a Gantt chart here.
Objectives.
Conclusions (if they make sense).
A nice bibliography.
Read On: How to Write a Research Proposal.
Once you have done that, appear for a synopsis defense.

LITERATURE REVIEW I
Once your research proposal is approved.
Perform a thorough literature review of the problem that
you have been assigned to work on.
Dedicate a duration of time for this.
It can be for as long as one year.
It can be as short as six months in some cases.
Although normally it would last for as long as the entire
duration of your PhD studies.
You are going to have to dedicate a period of your studies
solely to this purpose – 6 months.
Literature collection.
Reading and archiving.
Archive each paper properly as you read it.

LITERATURE REVIEW II
Keep a soft copy (on a cloud based storage system
possibly) and a hard copy (in your drawer).
Read the papers thoroughly (chew them well).
Mark them wherever appropriate.
Read up for the central ideas, data collection approaches,
the questions addressed, the problems exposed, the
methodologies that are adopted.
This can be a daunting task in the beginning, but can
become fun as you become more seasoned.
Write summaries of works that inspire you for
self-reference.

YOUR RESEARCH I
Really depends on the nature of the problem at hand.
Design your experiments in the light of literature review –
for applied engineering disciplines.
Design your simulations – communications engineering.
Design surveys and build control groups– social scientists
and psychologists.
Get a pen and a paper and get into a garden with plenty of
time to think – number theorists and graph theorists.
You will have almost two years to get through this phase (in
Europe).
You will have slightly more time in Germany and the U.S.
Think outside the box:
You can only do that in light of your literature review.
Try to be original.

YOUR RESEARCH II
Doing a PhD is all about delivering proof of concept.
Divide your life’s cycles into reading + writing +
experiments + thought experiments.

YOUR PARAPHERNALIA I
The things that you would require to conduct your
research.
It really depends on the nature of your work.
A person developing the next robotic car may require huge
clusters of computers.
A number theorist may require only a pencil and a paper
with an ample time to think and some solitude.
An Internet connection.
Access to the massive academic literature that is available
online or in libraries.
Make sure your university is subscribed to relevant
journals.
Inter-library loans.

YOUR PUBLICATIONS I
A normal expectation.
Publications normally start in the second year.
The expectation about number of publications may vary
from supervisor to supervisor.
Normally it is expected to publish a couple of articles in
journals and a few in conferences.
The expectations about the quality of publications may also
vary.
Normally it is expected to publish work in top ranking
journals and conferences.
Your publications speak for you on the day of your
dissertation defense.

YOUR PUBLICATIONS II
Develop the art of writing research papers during your
literature review.
Learn to rank the literature you review.
Develop a self-standard accordingly.
It is nice to have a higher standard.

YOUR DISSERTATION I
Spare the last six months of your tenure for this.
Structure your dissertation in your mind’s eye initially.
Start writing small sections slowly and gradually in the
beginning.
Write more as you become more comfortable.
Writing 4,000 words per day should not be a big deal (Or
should it?)
Plug in data from your research articles.
If you have planned everything well, and if you have been
executing your plan well, it shouldn’t take more than six
months to patch up a nice dissertation.
In some cases it may only take a couple of months to write
the dissertation.

DISSERTATION DEFENSE
The last bit about your PhD journey.
A couple of hours long practice.
Begin with a presentation of your work.
Followed by a question and answer session.
The examiners go through your dissertation page by page
and then ask questions to you about it.
A dissertation is only defendable if you have been working
hard for all those years.
Spotting a jerk is always a trivial problem.
Audience: Your supervisor, and internal examiner or an
external examiner.
Be ready for an open air defense if you claim that you have
discovered Higgs Boson.
Be ready to be cruciﬁed if you have actually not.

MANAGING YOUR PHD BLUES I
PhD Blues are melancholic periods of your PhD life.
When you contemplate, “What’s the point of doing all of
this?”
These can be rational ideas.
But they can snatch the best of your moods.
Try to avoid them as much as possible.
Possible remedies are:
Spend time with friends and family.
Talk about your work to people.
Take up some sports activities.
Eat and sleep well etc etc.
Learn to relax and possibly meditate.

CONCLUSIONS
Doing a PhD can be a great adventure.
It can be extremely stiﬂing at the same time.
It really depends on whether you want to get a PhD or not.
And whether you really like your work or not.
It is only nice if you like it.
Consumes the best years of your life – 3 to 5.
Be prepared to adopt a hermitic lifestyle.
Read on How to Get a PhD.
Its a valuable book

How to Get a PhD

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