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More than once I have asked this to myself: What is my reason to do a PhD? What motivated me to get onto this never ending journey of challenges?

All the doctoral scholars I have met, have asked themselves these questions. I have come to believe, this kind of apprehensive feeling is quite normal for scholars. In fact it is a great feeling I think as asking this question to yourself, is a means of introspection to gain a better understanding of what we are doing and why are we doing it?

I have often thought about my answer to these questions in my life and every time, instead of a very concrete answer, such as, as great job, better salary or any other material target I have always had an abstract answer, “to be happy!” my small little accomplishments during the PhD programme, such as paper presentations, publications, sharing experiences in seminar. However, my mental state has not be the same all the time and I have faced existential crisis a few times in the course. In my times of crisis, I have been blessed with advices such as, “You have a rare opportunity and you must benefit potentially from it.”

I am sure, as a research scholar, you must be having your dark days and bright days. At times you would feel that there isn’t any light at the end of the tunnel but do not forget that there is a reason for you to be in this programme. And you do not have to be bogged down by the challenges, rather be grateful for the life changing opportunity you have to do this PhD programme.

During the course of my PhD itself I had decided that I wanted to publish my thesis as a book. But I was clueless about how to go ahead with this process. In the due course, I learnt the steps and process. You may find this blog helpful if you are a first timer wanting to publish your book:

Step 1: Create a prospectus: It is not as daunting as it sounds as a book prospectus is a very simple document to create. The key components of the prospectus should be:
• The main argument in the book in a summarized form
• A brief of each of then chapters
• A broad timeframe for manuscript completion
• Specifications of the target readers
• Available competing literature

Do not make it a very elaborate document but a short and brief document with only the required information

Step 2: Circulate the prospectus: Circulate your prospectus as much as possible to publishers. Do check the specifications of the publishers from the website as some may ask for sample chapters and CV also to be included.

Step 3: Manuscript Submission: If the publisher does not send you a letter of regret and shows interest in your content the next stage is the review of the prospectus and the manuscript. Depending upon the subjective requirements of the publisher, you may have to send him the required chapters once they let you know that they are interested in publishing your thesis into a book

Step 4: Contract finalisation: If the press gets positive reviews about your manuscript, a contract may be offered to you. It may call for further revisions but then leave the contract with you for your approval. Some main issues over which n there is scope for negotiations are:
• Index cost, cover & images cost, Copy editing cost will borne by the author or the publisher
• The rate of the royalty
• If the book will be released in paper back

Step 5: Revision and Copy Editing: some of the publishers may get reviews more than once and may ask for multiple revisions. After this, is the stage of copyediting and proofreading. This is a time consuming process and sometimes may even take few months.

Step 6: Page Proofs and printing: At this stage of page proofs there is scope to accommodate small errors and mistakes which got overlooked at the initial stages. Once you correct those mistakes, the manuscript goes to the printer. The book takes couple of months in the press.

Step 7: Up for sale: Bingo!! You book is there on the shelf. Up for sale!!

It is clear that publishing a book is a long and time consuming process. It may take a lot of time even after completing the manuscript so o not give up as it is worth all the effort and hard work put in.

For a long time, hypnosis has been called as a manipulative tool. In a lot of sciences, such as psychology primarily and medicine and forensic sciences, it has been found to be used. When we talk of this technique to be used to read the mind of a consumer for the purpose of selling him products, I wonder how ethical it can be.

There has been always a need and a void felt by marketers when we talk of reading the mind of the consumer. They have always felt the need to go further and beyond the superficial feelings and expressions of the consumers. Partly, a solution to this problem has been found in projective techniques but they also have their limitations. This is so because the projection of the feelings happens onto other objects or persons, hence there comes some degree of circumvention in the defences. With the gap that the projective techniques leave in accessing the respondents mind, hypnosis is a means to directly reach the sub conscious of the respondent.

Technically speaking, hypnosis is a state which has been induced on the person or respondent in the case of research, in an artificial way where by the conscious state becomes dormant for a while and the window to the sub conscious state opens, creating a direct and unhurdled access to the innermost feelings of the respondent.

In the state of hypnotism, because the conscious mind is not alert, the respondent is not inhibited to respond to answers that may otherwise seem too personal or probing. Sometimes dealing with personal experiences that one may feel awkward to share otherwise. Hypnosis still leaves control in the hand of the respondent as even during the process he cannot be forced to talk about things that are again his ethics and morals. A state of hypnosis gives a more genuine response as rather than recalling, the person tends to relive the moment completely.

Hypnosis has been found to have special use in market research that deals with sale and purchase of mundane and routinized products such as grocery and other fast moving consumer goods. A person, who is under the state of hypnosis, does not get distracted by the external stimuli as he is oblivious to them. Even long time consuming processes do not bring down the output of the research. If taken positively and also administered fairly, it can be of benefit to the researcher as well as the respondent as it can help them to understand their own thought process better and comprehend their behaviour and responses in a wider arena.

What is essential to remember and follow in hypnosis, is that the researcher should have the required appropriate training to administer hypnosis on any person and also should not go beyond the ethics to exploit the vulnerability of the respondent in the state of hypnosis. The values of the respondent should be respected, whether they be conservative.

So you are a new student enrolled in a PhD programme? Great!! I am sure you have been through a very strict and grilling screening process to be here and this would lead you to what we call as the pinnacle of academic success, a doctoral degree. Within you , at this time, there must be a lot of enthusiasm, some anxiety, a sense of pride and maybe some nervousness and doubts. Is it not natural? Find here some tips that would smoothen out your first year journey for you:

1. Acquaint yourself to the surroundings: All the academic experience that you have gained for yourself is a world away from what you have got into now. It is possible that as a student you would be teaching too during your PhD. Ironical!! Get yourself familiar to where you have enrolled the physical and the social surroundings. Right at the beginning, not much expectation are there from you. Utilise this time to get into your comfort zone. Small little information about the lab, library, washrooms, and cafeteria is actually small but essentially useful.

2. Make your workspace a reflection of you: your designated workspace is a place you wold be spending a lot of your time in the coming few years. Make it a reflection of you. Decorate it; make it comfortable and a place where you feel happy to be. Make sure it has enough light. A place that makes you feel happy and relaxed ends up bringing out the productivity in you. Make you place a happy place.

3. Move out and create a social circle: it is natural to feel shy and ‘ out of place’ as we call it, in a new place. It may be all the more when you are in a new city for your PhD but at the same time getting familiar or better than that, getting friends with co scholars is the biggest help you can do to yourself when you get into a doctoral course. There would be numerous occasions where you would be needing to collaborate with them and take my word for it, with all the madness that the course and your supervisor would create in your life, it is only the friends who truly understand you that you remain sane. So, move out and socialise, indirectly it is an investment towards your degree only.

4. Explore events and activities in your university: All universities keep running events and activities and these are good places to expand your horizons, get into better networking and better relations. In all ways, I suggest becoming an active participant in your department for academic and non-academic events will help you to settle faster. In the beginning, you would have to go forward and explore the available opportunities.

5. Presume your topic /objective of study to change: Last but not the least, it is almost applicable everywhere, the question which is the beginning point a PhD often changes completely or modifies by the end of the course. It is natural and a good development because during the course as your understanding and learning expands, you become a better researcher and you would be able to give more relevant information than ever before so welcome the change in your perspective and research in due course as it is a an indicator of a more mature researcher.

Enjoy your research ride; it is roller-coaster but surely worth it. Good luck!

The foremost task is to find out a research area that is promising and looks like a worthy area of research. Your own interest in it is very important. Never forget that!! Cathy, in her attempt to quickly finalise the topic, chose a closed area of research , clinical psychology for a consumer behaviour research. It was not her interest area and could not sustain her focus for a long time. It is often difficult to anticipate, like how Cathy could not, that during the long tenure of the doctoral research, one has to be passionate about the topic. Then only is there some fun. To move further, after taking a well thought over decision, the next crucial task at hand is to identify those research questions that still are not resolved so that there is sufficient scope created for you to contribute in the chosen area. In the language of research, we also call it as finding out the gap in the existing literature that is available so that the researcher can take a call whether the research is worth focusing upon or no.

With a lot of research students being novice in research, lack any prior experience or exposure in the field. They end up making a mistake of not formulating the research question before moving ahead with the methodology of research. First go in detail of the research problem and then think about deciding the method of research that is there.

The research questions can be formulated by finding out the gap that is existing between the existing researches that have been conducted. The way to identify the gap is to find those questions that have not been answered, irrespective of whether they have been catered to.

Only knowing about the existing gap does not suffice the relevance and worth of a research. It is also important to go one step forward and justify this to self and others r that spending effort, time and resources on this research will reap results that would be worthy and give out a lucrative outcome.. Try to give a more accurate and precise answer to each research question, at the nascent stage itself so that the future endeavours in your research have their foundation based on some strong preliminary work.