Category: General

You may find the title of the blog really hilarious if you are a research scholar who has experience bundles of hardships through the process. The entire PhD is hard then what is it to find out about the hardest part of doing a PhD. Well according to me as a PhD scholar, is that in the field of research there are not any fixed or accepted standards for evaluating progress of work and in research you have to show and get approval of your work from not one person but many and not one department but many and since standards are evaluation criteria are absent, not everyone is happy at the same time. So whom to please and whom to displease? Do you agree or no that you have encountered this as the hardest part of your journey as researcher?
When you have people who are important in evaluating the progress of your PhD showing dissatisfaction with your work, it surely creeps in insecurity with your progress. In this challenging journey, recognition, praise and acceptance goes a long way in bringing a sense of satisfaction and relief that one is on the right path of progress. With the standards of progress being so tricky, it is very much possible that you walk down the blind alley, unless you have some strong experienced source who is guiding your path. It is all the more true when have subjective opinions boggling you down and making you feel confused dejected, getting fair and right feedback from the sources is the most important thing at that point of time.
Sometimes scholars try to assess their own progress. Remember that in the absence if evaluation criteria that is standardized, you would be not doing justice to your progress. Either you would overrate yourself or feel that your achievements or progress is trivial or insignificant, in either case, it is unfair evaluation. Explaining you work to a person who is away from your research is a better way to fight this challenge as what may seem too less development to you may actually be something very significant. Your research supervisor is the best person here and is actually a very important contributor in your PhD journey that can help you fight with this biggest challenge of research that can actually be generalised for around the globe.

A lot of scholars think that a conclusion is nothing but just a summary of the key points or the restatement of the thesis. This may not be the only objective of writing a conclusion. The main objective is to remind the reader that the evidence you have presented has contributed to the thesis. Conclusion isn’t written without critical thinking as it should present the significance of what you have written and also clearly put across some conclusive thoughts on the larger implications of your argument.

The length of your c conclusion can be determined from the length of your essay. It can range from anything between one paragraphs to two or three paragraphs.

Being able to write an interesting and effective conclusion may require you to take care of few things particularly. If you also want to look at the conclusion as something that is beyond just mere summarization of the key points, here are few things you should take care of:

1.If the topic you have covered is emphasizing on current and contemporary problems, you must conclude by sending cautious signals to readers about the problem and its effects.
2.Give focused course of action for taking care of the problem
3.It is advisable to add an expert opinion or a powerful and applicable quote to the conclusion as it increases its weight
4.If you have the scope to accommodate personal references, include them with your own interpretation and personalised view
5.Link it up with the introduction and the statements you have mentioned here
6.Brief about any further possibility or scope for research and what avenues are available.

The field of your study does have an impact on the introduction and conclusion that you put up. Usually there is more scope to play around with the beginning or the end if you are working in the field of social sciences where exploratory and argumentative content can be incorporated. In some of the genres of academic writing where a lot of factual information is to be out across sand no scope of arguments is there conclusions may not be needed at all. You must know the specifications associated with your area of study so that you can plan around hat kind of an ending you should give to your academic document. Remember how apt and well-connected your ending is a clear reflection of your understanding and involvement in your topic

It is the first quarter of the New Year and many of us began the year with resolutions. It is trend that can be proved by statistics that most of these resolutions are meant to be broken. But now that it is the second month of the year already, you must have made and broken many a resolutions by now and like every year, perhaps given up on making new ones. But there is this one promise you can make for yourself, even if you feel it is too late, you won’t find it difficult to keep up to it. It is to make 2016 a year of self-care.
For a long time now, I feel I have never had a break that has been away from the grind. It sometimes gets very overwhelming to feel sailing amongst deadlines of projects and assignments to be completed, leave along family and other professional and social obligations.

Irrespective of what my schedule and routine is, I have decided that in this year I am going to resolute to care for myself, other than caring for others things.
I have devised for myself, my own perception of self-care and the definition may have subjectivity for each one as for each one the priorities for self can be different. For me self-care is coming back to my place early and alone and sit back with a cup of coffee and my favourite book. Treating myself to my favourite coffee in my favourite company is also self-care.

Making time for ourselves for the small little things we need to be doing to ensure that we stay happy and healthy not just physically but also emotionally and psychologically is perhaps the most practical and applicable definition of self-care in today’s time. And these small little minuscule efforts among the other herculean tasks can go a long way in restoring the fun and positivity in your life.
I suggest and insist that in this New Year, you find both big and small ways to take care of yourself and yourself only without any other interest involved. This can and has to be done among all other chaos that exists in your life and will continue to exist simultaneously.

So, do you think to have self-care in your agenda for the week? What are your goals and themes related to that? It will be good to know all the diversity in preferences here!

Research by itself is a slow and sluggish process. It requires meticulous planning, optimization and sometimes even replication of experiments. When you have completed your data analysis and other time consuming task, all that you want to do is to publish it as soon as possible. If your publication process goes through a rapid speed, it helps in quick dissemination of findings and allows you to get back to a fresh assignment at the earliest. It would be great to know some tips that can accelerate your publication speed:

Know your figures well: If from the initial stage itself you design your experiment keeping the publication in mind including the controls and layouts you wouldn’t have to waste time later struggling to make the data presentable according to the specifications. Also, when you collect the data, try to draft your figures at that time itself. This becomes more daunting with more time lapse in between.
Have a clear writing style: A well designed study may not be of much use of it is not written clearly. It also becomes a big reason for revision and rejection from the end of editors and reviewers. Hence unclear and vague writing can be a big barrier in the speed of the publication process. This is truer for the non-native English speakers. So always try to ensure that from the very beginning your writing has the desired clarity.
Use software for reference formatting: Reference formatting is a meticulous and time consuming task. Good software can be used for archiving relevant references and also reducing the time wasted in searching for already read papers. Software also assists in automatic formatting of citations as per the guidelines specified in the journal and even update as and when you make changes.
Get peer review prior to publication: publication speed can be increased further by using services that can provide peer review before publication. It helps to improve the quality of your document and guides you to make it in a way that it can get accepted in your target journal. It saves a lot of time in the redundant review process of the journals if they agree to accept your independent peer review as one of the reviews.
Know how to choose the right journal: if you wish to increase the probability of paper acceptance you must find one whose scope fits in well with the focus on your research. Take opinion and advice from your colleagues, friends, and peer and browse journal websites to choose the most appropriate journal for your publication.

Writing is a skill that we all learn through practice, not all are born to become writers but PhD scholars have not much choice but to be good at writing. But the good news is that it isn’t very difficult to be a good writer. There are some areas on which you would have to necessarily focus so that your writing depicts what you intend to.

Realise and console yourself that you aren’t the only person who is struggling with finding enough time or motivation for writing. Almost everyone sails in the same boat and that is very reassuring. The way to deal with it is give yourself an appointment with writing and make sure it isn’t an easy one to cancel.

Know that when you sit to write, you got to be writing only. You will be amazed that a lot of work gets done when you know that while you are sitting to write, that is the only thing you are doing. You work average would improve significantly and you would see great productivity coming out of your dedicated and consistent efforts.

Become a spectator of other dedicated writers. You will see that it works wonders. Seeing other people do creative work brings out your own creative juices flowing. Joining a writing group for this can also be a great and a very useful idea. You would compulsively be involved in creative writing just for the reason that you don’t get or feel left out.

Have for yourself fixed writing session. Structuring your work around writing sessions can help to enrich the productivity of your work.

Join a writing group that gives you a mixed excitement. Where you not just look forward to writing initiatives and motivation but also discussions, blogging and sometimes even celebration is important.

It is ok to ask for advice and sharing ideas and tips. Become more open to this as it is one of the greatest means of learning new ideas, concepts and techniques of writing.

Organise for yourself those hide and write sessions. It will take you some time but you would soon and surely start enjoying the “me” time and the kind of productive output it gives you. Don’t forget to reward yourself for the small accomplishments you get in the journey.

Eventually, remember that it is your own journey and it doesn’t need to be compared to anybody. Your success is a measure of your growth from your starting point. Keeping that in mind, move forward and see yourself getting better and a more seasoned writer.