Anyone here doing/done a PhD?

[MakkaPakkas]

I've been accepted as a PhD candidate and am wondering if anyone has any advice? If you've done one what do you wish you'd known before you started? What were the highs and lows? It's multidisciplinary but generally soc sci/ humanities area. I'll be doing it part time along with a part time lectureship at a different uni (I've been there 3 years) and have 2 kids aged 11 and 13. Partner is supportive...

Yes. Me. Recently passed my viva. I worked full time at one university but completed PhD part time at another. Took 5 years (although I had read a lot in the preceding year to make sure there was enough for a PhD) also in humanities (history).
I enjoyed it- having made sure I chose something I really wanted to do. My advice is to read and follow patthomson.net/. Her website is fantastic and full of calm and sensible advice.
And write from the beginning. Your writing will improve immeasurably by the end but if you have words, however awful, it is easier to move them around and work with them than a blank page!
Sometimes I didn’t do much for weeks (maybe a little reading or transcribing) but I found Easter was a good time to pull stuff together and write chapters.
I started with too many research questions and wanted to do too much but ended up with one big question and two sub questions- the process of writing crystallised everything in the last 18 months. I also recommend a white board at home to map ideas and a notebook by the bed because the brilliant ideas that come in the night disappear by morning if you don’t write them down!
Good luck!

And write from the beginning
Yes, yes, yes.
I so wish I had followed this advice. Also if you can find somewhere to study/write that is just for you this will help immensely. I wrote on the kitchen table and it was hell. Good luck!

Also use a good bibliography software program right from the beginning otherwise you will never remember what you have read where.

I have a PhD - completed nearly 20 years ago (sob).
Keep on top of footnotes and references- don’t leave it to come back to later (as pp said re the bibliography). Bibliography software didn’t exist in my day I don’t think and it was torture if I came across an incomplete reference.
I also had time away from it with work and erm socialising (I only started going out when I was 25, I was a little antisocial/angsty).
One thing my housemate (now a professor) at the time did was treat it like a job. Eg get up at 6:30, breakfast, 2 hours of writing every weekday. Walk dog. Research an hour. Write til 3pmish.
Not feasible with children probably but a routine really helps.
Enjoy!!

Agree with all the advice above. I finished my PhD in 2017,part time, two kids (4 and 7 when I started), whilst working at a Uni 4 days a week. Read as much as you can when you start. Don’t shy away from it. Just read, make notes, keep refining what you want to focus on. Don’t be afraid to shift things (one year in I switched focus completely, so ended up completing in 4 years part time overall). Write as much as possible, don’t worry about what it is like, just get it out there. Attend conferences for inspiration, get involved with any work in your field. Find the best time of day/ week to work. I’m an early bird so got up at 5am and would work for 2 hours before the kids got up. Be clear on when you need to work- I would go up to my office at the Uni for 4 hours or so at weekends- really helped. A supportive partner is needed! Good luck!

Mine was a long time ago, but I'd say -

Expect it to be a slog at times, however much you love your subject. Expect that there will be times when you feel that your writing is crap and boring and you have nothing worthwhile to say. Just keep going.

There will always be one more piece of research to do, one more article to read. You have to say STOP at some point, or you'll never finish.

Write the introduction last. You can make notes and produce a rough draft as you go, but you won't necessarily know what should be in your introduction until you've written the rest of it.

Putting together the acknowledgements, chapter listing, lists of tables and illustrations, bibliography etc will take longer than you expect. Estimate how long you think it will take, then double it. (That said, technology has moved on hugely since I did mine, so I expect it's all far more straightforward now.)

Back it up. Back up everything you do. Do it at the end of each day, then do it again. Upload it to the Cloud, put it on a USB, e-mail it to yourself. When I was a postgrad student there were all kinds of horror stories circulating about disastrous things that had happened to the only copy of someone's thesis. Most of them were no doubt urban myths, but why take chances?

When you've finished and got your doctorate, it's the most tremendous sense of achievement. It's very satisfying to be able to call yourself 'Dr Pakkas'.

Good luck!

Another thing that saved me time was learning how to use styles in word and having a word template that complied with the presentation requirements for the final thesis. The university offered a course on how to work with long documents, insert images etc which was invaluable. If you set it all up correctly you can generate tables of contents, figures easily and change fonts etc at the push of a couple of keys.
I used Word because that is what I was comfortable with (although I had a very basic knowledge of how to use it at first) but I have colleagues who swear by Scrivener.

As all the advice above, if you start by being well organised it makes the final stages much easier.

Second everyone’s advice on writing and being organised.

Also - it really helps if you can think of it not as ‘I will find out lots of stuff and from that develop an argument’ but as ‘Here is my idea - now I’m going to find evidence to break or strengthen it’.

E.g ‘I reckon Beatrix Potter was actually a rabbit and I’m going to research lots of stuff about rabbits and children’s lit to see if I am right’ is a better start than ‘I’m going to find out stuff about Beatrix Potter and rabbits and hope a theory emerges’.

The first is scarier - because you will repeatedly find out that your theory is partly or wholly bunk - but each time that happens you build a better theory. The second approach is a lot less scary - because every day you’re building more and more evidence - but at the end you’ve got a pile of bricks and no house.

And enjoy it. It can be bliss.

Speaking of rabbits you will find yourself going down lots of research rabbit holes and reading stuff that's only tangentially connected to your subject. And you will end up with a lot of material that in the end doesn't fit in your thesis. It won't be wasted. You can use it in your teaching, in talks, in articles, in a blog, in a new research project. I'm still, many years later, finding uses for some of that left over material.

Keep on top of references and footnotes!

Agree with the above. My big suggestion is... It needs to be done not perfect! Also... It is your PhD... No one will care more about it than you.

Mine was 30 years ago and in science. Science PhDs, social science PhDs and humanities PhDs are completely different things.

I second everything about maintaining long documents and particularly about keeping on top of references and footnotes/endnotes. Use paragraph styles and outline view to ensure you have a consistent system of organisation and know exactly what material should be in which chapter/section/subsection.

If your work requires any kind of statistical analysis, make sure you understand what you're doing, to the extent that you're able to argue with your supervisor if she/he tells you to do something that's wrong. In my general area (basic medical sciences), PhD supervisors are shockingly sloppy about statistics and students can end up being torn apart in their vivas (I'm afraid I've had to do that tearing apart a couple of times). Social scientists are usually better at this, but humanities academics aren't.

When you've finished and got your doctorate, it's the most tremendous sense of achievement. It's very satisfying to be able to call yourself 'Dr Pakkas'

Finished my doctorate in 1996 in Human Computer Interaction (social science rather than technical). I thoroughly enjoyed doing my masters and doctorate because I was a mature student and never got the opportunity when I was younger.

I second all the points made by other posters on keeping on top of footnotes, references etc and all the bibliographical bits. I had a first career in librarianship so many of my skills were transferable.

With kids you will find it more difficult but the advise to treat it like a "proper job" with a set routine is good. I was very fortunate in being divorced/childfree so able to put in place firm boundaries with needy chatty neighbours who thought I was at home to take in parcels for them and have long chats over coffee. There were no smart phones then (so no texting/whatsapp etc) and most times my door stayed firmly shut when I saw it was a timewaster. It may seem harsh but these people would not be able to reach you if you worked form an office at the uni so why let them invade your workspace.

This is all great advice, thank you so much. Do any of you have a recommended reference sorting software? I've used Mendeley in the past, but more often do it manually (I know!)

@Mylordsize thank you for the Pat Thompson blog recommendation, I've just started reading through it and there is already loads of relevant stuff

@orinocosfavoritecake that is very good advice! I got into a real flap with my master's dissertation taking the second approach

Make sure you choose a topic your are really interested in
Use a programme that helps with the referencing
Back everything up multiple times: email your work to yourself AND save on an external memory; email to your partner
Always leave yourself a note as to what you want to do next
Be prepared to move things around - you suddenly realise paragraphs should be in different places.
Write the acknowledgments first - then you will feel you have to complete your thesis
Find out what the graduation robe is for your university and picture yourself in it - work towards that wonderful photo on graduation day
I was working full time and spent all day every Saturday and Sunday working on my PhD. I completed in under five years.
At our induction evening we were told that achieving a PhD was down to 95% hard work and only 5% intelligence.
Good luck!

I use endnote. It integrates with word. Also my institution lets me use it for free and runs courses on it.

Have you started yet? I started in June and it's been tricky finding my way around when I haven't started at the same time as other people. Luckily my supervisor is truly amazing and put me in touch with folk a few months ahead of me.

I used Mendeley and found it relatively straightforward.

I'm doing the same, albeit all at the one institution. I won't give advice as I'm not far enough in for it to be valuable. It's hard.

My DC are younger than yours (I've had my two maternity leaves while trying to get my project started) so I'm very time limited which is what I find hard, especially during teaching.

Be lethal with your time management, teaching can take up your whole week if you let it.

I've recently finished a PhD and the number one advice I would give is: arrange/attend thesis 'bootcamps'. These are writing/research retreats and without them I doubt I would have finished my thesis on time.

Most doctoral schools offer them nowadays, and if yours doesn't, you could always suggest that they do. I attended those run by my university but also arranged additional ones with fellow PhD students and they were invaluable.

I would start these as soon as possible, with the first few years focusing more on research and then moving into writing. Set daily goals and even goals per session and make yourself accountable by sharing and reviewing your achievements as you go.

As an example, in the first ever boot camp I attended, which was during my writing up period, I wrote nearly 10,000 words in three days. I had done the research, I knew what I wanted to say, I had structured my chapter but kept procrastinating. 3 days of solid work and I had a good first draft!

I would structure these as 60/90 minute sessions with scheduled breaks and a one hour lunch break. No phone. No distractions. Find a space outside of your house (you could book rooms at your university). Find PhD friends who want to do the same. Set the rules (as in, these are serious sessions-no chatting). And give it a go.

I finished mine in 2015, and the best advice I can give is that you need to be really bloody-minded and tenacious to get it done - there will be times when you completely hate it and want to give it up, but push through those moments. I think doing a PhD is the one place where the sunk cost fallacy is not a fallacy! Good luck, it can be a lonely and challenging experience, but worth it in the end :)

I did mine back in the days of card index boxes, so I can't be much help except to say: choose your thesis supervisor(s) carefully.

Mine was kind, eccentric and utterly useless. He never read any drafts I gave him, he had no conceptual suggestions, and was mostly away with the fairies. He knew his subject, in which he was a world expert, but ultimately he wasn't supervisor material.

@SuperLoudPoppingAction no, I've not started yet. The start time is October, which I'm slightly worried about as my teaching load in October is massive (50 hours contact time plus 2 assessments) it does massively calm down after that though.

A good dissertation is a completed dissertation. I did my PhD and now am tenured in the US, so it’s a more rigorous program - but my god, you’ll see a lot of people killing themselves over it. No need. Advice above in terms of treating it like a job is key!