Your PhD Companion: A Handy Mix of Practical Tips, Sound Advice and Helpful Commentary to See You Through Your PhD - Softcover

Marshall, Stephen; Green, Nick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845281454 ISBN 13: 9781845281458

Publisher: How To Books, 2006

Synopsis

This book guides you through doctoral study from the student's point of view - the challenges, pitfalls, and ups and downs that you're likely to encounter in the course of your PhD. It not only explains what a PhD involves, and how you might tackle one, but also offers insights into the actual experience of life as a PhD student. The Companion tells you what to expect, and what not to expect of university departments. It tells you about the messy reality of doing a PhD, and it tells you in bite sized chunks that you can chew over on the way to college! Over and above what your supervisors and university may have to offer, "Your PhD Companion" will help explain all kinds of things that no one ever seems to tell you - and you don't necessarily know to ask.

About this title

Review:

`a great book...very comprehensive, covers issues that are not
covered in other books, such as the relationship with your supervisor.' -- Reader Review

From the Author:

As its title implies, Your PhD Companion is a friendly guide to doctoral study. It addresses you as an equal, doesn’t assume that you’re a well-organised swot, but appreciates that you’ve got a life outside of research. So while it covers topics such as relating to your supervisor, how to structure a thesis, or how to get a desk and computer in your new department, it also covers life outside the university – and the different ways in which your doctoral study and your personal life can get tangled up.

In effect, Your PhD Companion is like a handy guidebook to accompany you on your doctoral journey. Like a travel guide, it is a source of independent information and advice, that does not simply restate official facts and procedures – which you can get for free from official sources – nor try to be a substitute for detailed expert opinion – which you will need to get in person anyway. Rather, Your PhD Companion provides some basic information about your destination, and an impression of what the journey is like along the way, that may stimulate interest in going there in the first place.

In doing so, like a travel guide, Your PhD Companion offers the benefit of experience from those who have been over the road ahead of you – as fellow travellers in a challenging territory, and not just as hosts who have already ‘made it’ there. It tries to tell things the way they are, rather than just the way they ought to be. It appreciates the ups and downs of travel, and not just the value of arrival.

While the book's advice is aimed with serious intent - and is based on hard-earned experience as well as conversations and interviews with over thirty PhD students - its informal style also mixes in snippets of interesting PhD histories, allegories and anecdotes, with an occasional cartoon. Rather than being yet another PhD book you feel you OUGHT to read, Your PhD Companion is the kind of book you might WANT to read - and keep with you on your doctoral journey, for reference, insight and inspiration.

About this edition

• Publisher: How To Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1845281454
• ISBN 13: 9781845281458
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 172