Since her last instalment in November, Ellie is on her final push to the end of the thesis road. Read about what she’s been getting up to below. By Ellie King Since I last published a blog, it feels like my thesis has come on leaps and bounds and that I am, dare I say... Continue Reading →

Many doctoral students, like me, start their publications with a book review. However, this is not to say that a book review is easy or requires no skills at all. Instead, it plays a vital role in training our skills in academic writing and boosting our confidence in academic publications. In this blog, Ivy shares... Continue Reading →

Have you ever started a new planner, but then abandoned it for good? Maybe you’ve never planned anything, but suddenly want to try? In any case, Daria has some tips and tricks about finding the best ways to organise your daily life without pressure. By Daria Akhapkina Goal First and foremost, you need to know... Continue Reading →

The annual review happens usually at the end of 2nd year of our PhD study or in some cases, at the end of the 3rd year. This review serves for two purposes: to ensure you are progressing as planned, and as an opportunity to gather feedback and guidance on your work. In this week’s blog,... Continue Reading →

One of the biggest concerns at the very early stage of our PhD journey is to complete participant recruitment. How are we going to reach out to our potential participants when we already have a clear target demographic group of people in mind? It seems easy to identify but so hard to approach them and... Continue Reading →

PhD study usually involves huge sets of data, and the command of some software makes it less painful to deal with this matter. In this blog, Ivy introduces three types of software to improve your academic output. By Ivy Zhuo. Transcription generating tools Transcribing is indeed a challenging task for a lot of qualitative researchers... Continue Reading →

Intensive academic reading is what every PhD student would experience during their study. Reasons to read varies, ranging from identifying a research gap, to justifying our study, to writing for publications or to preparing for an academic talk. Or sometimes, simply to answering a question that our colleagues raise to us. This experience is usually... Continue Reading →

‘The upgrade panel’— ‘the most frightening thing’ labelled by some new PhD students. So, what is ‘the upgrade panel’? Is it really something scary? Is there a possibility that someone would fail it? How can I be ready for it? Do I really need nine months to prepare for that? This week, blogger Ivy gives... Continue Reading →

It’s a new term of a new academic year, and so now is a good a time as ever to say hello to the new bloggers and hello again to our continuing bloggers for PhD Life! This week, editor Ellie gives us a tour of the team behind the blog. By Ellie King The PhD... Continue Reading →