Original PhD Blog

So, you have just completed your research paper. Many months of designing your study, collecting data, writing your findings, and refining your draft have finally paid off. You’re ready to share your discoveries with the world. The only barrier that stands between you and this goal is the choice of the best journal for your research paper publication.

While many practitioners relax during this phase and do not pay sufficient attention to it, this is one of the worst mistakes you can make. The choice of the right journal is a crucial decision that directly affects your study outcomes. A wrong journal can easily mean a rejection six months after due to the reported lack of fit with its audience.

Journal selection is both an art and a skill that can be taught. Instead of relying on your intuition and insight, we suggest a number of practical steps you can take to remove the guesswork and ensure superior publication outcomes.

1. Assess Your Goals

The success of your publication depends on the match between your study and the selected journal. Prior to opening a directory of reputable magazines, ask yourself several honest questions:

1. What is the potential impact of your findings? Does your study make a field-changing breakthrough, an incremental advance of knowledge in some sphere or a contribution to a relatively narrow niche?
2. How broad is your study’s appeal? Will it be interesting to readers from related disciplines?
3. How strong is your methodological rigour? Does your study design support all claims made by it?
4. Are you working against the clock? In many areas, such as PhD research, time is of the essence, which means that you must publish your work before a certain date.

This is a step requiring complete honesty and ego suspension. There is nothing wrong with publishing a relatively niche study in a specialised journal. Alternatively, a breakthrough publication may require a generalist one, such as Nature.

2. Start Asking Around

A simple database search can leave you with a list including dozens of potential publication candidates. However, this is just the first step. Here are some additional tricks to reduce your list to 5-10 options.

1. Check the journals you frequently cite in your own work. Chances are, they will also be compatible with your study’s focus.
2. Ask your colleagues. Your peer researchers, your supervisor or users of an academic subreddit such as r/AskAcademia may be aware of the current status quo and quality journals with the lowest rejection rate.
3. Order a professional consultation. Specialised agencies offering PhD academic writing services usually possess long-term expertise and may be a good source of insights in this sphere.

3. Set the Bar

Many researchers primarily look into the Impact Factor when choosing the ‘best’ journal for publication. Keep in mind that a high-impact journal frequently rejects up to 90% of all submissions and may have long review periods. This means that you can find yourself starting your publication journal all over again six months down the road if you follow this path.

The impact factor is usually calculated by measuring average citations over a two-year period. With that being said, this may not always be meaningful for spheres with slow citation accumulation. This does not mean that the Impact Factor is meaningless. You just need to also consider additional indicators by using:

CiteScore – includes a three-year window and multiple document types.

Eigenfactor – removes journal self-citations.

Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) – weights the prestige of the journals citing specific publications.

By appraising multiple factors instead of one, you can make sure that your journal of choice is actually effective at delivering your findings to your target audience.

4. Explore Rejection Rates and Peer Review Policies

As noted above, many high-profile journals reject 70%+ of all submissions. While this does not imply that you must only target low-profile ones, you need to fail fast to quickly try alternative options. Enter peer review policies.

If your journal of choice reports the average turnaround time for a first decision exceeding 8 weeks, this may look like a red flag. Double-blind review policies and other complex procedures further increase your chances of waiting several months and not even receiving a proper review of your rejected submission.

If you are on a tenure clock, take this into account and look for journals with transparent and simple review policies and accommodating acceptance rates.

5. Avoid Predatory Publishers

Even if you have extremely tight deadlines to meet, accepting the invitations of journals offering unbelievably fast peer review and publishing terms for a hefty fee will not be a wise decision. These ‘facilitators’ are largely fraudulent and rarely live up to their promises. Here are some red flags:

• The offered journal is not indexed in DOAL.
• The journal claims to have an Impact Factor without being listed in JCR.
• The cited editorial board members are not available via email or have no idea about being on this journal’s board.
• Peer review terms are unbelievably short (e.g., 5-7 days).

Use Think.Check.Submit. or similar resources, to recognise and avoid known predator journals.

6. Run Background Checks

When you set your eyes on a particular journal, run several checks to ensure a good fit:

• Read several recent issues to see whether they offer a sufficient number of figures and overall length to accommodate your article.
• Check for publications with similar methodologies.
• Write emails to several editorial board members to estimate their responsiveness.

The last check is underused in academia. However, you can save yourself months of failed efforts by directly approaching the person(s) in charge. They can offer valuable information about such areas as current publication delays, article compatibility or overall speed of problem-solving.

7. Create a Submission Cascade

Finally, some pro tips:

1. Send your article to multiple journals consecutively (e.g., a high-ranking journal, a mid-ranking journal, and a ‘safe backup’ journal with high acceptance rates). This creates a cascade effect where rejection from a single journal simply means that you move to the next journal on the same day.
2. Look for ‘portable peer reviews’. This system allows you to ‘transfer’ academic manuscript reviews between journals to avoid recurrent ‘review rounds’. If you are rejected from one journal, you simply move to another journal within the same ‘publisher network’ while skipping the review round altogether.

Getting your publication right is a challenging task. Keep in mind that your goal is to get your findings across and not to seek prestige. Send to multiple journals, conduct your preliminary research, and focus on the journals that are interested in you and are ready to say ‘yes’.

You’re considering applying for a PhD programme, but you’re unsure of where to start or if you’ll finish. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Finding the best and most suitable PhD programme for your applications is challenging at best. Especailly with all the different programme types, study options and supervisors to choose from.

In addition, multiple studies have shown that up to 60% of doctoral students don’t complete their programmes or prolong them extensively. This clearly demonstrates the existence of a systemic problem in academia that will be encountered by any ambitious researcher, including you. Choosing the right programme for you can help you see your PhD through and have academic success.

In this article, we will analyse how a thoughtful choice of a PhD programme can eliminate many of the issues leading PhD applicants to failure.

1. Draw the Line over What you Do/Don’t want from a PhD Programme

The first thing you need to do is understand the limits of your ‘area of compromise’. Even the best PhD programme in the world isn’t perfect, and you will have to adjust your expectations, perceptions, plans, and activities to its conditions. However, setting clear boundaries is the first step towards making the best choice. Here are some questions you want to ask yourself:

• Should your ‘dream programme’ allow flexibility if you decide to adjust your research field or questions?
• Will you pursue tenure-track positions or an industry career after it?
• Do you have the means to temporarily relocate if you find an ideal programme abroad?
• What is the absolute minimal funding you need to survive in the worst-case scenario if you choose the full-time option?
• Will you be able to sacrifice your current earnings if you find a dream PhD programme that does not accept part-time students?

Writing these and other questions down allows you to radically cut down the scope of your search by excluding the options that may be lucrative in some areas but unacceptable to you in others.

2. Perform a Broad Scan of Available Programmes for your PhD Applications

Take the criteria from step 1 and put them into an Excel table as column headings. Next, simply browse through all PhD programmes fitting each criterion. Put all matches into the first column, and proceed to the next one. Don’t focus excessively on exploring individual programmes, just see if they match one of your criteria.

Next, see whether some programme names repeat across multiple columns. If you have invested sufficient effort and browsed through several dozens of options, you should receive 5-6 close matches fitting multiple criteria.

The trick here is not to look into individual programmes too much first. People tend to get invested in their search, which leads to bias. When you suddenly ‘fall in love’ with a particular option, you can start looking for confirmations suggesting it as the best choice. Don’t fall into this trap. Search broadly, make large lists, and let the ideal variants emerge from your data and not your bias. This approach also allows you to make further adjustments if you decide to remove some of the criteria (columns) to expand your range of options later on.

3. Look for Flaws, not Favourable Features

Another tactic to avoid a biased vision is to look for warning signs rather than programme advantages. While this mindset is inherently negative, it can really help you avoid bias and see each option for what it really is. Consider the following:

• Are there research centres and labs affiliated with your department of choice?
• Are there successful PhD placements published on the department’s website?
• How good are department collaborations and interdisciplinary opportunities?
• Are there enough faculty members operating in the same research sphere as yours?
• Has the programme produced some exciting published work in your area in the past?
• How many supervisors accepting students in your sphere are available?
• What programme requirements can be problematic for you?

4. Check Your Concerns

We live in the world of the Internet and global connectivity. Allocate a whole weekend to finding PhD students and graduates from your programmes of choice. If they are open about this, ask them about your concerns and overall experiences. Not all people will be willing to discuss their supervisors or universities with strangers. However, you may still find some valuable first-hand information that may contradict the ‘positive’ image formed by the official institution websites.

5. Check Your Personal and Research Fit for the PhD Programme

Finally, approach your institutions of choice and try to reach your prospective supervisors. While programme features are highly important, you also need to ensure that you have a strong personal and research fit.

There are some fantastic supervisors who are extremely difficult to deal with. Some do not find your area of research especially interesting. Don’t ignore this step. While extensive preparation may seem excessive, finding fit problems before you start is infinitely better than discovering them several years down the road.

Now, let us put it all together and create a step-by-step checklist to help you select the best PhD programme for you!

Step 1. Draw the line. Things to check:

• Can the programme accommodate shifts in your research focus?
• Does the programme support your career goals?
• Are you willing to relocate to enter a great programme?
• What is the minimum funding you need to survive?
• Are you willing to go full-time if part-time is not an option?

Step 2. Perform a broad scan. Things to check:

• Create an Excel table with the criteria above as column headers.
• Quickly list every programme matching a certain criterion in the corresponding column.
• Find the programmes repeating across multiple columns.

Step 3. Look for flaws. Things to check:

• Availability of research centres and labs.
• Interdisciplinary work availability.
• PhD placements.
• Sufficient faculty scholars working in your sphere of interest.
• Recent publications in your field.
• Supervisor availability.

Step 4. Check your concerns. Things to check:

• Find current and past students from your programmes of choice.
• Ask honest and specific questions about your worries from Step 3.
• Collect this data and compare it with the official image.

Step 5. Check your personal and research fit. Things to check:

• Contact prospective supervisors and measure their interest in your topic.
• Assess their mentorship style and availability.
• Appraise the personal chemistry.
• Ensure the alignment between your research interests and the faculty’s current research projects.

Final tip: approach your programme choice as a research study. Put points and numeric scores against each item, calculate the totals, and make sure that your decision is data-driven and unbiased.

If you are struggling to find a suitable PhD programme or want help preparing your applications for the best chance of acceptance, Original PhD can help. We offer comprehensive PhD writing help from before the start of your PhD to the very end. Contact us today!

With attrition rates in academia reaching 40% and more in 2026, it clearly demonstrates that PhD success involves more than simply ‘working hard and believing in yourself’. The growing incidence of mental health issues and failure implies that the majority of practitioners may not be ready for reducing funding opportunities, shrinking academic job pools, and other macro-environmental threats.

To succeed, you need to take into account all prospective risks while realising and using your unique strengths to support you. In this article, we will analyse the 5 qualities that must be possessed by all effective PhD students willing to get a PhD today.

1. Resilience and Commitment

The PhD landscape for 2026 is a challenging one. According to a recent study, more than one-third of all PhD students suffer from:

• Financial strain.
• Problems with supervisor support and communication.
• Mental health challenges.
• Loss of interest in academic research or a selected research topic.
• Fear of missing out on better job opportunities.

Keep in mind that a PhD is a marathon. You can still get your doctoral degree, even if this takes you an extra year due to personal hardships or force majeure circumstances. However, you can’t succeed if you decide to quit the race altogether. To succeed against the odds, you need to understand with 100% certainty why you want to cross the finish line and what motivates you to keep going.

If you are not certain about these elements, now may be the perfect time to revise your goals. Maybe you need to change your supervisor, adjust your research topic, arrange a shift to the part-time format or make other strategic decisions that you have been trying to delay or avoid for a long time. You can’t keep going day after day if you sincerely hate the direction of the journey.

2. Communication and Networking

PhD activities are not limited to thesis writing. You have to teach, attend conferences, collaborate with your academic peers, and develop your own network of contacts. These resources will help you immensely throughout your PhD programme years and for many years after your viva voce.

Here’s how it works.

• PhD students taking part in conferences, co-authoring articles, and conducting interdisciplinary projects have good exposure and can be easily tracked online. This is recognised by academic professionals, journal editors, and other parties. When you need to contact them with some requests, they will instantly know who you are and how committed you are to succeeding.

• Many opportunities in academia are first discussed within internal networks. Being a person who knows dozens of fellow practitioners in your area pays off in the long term.

• Good connections allow you to ask for advice and assistance during your PhD programme or find a potential job after completing it. People tend to make valuable offerings to practitioners they know and trust.

Additionally, few PhD projects go exactly as planned. Being able to communicate your problems, negotiate delays and extensions or promote your standpoint to your supervisor in a polite manner, minimising conflict and tension, can help you reach your PhD goals faster.

3. Strategic Self-Management

Succeeding in a PhD in 2026 takes much more than resilience. Strategic self-management involves a number of concepts.

a) Being able to deal with complexity

A PhD dissertation is a set of complex goals with multiple phases. Planning these challenges, setting clear milestones, and analysing potential risks make a successful PhD student a good project manager.

b) Sustaining motivation

Sparks of energy and inspiration come to you at random periods and are not reliable as a foundation for your PhD writing process. You must be able to build routines such as writing 2-3 pages per day every day for several years straight to make consistent progress.

c) Seeking and integrating feedback

In many cases, your initial plans will require revision down the road. Strategic self-management implies your intention to not only accept it but also proactively seek such external recommendations. This mindset suggests that you are consistently looking for new ways to improve your research and thesis writing processes to strengthen your work.

4. Adaptability and Flexibility

PhD life in 2026 is full of frustration and rejection. For example, the rates of article acceptance at high-quality journals according to Elsevier amount to a horrendous 11-32% on average. If any failure instantly disrupts your commitment and motivation, you will not be able to progress far.

Whether you like it or not, a PhD is a journey and a marathon involving a large share of trial and error. No matter how much you prepare and plan, you will encounter unexpected factors in your research.

A good solution for surviving such adversities is to adopt a positive and growth-oriented mindset. In many cases, emerging challenges open new doors and opportunities that were not available earlier. Accepting the need to adapt to changing conditions as a source of growth rather than disruption can help you capitalise on these trends without losing your sense of control over your PhD journey’s course.

5. Scientific Curiosity

Last but not least, scientific curiosity is a frequently overlooked trait that can be a game-changer in surviving the odds of getting a PhD degree today. As opposed to interest in a particular field, topic or subject, it represents general inquisitiveness and hunger for knowledge. In the world of interdisciplinary research, changing trends, and merging scientific fields, it can be more valuable than sheer passion. Moreover, curiosity welcomes flexibility and stimulates your interest in multiple spheres, going beyond your approved topic. Make sure that you use this quality to supercharge your PhD performance.

Here are some ideas:

1. If you encounter an article that fascinates you, write a message to its author. Sincere interest in the work of others frequently leads to future collaboration.
2. Allocate time to investigate your areas of interest beyond your confirmed topic. This may lead to unique insights enriching your research focus or suggesting new directions.
3. Satiate your curiosity by engaging in alternate career paths and/or hobbies. Balancing your revenue streams, interests, and success strategies prevents you from failure and burnout.

If you need any assistance with your PhD or publications, PhD Centre is here to help. Contact us today for PhD dissertation writing help and research paper assistance from our team of PhD-qualified writers.

The widespread use of generative AI has significantly transformed the way students approach academic tasks. Before the introduction of AI tools, students spent hours conducting research, analysing sources and summarising information from journal articles or research papers. However, today, with the help of generative AI, students can complete these tasks within a few seconds.

For international students, the use of generative AI may appear like a practical solution for meeting tight academic deadlines and university expectations. While AI tools are known to increase efficiency, growing evidence indicates that excessive reliance on AI can weaken students’ ability to think critically, respond to complex academic problems or develop innovative ideas. As a result, universities across the world are increasingly implementing policies to regulate and encourage the ethical use of generative AI in higher education.

Academic Penalties and Integrity Violations

To discourage inappropriate use of generative AI, universities are tightening academic integrity policies and treating undisclosed AI use as a serious violation. Several institutions now classify undisclosed use of AI under academic misconduct policies, with consequences ranging from failed assignments to, in severe cases, failure of an entire degree. Submitting work that is entirely generated with the help of AI or failing to disclose the permitted use of AI is often considered plagiarism by universities.

Apart from integrating AI detector tools into the assessment processes, examiners and supervisors also use methods such as viva examinations, writing consistency analysis and conceptual questioning to identify AI-generated submissions. For international students studying on student visas, the consequences can have a significant impact on their careers. Beyond failed assignments, academic misconduct findings may have a negative impact on academic progression, delay graduation or jeopardise the enrolment status of international students.

Atrophy of Argument and Academic Thinking

The negative effects of using generative AI in academic writing are not limited to academic penalties. Research has observed that the constant use of AI tools can have a long-term impact on students and may result in a gradual decline in intellectual thinking skills, also known as cognitive atrophy. When students use generative AI to write dissertations or academic papers, they outsource the most essential part of academic writing, which is conducting independent research, analysing data and constructing coherent arguments. As reliance on AI tools increases, students spend less time practising how to build arguments, engage critically with literature or interpret and justify academic debates. Over time, this leads to atrophy of argument or weakening of the student’s ability to think independently and academically.

As academic skills are developed over time through regular practice, feedback and revision, constant dependence on AI tools might significantly hinder the intellectual growth of students rather than supporting it. Especially for postgraduate and research students, the consequences of AI reliance can be even more serious. For example, advanced academic work requires depth of understanding, originality, theoretical positioning and methodological clarity. As a result, examiners expect students to defend their thesis and clearly justify why their work has been structured and argued in a particular way.

AI-generated academic papers often lack theoretical positioning and methodological justification. As a result, even well-written papers may be rejected due to a lack of structure, conceptual gaps and weak arguments. This can further result in paper rejections, major revisions, resubmissions and extended completion timelines, leading to a further delay in the completion of coursework.

Ethical Academic Support

While generative AI may seem efficient in the short term, its regular use may not be suitable for students in the long run. Thus, instead of relying on AI tools, students must look for safer and smarter alternatives to assist them when academic writing.

For example, rather than replacing their critical thinking, ethical academic support can help students strengthen their writing skills. Under the guidance of experienced academic professionals, students can learn how to clarify arguments, improve structural coherence, refine academic language and align their work with the university marking criteria. This approach not only ensures that the ideas of the students remain the same but also supports learning, builds confidence, and protects academic integrity.

Unlike generative AI, ethical academic support can be customised to adapt to disciplinary expectations, supervisor feedback, and institutional guidelines. It encourages students to develop clear arguments with logical reasoning and academic research. More importantly, it helps students to actively engage with their research and understand their work before submission.

If you are struggling with academic writing, research structure, or argument development, our professional academic writing services can help you improve your work with confidence. Our writing experts ensure that all academic assignments are well-researched and free from AI-generated content, thereby maintaining academic integrity and safeguarding your work from academic penalties. Order dissertation writing help today!

While many PhD students leave referencing for last-minute draft revisions, this element forms the core of academic research. The quality, recency, and relevance of your sources directly influence the novelty of your study. The integrity of your references also demonstrates your knowledge of the field, intellectual lineage of your findings, and your overall respect for and recognition of existing theories and debates in your field.

AI-generated reference lists look like a good idea at first. You get a professional-looking collection of articles with ready-made summaries you can instantly cite in your literature review. However, this convenience can be much more dangerous than you expect. In this article, we will analyse the top 5 risks of using AI for academic referencing purposes.

1. Lack of Full Control over AI Choices

Most AI platforms look like a black box even to professional IT specialists. While some can be asked to explain their reasoning explicitly, the motivation for choosing particular papers in response to your request remains unclear most of the time.

• Are these articles the most recent ones in the training database?
• Were they prioritised according to some undisclosed central tendency?
• Are they the easiest to gain access to (i.e., older)?

Explaining your choice of sources for a Bachelors or Masters dissertation can become difficult if you suddenly miss some recent breakthroughs in your field for no particular reason. This may become an even greater problem in PhD research, where the selection of sources has to follow a strict and explainable logic.

2. Amplification of the ‘Mainstream View’

As noted above, AI frequently follows some central tendency when answering requests. In academic research, this means that some points of view can be overrepresented. This may occur with specific regions of the world, theories, and seminal works of emerging scholars. The ‘academic cost’ of such selection is the narrowness of analysis and potential loss of important literature in your field. Also, AI cannot separate primary and secondary sources or trace back some ideas to their original authors. This frequently leads to one-dimensional analysis missing criticism and overemphasising some standpoints that were more widespread in the data the model was trained on.

3. Fabricated Sources

While popular AIs can get some basic facts right most of the time, accurate referencing remains their Achilles’ heel. According to recent articles, from 18 to 69 per cent of citations can be fabricated depending on a particular model and research area. The worst thing is that AIs do not actually tell you which sources are the result of their hallucination. This leaves you with a reference list you cannot fully depend on. In many cases, the journal names, authors, and article names look highly realistic since the algorithm combines pieces of real data to create fake items. If you are not planning to spend sufficient time checking every reference on your list, you may reconsider the idea of using AI for referencing purposes.

4. Inaccurate Summaries and Lists

In many cases, AIs are used by researchers to generate lists of key literature in a particular field and summarise the key points of recent publications in it. On paper, this looks convenient for developing your literature review and saving a lot of time. Unfortunately, these features are still too unreliable to guarantee good credibility. AIs mix primary and secondary sources and do not verify the quality of specific sources. This means that your summary can include studies concealing their methodologies, non-peer-reviewed articles, and even AI-generated articles cited in real articles. The summaries also lack criticism since the algorithm simply ‘retells’ the contents instead of approaching the data critically and positioning it against a wider network of knowledge in this sphere.

5. Mix of Functions

If you consider the bigger picture, citations and references serve several functions. On the one hand, they address instrumental and professional aspects by showing the depth of your research, your understanding of key debates, and your contribution to the field. On the other hand, they also serve a rhetorical function by helping you support your claims, contextualise your arguments, and position your findings within existing studies. While ideal AI systems can potentially address the first elements, they cannot help you develop your own ideas or create them for you. Moreover, they largely guide you towards specific arguments instead of facilitating your independent thought. As a result, many students start using them as a crutch rather than a support, which leads them to generic findings informed by available sources instead of novel research going beyond what we already know.

While the lure of using AI systems for findings and summarising your key references is extremely strong at the moment, you should always be aware of the risks above. These platforms can give students a wrong sense of confidence that they promptly lose when they encounter the problems stemming from fake sources or incorrect summaries of key ideas. If you find yourself confused by the task at hand, try seeking professional writing help to get expert guidance on referencing and finding the best sources to support your research.

If you are struggling to find sufficient sources for your PhD literature review or need help compiling your final bibliography before submission, our PhD writers can help. Outsource the longest task of your PhD dissertation writing, like PhD editing, to the experts at Original PhD.

Writing a PhD thesis was one of the most challenging journeys in their lives, according to many of our customers. Make no mistake, PhD writing is an extremely rocky road by itself, even without considering the economic, political, and academic threats that may come into force in the next 3-7 years.

The worst thing you can do is to start your PhD journey without a clear plan of how you are going to get there, no matter what. This PhD writing guide summarises the insights of many PhD students that we have provided PhD thesis writing help to in the past.

Here is a 12-step plan to aid you in mapping a route through unfamiliar PhD territories.

1. Read the Manual

One widespread mistake made by hundreds of students is starting to write their thesis on a whim. Inspiration definitely plays its part in producing a novel piece of research. However, it is of no use when you have to delete 50 pages of quality text after suddenly finding out that you have missed some original requirements of your university.

The very first thing you must do is to:

1) Find 3-5 theses published by your specific department that passed within the previous 3 years. Tear them down structurally and content-wise. Create a mock-up ‘Frankenstein’ document with sample chapters and write down their approximate word count. Don’t pay too much attention to section and sub-section names since they will be adjusted multiple times during your writing process.

2) Find your official university guidelines on PhD thesis structure and compare your sample structure with these requirements. If you find any discrepancies between the two, clarify these issues with your supervisor. Make 100% sure that your PhD thesis structure matches both their suggestions and your university’s instructions. With that being said, some discrepancies are normal in most cases due to the uniqueness of each PhD thesis.

2. Choose a Favourite Reference Manager

A good PhD thesis may include several hundred references that all must follow strict referencing standards. You also need to keep all your sources available from any device to ensure seamless work from libraries, commuter trains, and any location where inspiration may strike you.

Try 3-4 reference management tools and find the solution that works best for you. You will thank yourself later when you’re not spending dozens of hours fixing your references right before the draft submission.

3. Start Big (Introduction Chapter Writing)

This section must answer the difficult question, “Why Should Anyone Really Care?”. You have to ‘sell’ your ‘Big Problem’ to the audience and substantiate your solution(s) for it. A good practice here is to first create a draft introduction section and update it later when you have all the cards. This will help you develop a convincing and focused chapter that works as an elevator pitch.

4. Showcase Your Knowledge (The Literature Review Chapter)

This step is usually the one that kick-starts your thousand-mile PhD journey. Start by developing the ideas from your proposal, and don’t be afraid to be descriptive or indecisive at first. The only way to overcome a PhD writing crisis is to start small and revise your drafts enough times afterwards. Here are some ideas that will help you ace your literature review:

1) Begin with the ‘Big Problem’

First, simply collect everything you know about your ‘Big Problem’ so far. Include all concepts, theories, and recent research. Ignore your Literature Review sections for now and use your earlier created draft structure.

2) Organise Your Concepts

As soon as you have all the relevant information ready, internal relationships between separate studies, theories, and concepts will start to show. Use these insights to organise the earlier collected knowledge and restructure your chapter accordingly if necessary.

3) Introduce Criticism

It may be difficult to explore your topics from multiple standpoints when you are just starting. Give yourself sufficient time to get acquainted with the key ideas in the field. Then, gradually move away from focusing on individual studies towards discussing overarching concepts and worldviews.

4) Clarify the Research Gaps

At this phase, you will be able to pinpoint the gaps in knowledge your thesis can address. Identify these areas and update your Introduction accordingly.

5. Provide Your Research Plan (Methodology chapter writing)

All strong methodology chapters follow the same golden rule. Any researcher must be able to fully replicate your study using only this section of your thesis. Make sure that you include:

1) Research philosophies, strategies, and approaches.

2) Data collection and processing methods.

3) Survey and interview forms.

4) Main expected findings and limitations.

5) The schedule of your study, its main participants, and its protocols.

6. Present Your Findings (Results)

In this section, you have to simply provide the things you have identified when collecting and processing your data. Don’t start the interpretation just yet. Here are some ideas on how you can organise your results section:

1) Use visualisation. A well-designed diagram makes your key findings instantly readable. This is convenient for both your PhD thesis reviewers and yourself since you may recognise additional patterns and correlations within your data.

2) Include all results. Some of your initial expectations may not be confirmed. This is perfectly fine. Make sure that you include all your results, including the negative ones.

3) Identify key interesting points for further discussion. Mark any emerging unexpected themes in qualitative analysis or (un)confirmed hypotheses in quantitative analysis.

4) Get familiar with your key findings and patterns within your analysis results. You will need a strong awareness of them during the next chapter.

7. Connect the Dots (Discussion chapter)

Here is where you need to get back to your Literature Review and discuss your findings in light of prior studies and theories. Here is how you do it:

1) Write down your key findings that are most interesting, unexpected or have the strongest statistical significance.

2) Link them with specific theories, studies, and earlier formulated expectations.

3) Identify whether your hypotheses or assumptions were confirmed or discarded.

4) Discuss your limitations and the areas where your results could be explored further in future studies.

8. Draw the Line (Conclusion chapter writing)

This section allows you to achieve several key targets:

1) Re-state your key findings and link them with your research objectives, questions, and hypotheses.

2) Explain why these insights matter and what contribution your thesis has made to your area of interest.

3) Formulate recommendations and future research directions.

Make sure that you do not introduce any new ideas, studies or theories during this phase of writing a PhD thesis. Effectively, this is where you draw the line and simply present the results of your hard work. Ensure that you strictly follow the contents of your results and discussion chapters.

Your conclusion is the second-most-important section after your introduction that your examiners will read right before evaluating the quality of your thesis and writing their reports. Make sure that both of them leave a strong and lasting impression.

9. Get Back to Where You Started (Revising Your Introduction)

Now, you have a completed thesis draft in your hands. The time has come to complete and revise your introduction section. By the end of this process, it must become your elevator pitch, convincing the reader to continue reading and helping them get acquainted with the rest of the thesis.

When you revise it based on all your findings, make sure that you ask several fellow students or researchers to read it and provide feedback. This review format is extremely simple but immensely powerful since working on your thesis for several years usually leads to fatigue. In this condition, you may be biased in your appraisals, which means that a second opinion may be invaluable to see some potential flaws or improvement areas.

10. Edit Ruthlessly

Make sure that you allocate several weeks to the editing and proofreading stage. If possible, use external readers, a PhD writing service or a professional editor to look at your thesis draft with a fresh pair of eyes. There is a good reason why even professional writers use such services.

Here are some questions you should review while editing and prooreading your thesis draft:

1) Does your thesis read like a good story?

An internal flow is crucial for building a convincing argument. Try opening a new document and summarising each paragraph of your thesis in one sentence. Next, see whether these ideas flow logically.

2) Can you cut out 20% of your thesis without losing much value?

A quality thesis must be 100% straight to the point. During your writing process, some paragraphs may fall off-topic, while some sentences may not clarify your ideas or bring much value. A good editor is ruthless in this aspect and is ready and willing to eliminate large chunks of your text. Keep in mind that your examiners rarely have time to read the whole thesis and frequently skim. Hence, you must be certain that its readability is superior in any section or paragraph.

3) How does your thesis sound?

The final test is to ask someone to read your thesis out loud or record yourself doing this. While this idea may sound weird at first, it instantly demonstrates whether your text is easy to comprehend. This extra test also helps with finding some missed typos and odd phrasing.

11. Check Your Formatting and Referencing

While this phase is extremely important, many students underestimate its relevance immensely and lose some marks as a result. The urge to ignore ‘minor’ issues such as formatting and referencing until the night before the submission is strong. However, this is the worst mistake you can make.

An experienced examiner may not identify some minor flaws in logic in your literature review if they do not have sufficient time to read it thoroughly. Yet, their trained eye will instantly recognise formatting inconsistencies and referencing typos while skimming through the text. Finding some missed formatting errors right in your introduction section rarely makes your reviewers happy and willing to grant you a ‘pass’ for your efforts.

12. Prepare for Your Viva

While submitting your final draft for examination may look like ‘the finish line’, you can still win some points to increase your chances of getting a ‘pass’ at the first attempt (or ‘with minor corrections’ if we are being more realistic). From our experience, successful PhD students thoroughly revise their PhD thesis and/or come to their viva exam with a colour-coded and heavily annotated draft containing bookmarks for key sections. Even if your university may not allow you to take such notes and answers to possible questions with you, such a process will help you better prepare for what is to come.

General Recommendations and Final Thoughts

Finally, it is possible to offer some general recommendations that apply to most sections and the PhD thesis writing phases discussed earlier.

1. Take Control of the Feedback

Some meticulous supervisors expect dozens of draft revisions. Rewriting your sections can be really infuriating and tiresome at times. A good way to minimise stress is to negotiate specific submission deadlines proactively on your terms by approaching them first. This way, you can send small chunks of your work by the agreed milestones (e.g., a single section or a single chapter) and proceed with further parts while waiting for supervisor feedback. Such an approach is infinitely better than getting revision requests at random times, which completely breaks your PhD thesis writing workflow.

2. Set the Rules Right from the Start

Previously, we suggested getting a reference manager early on to minimise the need for reference list revisions down the road. The same rule applies to document templates, section headings, table styles, and other formatting elements. Spending one day to develop a custom document template incorporating all university requirements in terms of document style can save you dozens of hours later. You simply define the rules from the start and follow them without thinking too much afterwards.

3. Be Ready for the Plateau

In any activity, at some point, you ‘hit the plateau’ when your hard work does not create any visible results for a long time. You also feel exhausted and uninspired, which also contributes to your impostor syndrome. The best strategy in such situations was suggested by Winston Churchill: “If you’re going through hell, keep going”.

Writing a PhD thesis in one month is simply not possible. When you are out of inspiration and cannot write 1-2 pages of high-quality text on a really bad day, switch to the revision of previous sections, proofreading, and editing. Such mechanical tasks still contribute to your end result and help you progress even when your productivity is low.

Pursuing a PhD can be both challenging and rewarding for new students. Challenging because PhD students find it difficult to navigate through their course and manage their PhD work with their personal lives. But rewarding as it helps students accumulate knowledge and skills to gain expertise in their field of study.

A PhD also acts as a solid foundation for a career in academia or other professional job roles. However, many students often feel anxious about managing the challenges that come along with a PhD and are not able to make the most of it. Instead of stressing over these difficulties, doctoral students need to manage stress and set achievable goals.

If you are looking to get the best out of your experience, here is a list of 10 important things that every PhD student should do during their doctoral studies.

1. Network

During your PhD years, you will have multiple opportunities to network with academic experts, peers, other researchers and industry professionals. Active networking can be useful in making long-term professional relationships that can help you both during and after your PhD. A good way to make new connections is by meeting people on and off campus. Additionally, social media sites such as LinkedIn and Twitter can also help reach out to researchers and industry professionals from different parts of the world.

2. Be proactive as a PhD Student

During your PhD, you may come across several opportunities to demonstrate your skills. Whether it is presenting at conferences, leading a workshop in your department, doing a guest lecture or organising a campus event, volunteer for the activities that interest you the most. But, these opportunities will not just fall right into your lap. You will need to be proactive in searching for them.

Presenting your research in front of the public will boost your confidence as a PhD student. It will also help you look at your work from different perspectives. Moreover, you will be able to build your public speaking skills, which are highly important in the field of academia.

3. Attend conferences

Conferences not only give a better understanding of the subject area to doctoral candidates but also present several networking opportunities. Attending a conference once in a while might help build your confidence in speaking with other academics and students. As well as providing you with ample opportunity to learn of new developments that may be relevant to your research. You can start by attending one or two local conferences in your first year and gradually move to more frequent or international conferences.

4. Take up teaching

A good way to get first-hand experience of a subject is by applying the information that you are currently studying. Many universities encourage doctoral students to take up teaching roles during their PhD tenure. By teaching other students, you can share the knowledge that you have accumulated throughout your academic life. Moreover, teaching experience can also act as valuable collateral for the CV and improve your chances of establishing a successful career in academia.

5. Listen to your supervisor

Your supervisor can have a significant influence on your research and PhD career. Supervisors act like mentors who guide doctoral candidates throughout their PhD journey. Although you don’t have to agree with your supervisor all the time, following their advice might benefit your PhD. They can guide you in understanding the PhD process better and give you constructive criticism to improve your dissertation.

Some PhD students can experience clashes with their supervisors and this is not uncommon. They are also working professionals and finding the time to assist you with your PhD work can be a challenge. Therefore, it’s best to come up with a strategy that works for both of you. Understanding how each of you works will be sure to help alleviate any friction and result in a great working partnership.

6. Take risks

During your PhD, you can take measured risks to see what works for you and what doesn’t. While working on research, check if taking a risk will make it more impactful. Even though not taking risks will not affect your PhD graduation, being ambitious can make a larger impact and get a higher reward from your PhD. Taking risks will also motivate you to be creative and come up with innovative ideas to apply to your research.

7. Identify your weaknesses and strengths

While pursuing a PhD, make it a habit to set goals and track your achievements or failures. After every interval, remember to reflect on your learning and see how far you have come. As you analyse your progress, you will be able to identify your core areas of strength and the areas that need improvement. You can highlight your strengths in your CV to give an idea of your personality to recruiters in the future. Additionally, once you identify your weaknesses, you can try to work on them and find ways to overcome them.

8. Learn to deal with rejection

Rejection is a part of life and we need to learn to deal with it sportingly. Especially for PhD students, there will be several instances when you will feel stuck in the wrong place. However, facing these issues bravely will give you the confidence to complete your research and pivot when needed. Perhaps your manuscript isn’t accepted by your journal of choice or you don’t get the job you worked hard for, these are opportunities to learn and grow. There will be plenty more journals, lots more editing and more job roles that may be even more fulfilling. If you are struggling with your journal article or implementing comments from your supervisor, it may be essential to consider help from a professional PhD writing service.

9. Pursue non-academic interests

Although PhD research will take up a significant amount of your time, trying to take time out for non-academic interests is important. Potential employers seek candidates who have comprehensive experience in academic and non-academic activities. Indulging in activities such as gardening, painting, cooking, photography or music will help to keep you motivated. It will also stimulate your brain and ensure that you do not feel stressed or bogged down by your studies.

10. Pay attention to your personal life

To stay at the top of their PhD game, many doctoral candidates can over-indulge in their academic work and ignore their personal lives. However, this can have a negative impact on your work-life balance and add up to stressful situations. Creating a schedule is the best way to balance your research and personal life. It will give you time to spend with your family and friends. Having a work-life balance will ensure that you pay attention to your health and nutrition and get enough rest when needed.

Read more PhD student tips on the blog!

As thesis requirements may vary substantially depending on your subject area and your university, formulating a universal set of ‘commandments’ is a challenging task. However, your PhD examiner is a professional in their sphere who is obliged to objectively appraise your project and substantiate their criticisms where necessary.

This implies that their reports will rely upon specific ‘best practices’ in a particular field of study that can be studied and implemented by most students. The following list of 10 tips was compiled by experienced PhD thesis writers who have appraised hundreds of thesis drafts in the past. These recommendations will help you impress your PhD examiner and minimise the scope of possible corrections and revisions during your doctorate studies.

1. Focus on the Abstract

While thesis abstracts are frequently written as the final piece of text, your examiners will start reading your thesis from this section. Hence, leaving their completion to the last minute may be one of the worst choices for students willing to impress the reader. You should use short abstracts highlighting your study focus, significance, and ‘sales points’ to leave them wanting more. Think of it as a back cover of a book containing the annotation of its contents. If it does not ‘sell’ it to your prospective readers, they may not be fully invested in the revision process.

2. Mind Your Language

There are few things more disappointing to a PhD examiner than basic typos and grammar mistakes found in the first sections of a thesis. This instantly makes you look like a negligent person who disrespects the thesis defence committee. Proofread extensively and use automated spell-checkers such as Grammarly to ensure that you have eliminated 100% of such problems in your draft.

If English is your second language, you may want to use the services of an external editor or expert for PhD proofreading help. They can examine your grammar and syntax and provide some recommendations on making your thesis seem more professional in terms of academic writing quality.

3. Provide a Clear Problem Definition

Think of the first sections of your dissertation draft as a leaflet for a consumer medicine information leaflet. If you need one, chances are you want to find out what a certain pharmaceutical drug does as soon as possible. Your dissertation should function in the same way, by clearly defining a life-and-death situation in your sphere of interest and the reasons why it had to be investigated.

You need to attract the PhD examiner’s attention by showing a serious problem and making them interested in the solution you have developed to address it. This definition should stress both the significance of the issue and the absence of high-quality research in this field to demonstrate the academic novelty and significance of your PhD thesis.

4. Obey the Requirements

Prior to the completion of your draft, collect all relevant university instructions and guidelines and create a checklist of all key requirements applicable to your thesis. Next, read your thesis as an examiner and try to find some mistakes and potential violations of these rules. While you probably used a list like this at the beginning of your work, you may have steered away from it in some aspects or missed some new instructions published during your PhD writing process. Make 100% sure that you recognise and obey these rules since failing to do so instantly triggers a ‘red flag’ in the minds of many examiners.

5. Appraise the Quality of Your References

As soon as you have finished checking the format requirements, you may want to look at the quality of your references. Have you included all recent studies published by the moment of your project completion? Is the overall number of references sufficient for the dissertation standard you seek to achieve? In many cases, PhD examiners start inspecting your draft from this section to ensure that you used high-quality sources to support your arguments.

6. Support Your Claims

The very first sections of your PhD thesis must indicate that you have used proper data to support your statements and test your assumptions. We have seen dozens of drafts where a PhD examiner highlighted some conclusions in-text with question marks due to the lack of proper references for these ideas. Provide a reference for every idea you discuss to avoid this situation. The same relates to the discussion and interpretation of your results where you need to substantiate your claims of closing the earlier discovered research gaps and addressing your research question(s).

7. Be Critical in Your Appraisal of Previous Research

To offer new solutions to the identified research gaps, you need to fully understand the limitations of existing knowledge in your selected field. Hence, being critical in your appraisal of previous studies is the best way to demonstrate your understanding of your sphere of interest.

8. Demonstrate Your Expertise

The identification of research gaps in a selected field of study implies your expertise in this field and your full awareness of all key theories and recent research in it. Make sure that your Introduction and Literature Review chapters present sufficient evidence of your knowledge and cite all relevant publications related to your topic.

9. Substantiate Your Choice of Research Methods

Any thesis author has to balance two research perspectives. On the one hand, they have limited resources, which forces them to formulate SMART objectives that can be achieved within a set period of time with the resources they presently possess. On the other hand, methodological choices must suit the posed research question and address the limitations of previous studies in the field. Make sure that you include an in-depth appraisal of both perspectives. This will show your examiners the thoroughness of your approach to research design and your understanding of all potential choices and their strengths and limitations.

10. Discuss Your Thesis Limitations and Implications

Showing your weaknesses is not a problem in the world of academic research. As noted above, any study has its limitations based on the methodological choices made as well as existing resource constraints. The discussion of these aspects will show your examiners that you are fully aware of the consequences of your decisions and will support your claims regarding the future implications and scientific significance of your project.

If you need help finalising your thesis, proofreading, and compiling all of your chapters to ensure high-quality work, consider speaking to our PhD expert writers for help!