The Pragmatic PhD – Craft skills for students and supervisors

Optimising your Presentations: Lessons from the Conference Circuit

Presenting your work is a core part of research, and something I would encourage you to seek out through your PhD journey. […]

Obstacle: My supervisor is an idiot; why should I listen to him? Uh oh. What makes you so sure it’s your supervisor who’s the […]

Obstacle: Non-native English “The main obstacle I constantly try to overcome, in general, is the fact that I am a non native speaker. […]

Obstacle: The appearance of progress instead of real progress “…I have often been in the uncomfortable position of having to be SEEN to […]

Obstacle: How to evaluate my work’s originality? “Most of the times when I believe I have found an original idea to develop, I […]

“Prevention is better than cure.” “I think the bottom line is students are incredibly dependent on their supervisors…” A PhD is hard […]

Students ask: How can I manage all the work in time? And how can I balance the PhD with everything else? How do I spread […]

Written in collaboration with David Bowers. One of the most important – and most overlooked – factors in timely submission is project […]

Students ask: How do you read your own work and criticize it? How can I read like an examiner? People usually read […]

I came across this blog post from the LSE the other evening discussing the shortcomings of the current financing structure for research […]