The Ultimate Guide to Doing a PhD

Have you ever considered doing a PhD, but have no idea where to start? Or are you doing a PhD and feel like you're losing the plot?

Deciding to do a PhD is going to be one of the most impactful choices you'll ever make. It's a multi-year commitment that can really shape your career and your life. Yet as important as the PhD is, there's not much collated information about the process as a whole: this is where this book comes in!

It explores every aspect of doing a PhD from application to graduation, and the whole mess in between. There are chapters on the motivation to do a PhD, the application process itself, questions around workload, time management, mental health, (peer) pressure, supervisor (mis)communications, teaching, networking, conference attendance, all the way up to publishing your thesis, and preparing for the next steps. And no, the next steps don't necessarily mean continuing to work in academia. This book addresses both career pathways, whether leaving or staying in academia, equally.

This book aims to take a PhD student or prospective student by the hand and outline the entire PhD process, answering every question you might possibly have along the way.

Readership: Younger (undergraduate, MA/MSc) students considering doing a PhD. Anyone (older students, practitioners and professionals) considering doing a PhD, or those who are engaged in education research for understanding the current struggles in the PhD process.