Dear Readers. Shaun Lehmann, Katherine Firth (of the Research Voodoo blog) and I are currently in the process of writing a new book for Open University Press called ‘Writing Trouble’. The proposed book evolved out of our work on the Thesis Bootcamp program, a writing intervention originally designed by Peta Freestone and Liam Connell. Over …continue reading.

This post is by Paula Hanasz, who has recently completed a PhD on transboundary water conflict and cooperation in South Asia. Paula has worked as a national security consultant and continues to provide freelance social research, business writing, stakeholder engagement and policy analysis services to government and NGO clients. We previously met Paula when she …continue reading.

This post is by Dr Randy Horwitz, who is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. He serves as the Medical Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and teaches medical students and see patients at the University Medical Center. “Wow. So I guess you’re not using your PhD, …continue reading.

This post is by Associate Professor Evonne Miller, the Director of Research Training for the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. She detests meetings and leans towards the hands-off supervision style, but her students will attest that she is passionate about their research and does yell at them (kindly) when needed. …continue reading.

Paul T. Corrigan finished his PhD in English at the University of South Florida after six years in the program. He now teaches writing and literature at Southeastern University (USA). You can look him up at paultcorrigan.com. At twenty-three, I stood in front of a mirror. After working out strenuously for months, I was in …continue reading.

This post is by Dr Alexandra Hogan, a mathematical infectious disease modeller. She submitted her PhD thesis at the Research School of Population Health at ANU in November 2016. She is now working on models for malaria transmission at Imperial College London. For an academic, participating in conferences is important for lots of reasons: sharing research …continue reading.

While many people will suffer ‘the blues’ during the PhD, in some cases the problem is more serious and can lead to or trigger clinical depression. In those cases, all the practical advice in the world won’t help and you need to seek medical attention. If you are worried about how you feel, and nothing …continue reading.

Some writing projects just take a long time. In academia this is always true, but this particular project had a more painful birthing process than most… Nearly two years ago now, Chris McMaster approached me to help him get together a book on post graduate study in Australia, written by students themselves. The book was …continue reading.

My sister is fond of reminding me that, in 1992, after returning from my first overseas trip to Europe, I told her I wanted a career where I could “get on and off planes and talk to people for a living”. It’s appropriate then, that I write this post while flying high above the red …continue reading.

I have a large, ever growing, pile of books sent to me by publishers in the hope that I will review them. Smart publishers know that I have an interest in helping you make best use of your (probably limited) book buying budget. I’m even thought to have quite a lot of influence in the …continue reading.