September, 2015 - PhD Thesis Bangalore

Does It Help to Give Festive Goodies to Your PhD Supervisor?

During the course of my PhD, while I was on teaching assignments, it was quite normal for students to drop in with chocolates and eateries and it was not strange. One thing that stayed with me and is still a good memory is a brass plate souvenir of best teacher that is etched on my table and came as a gift from one of the students. A “permanent” kind of a present is unlike from students but it does stay with you and keeps reminding them of their importance in your lives. Whenever my other colleagues visit, the plate resting on my study is a matter of my pride and a topic of discussion. Mostly it comes down to the most important person in our PhD journey. The supervisor. Firstly, we have brainstorming over whether or not the supervisor should be given festival souvenirs and then further on the options.

Often I have seen that people have very diverse opinions when it comes to this; mostly because it is very opaque in terms of structured etiquette or guidelines in this area.

I think the best way to understand whether or not to give a gift to your supervisor is to speak to fellow researchers to know the normal trend in your university. People who have been there longer would be able to tell you better and it is always good to follow the trend in the university so you don’t take your supervisor by surprise. If you do decide to give a gift, one of these options could be a safe bet:

Wine/Chocolates: One of the most neutral choice is to go ahead with Wine and chocolates. It is safe and socially acceptable. However, be very sure about the drinking habits of your supervisor. If he is a teetotaller then of course chocolates is the most commonly acceptable and safest choice.
Baked eateries: These may seem like common and easy passable gifts but my suggestions are while keeping in mind the cost involved in the gift. An expensive gift might become a burden sometimes on the supervisor or make you appear distinct from other research scholars. The entire purpose behind giving gifts to supervisors is to let them know in a warm way about how much you value them and a small token as a gesture of gratitude can take care of it pretty well. Small edible gift assortments work well with most of them.
Table Souvenirs: As I discussed earlier in the blog, a small souvenir like a table keep serves as a memoir for a long time to come. A nice quote on a plate or a blessing souvenir always works well with most supervisors
Pen: A pen is mightier than a sword, it works well here, as much as it works at other relevant places. Some professors are very protective of their stationary and pens and nothing makes them happier that having a new addition to their previous collection.

It is important that you know the taste and liking of your supervisor to know what they would like and be pick up your gift accordingly. The entire purpose should be to make them feel special and important through ac small token. It would go a long way in building positive vibes with your supervisor in a long and tough journey.

Should PhD Scholars Work on Industry Funded Projects?

At the onset, working on an industry funded project is a phenomenal idea. It appears to have multiple benefits. Firstly, it is an opportunitt to take up a kind of research that has a lot of practical use. Secondly, industry is relatively more generous in providing funding as compared to the academic fraternity. The research oriemted industries are generous enoughto fund not just the research inititatives but also the overheads borne by the researcher for boarding, travelling and so on. All these and many more benefits are luring enough to get associated with an industry oriented project but there are certain considerations that need not be ignored.

1. Publication Hindrance: An industry is a profit making initiative and would almost always fund onlly those activities from whichit can extract some commercial benefits. To add to it , you may be made aware of some confidential information of the company which you would be expected not to disclose and for that sometimes an agreement between you and the company would also be signed. Because of this sometimes you may not be able to publish the conplete output of your research and you lose onto some very important contribution in your research.

2. No Long Breaks on Personal Concerns: Howmuch strict be your supervisor, he would give you breaks and empathize with your personal concerns and commitments. You could still get a break once in a while but when the industry funds your assignments, there isnt any relaxation on regular committed updates that you have to give to the company. Supervisors some time pressurize or even to say harass their scholars f or updates as they get the pressure from the industry people.

3. The Trend of Job Switching: you may begin to work on a project with some people in the company and build up a rapport with them and get them required supportand encouragement that puts you in a comfort level in the midst of strangers. But the industry is such a place where people do not remain in the same job for a long time, reasons of choice or no, they do move on. It isnt necessary that the replacement would again be at the same wavelength with you. It can sometimes become a potential hindrance in the smooth progress of your work.

In a crisp advice I would like to say that, it is always better to get as much advice as you can about if any agreement is there between the university or the company that can bound you so that there are not any clauses that are hidden from you that may surprise you at a stage where you do not know what to do next. Sometimes companies do offer room for negotiation, do check out scope if any or that.

Being a PhD Scholar, Befriend Your Librarian?

Being into academics, books and you would be inseparable and you would need them at various times during the course of your PhD. The person who can be of best help to you in the need is the academic librarian of your university. It is hence essential to befriend her. If you still have your … Continue reading “Being a PhD Scholar, Befriend Your Librarian?”

Being into academics, books and you would be inseparable and you would need them at various times during the course of your PhD. The person who can be of best help to you in the need is the academic librarian of your university. It is hence essential to befriend her. If you still have your doubts over what I told you above, find here five ways in which your librarian can be of help to you:

They dig books/information for you: Academic librarians love to do this and they are very good at this as well. They would help to source such material for you which you may find very difficult to arrange yourself. If not all this, they surely can guide you towards doing this effectively.
Give them time and they save yours: Librarians can help you purchase books, order material from sources they already know of. If you consider their human limitations and value their efforts you would give them time and that would save a lot of your time.
Even little information may be enough for them: An academic librarian is a master of his field and for finding the name of that one author or paper, you may have to dig into sources for hours all together, However, even with some brief cues, the librarian may be able to do it even less than half the time and half the frustration caused to you.
They can guide you from the very start: In the beginning of your course, you may not have too much help in the university and you may feel little lost. It isn’t even possible to ask you supervisor about small little details. However, you wouldn’t know that you can always ask your librarian from the very beginning to help you to keep a record of your bibliography. What are the different software in your library? How can you use those software for different purpose such as literature searching or maintaining bibliography etc.?

You can take their help throughout the tenure of your course: From the beginning till the end you would have work at the end of library. From when you start you course and till your VIVA is done the library will be the best place to find you so why not make the best use of the knowledge, expertise and experience of the librarian for making your life easier.

Does Keeping a Doctoral Notebook of Help?

It has been three years into a PhD programme and only recently did I start keeping a PhD note and I must say it has been completely a research changing experience. I hope I make myself clear when I say a PhD notebook. By a PhD notebook, I do not mean a record of meetings … Continue reading “Does Keeping a Doctoral Notebook of Help?”

It has been three years into a PhD programme and only recently did I start keeping a PhD note and I must say it has been completely a research changing experience. I hope I make myself clear when I say a PhD notebook. By a PhD notebook, I do not mean a record of meetings and seminars. By a notebook I mean a handy source to pen down thoughts, ideas and almost anything that comes to mind anytime.

I would not be surprised, if after reading the first paragraph itself you would feel what is new about this and this is something you have already been doing from the beginning itself. I started late and took quite some time to accept the fact that it is ok to have scribbled notebook that may not have all pages interconnect to each other.

Even If You Already Have That Notebook, Find These Tips Handy and Useful:

1. Keep Only One Notebook: You may get multiple ideas during the day and they may be belonging to different components of your research. If you try and follow the task of keeping different notebooks for each type then you end up adding your task of sorting and compilation and taking care of the subset ideas. I have found having one notebook, with me at all times, as a much better idea, from the smallest to the most out of the box ideas, I put them down at one place. I have one notebook to preserve and refer to, at the time of sorting and taking care of documents.

2. Carry It Along Everywhere: the best of thoughts and ideas come at the most unexpected of places and times. If you do not carry it with you everywhere, you would defeat your entire purpose of keeping a notebook as you may end up using pieces of paper and they would be difficult to preserve and compile. It is easy to always keep a notebook with you handy. Make it your partner in your research journey.

3. Do Read Them Again: This is the last tip but certainly a very effective tip. Going back to read your notes from time to time may be a great idea. When you have a lot of pages built up, it may not be able to build up the connection with all that you wrote a few days back. To be able to maximize the connectivity and retention with your notes, it is important to read and re read them , even if just quickly, from time to time to be able to get the best out of them and use them I your research for what you actually thought to use it for.

Does Blogging of Your Doctoral Help?

How good an idea it is to post about research that is work in progress? In my opinion, there are surely some good reasons to do so and that is the reason that I often interrupt my normal flow of writing with research posts of my own research from time to time. I believe it is all the more important when you research involves qualitative work involving people. I would like to specifically discuss few reasons why I think it is very important to not leave an opportunity to blog your research:

(1) It becomes a record keeping source of your work: It is a very precise and if you write “everyday” then a very straightforward day wise account of your activity where your key points are mentioned in a very concise and crisp manner.
(2) Means to self-discipline: Blogging is a means to self-discipline. Often we plan to jot down our notes at the end of the day and eventually then procrastinate it for some other day. Here, when you will be committed to blogging, a necessary self-discipline would systematize things for you.
(3) It is more organised: Blogging your days activity, taking cues from your notes is away to organised the sketchy notes into more details but the extraneous information that may not be of use in the later stage can be deleted.
(4) Get more involved participants: It is a wonderful platform to share information with the other participants in your research so that they are also able to track your work and their role in it.
(5) Initiates conversation: When you put your blog online, you create opportunity to invite opinions and feedback. The relevant and constructive inputs can be used to improvise your work. With notes that are confined only in the notebook, a responsive conversation can never be initiated thus the scope for development of content gets very limited.
(6) Ignites new ideas: Writing about your work and re reading about it may give you more ideas and better way through which you can add value to your work.

So, what are you waiting for? If you have not started to blog your research activities yet, don’t wait any more. May be in my next blog I will give you some tips on creating effective blogs.