General - PhD Thesis Bangalore

Busted: 5 Academic Writing Myths You Must Know About

Academic writing, much like any other form of writing, is a demanding endeavour that requires patient and diligent hard work. It can take the average scholar up to two or three years to learn and sharpen the various skills and intellectual proficiencies associated with good academic writing.

Now, although polished academic writing skills and techniques can only be developed and mastered over time, there are a few practical guidelines that can help you accelerate this process. With this in mind, here are 5 of the biggest academic writing myths that you must absolutely steer clear of:

Myth #1: Academic writing is a linear process

There is much discussion about good academic writing practices, with many scholars and educators often talking about the various merits and demerits of a certain writing process. In fact, a quick internet search can fetch you numerous results that proclaim to teach you ‘everything you need to know about academic writing’. However, many writers still find themselves stumped when it comes to writing their academic papers. The reason for this is pretty simple – writing is not a linear process.

Unfortunately, there is no explanatory diagram or step-by-step flowchart that you can follow in order to become a seasoned academic writer. Instead, the actual writing process involves constantly modifying your work, jumping between multiple sections of your paper in order to make it more coherent. So, if you ever find yourself editing and re-editing your thesis statement midway through writing your paper, fret not – you are not the only one.

Myth #2: Writing skills are more important than reading and researching skills

Writing skills go hand-in-hand with reading and researching skills. To improve upon one of these areas, you will invariably have to improve upon the others too. Even if you possess good writing skills, it does not necessarily mean that you will become a good academic writer in case your reading and research skills are not up to the mark. After all, you first need to be able to fully understand what you are reading in order to interpret it and paraphrase it successfully.

So, a good idea is to always begin by understanding the aim and scope of a given academic assignment, followed by researching it thoroughly. Once you have understood the general idea and have sufficient and relevant matter at hand, it will be easier to intuit and write the rest of the assignment with common sense, practice and some helpful guidance on good academic writing practices.

Myth #3: An introductory writing course is enough instruction

Some scholars, and even educators, for that matter, believe that an introductory writing course is enough to arm oneself with the required know-how towards writing an academic paper. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Writing is a lifelong endeavour that involves constant learning and improvement. Assuming that a mere introductory course will make you a better academic writer is just folly on your part. A certain instruction course might be able to help you with a specific assignment, but this does not mean that it will provide relevant assistance with your next assignment too. So, be prepared to work hard on every assignment that you receive over the course of your academic tenure, rather than wrongfully assuming that you have learnt everything by attending a single introductory writing course.

Myth #4: Good grammar is good writing

Some individuals are convinced that drilling grammar into their assignments is an easy fix towards attaining desired outcomes. While grammatical correctness is indeed important, it is definitely not the ‘be-all’ and ‘end-all’ of academic writing. After all, good writing is about more than just good grammar. Most importantly, it is about achieving a desired effect upon the target audience. A well-written academic paper should be able to clearly communicate its intended message to the reader.

So, concentrate on your grammar to a fair extent, ensuring that your academic paper is devoid of glaring mistakes that would render it incoherent. However, equal attention should be paid towards assessing the assignment tasks and guidelines appropriately, and conducting your research accordingly.

Myth #5: Writing perfect first drafts

Many scholars are guilty of having too many expectations from early drafts. However, it is unrealistic to expect that you will write a perfect academic paper on your very first attempt. If you try to do so, chances are high that you will either overwork yourself trying to achieve the near-impossible task of creating an immaculate first draft, or you will get frustrated and give up altogether.

Remember, there is hardly anyone who writes perfect first drafts. The sheer scope of subjects, genres and fields of study present means that writing different academic papers requires a different approach each time. For instance, a scholar who has written an exceptionally good academic paper on English Literature might not necessarily turn in a well-written paper on Psychology too. So, do not beat yourself up if that first draft is not up to the standards you have set for yourself. With concentrated effort and study, you will gradually improve as an academic writer indeed.

Conclusion

Ultimately, academic writing can appear to be quite intimidating for most to even begin with. Moreover, the aforementioned myths can hinder scholars from appreciating and learning this art to an even bigger extent. Ideally, this article should be successful in debunking these harmful myths to give you a more comprehensive understanding of academic writing – and how you can excel at it.

Know How Research Method and Methodology Differ from each Other

As a PhD scholar, your main aim would be to determine answers/solutions to a specific question/issue. To identify the appropriate solution, choosing the right research method is a must. However, selection of research method often suffers setback due to the confusion between the method and methodology. Although it sounds outlandish, but the fact is that not all scholars are aware of the difference between those two concepts.

A source of confusion is that the words ‘method’ & ‘methodology’ are treated interchangeable in academics.

So what exactly is research method and methodology?

1. Research method

Research methods are the approaches used to define primary goals and determine the specific issue with deeper understanding. Simply said, the procedures and techniques utilised during the course of investigating the research problem, collect & perform data analysis is known as research method. This incorporates experimental studies, numerical schemes, statistical approaches, theoretical procedures, and many more. Typically, research methods are segregated into:

Exploratory research – This type of approach assists in identifying a problem
Constructive research– This approach utilises empirical evidence to evaluate the feasibility of solution
Empirical research – This type of research method used to assess the theories

These methods can be further divided into descriptive, applied, conceptual, qualitative and quantitative research. Unknown to many, research methods is categorised into three groups.

Group one – This category covers approaches pertaining to data collection. However, such methods are utilised only when the existing data isn’t sufficient to obtain the solution.
Group two – This category includes the approaches used to conduct data analysis. That is, to determine the data patterns and develop a relationship between the known & unknown data.
Group three – It encompasses approaches which are utilised to determine the accuracy of the obtained findings and generally incorporate analytical methods.

2. Research methodology

As the name suggests, research methodology is the study of the methods used to solve the problem/issue. It is the reasoning behind why the particular approach was used. In any study, research methodology serves the purpose of symmetrically solving the research problem and also explains how the result was obtained. I.e., the research methods employed and the manner in which the data was collected & analysed. A research methodology provides comprehensive theoretical and practical framework employed to describe the reasoning and functioning of the selected research methods in the initial stage of the study. Methodology plays a crucial role in research as it determines the reliability of the significant findings and adds value to the overall study. Key characteristics of methodology include:

Identifying appropriate research method to solve the chosen issue
Ensuring the efficiency of the selected research method
Determining the accuracy of the obtained results

Unlike research method, methodology isn’t a collection of tools or techniques. Instead offers detailed explanation to the reader pertaining to the techniques or tools used to collect data, perform data analysis, equipment used to conduct an experiment (in case of study in science), etc. A well-crafted methodology section should:

Introduce and describe reasons for research methods (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) used for investigation of an issue
Offer rationale for selecting the specific research method
Explain how the research methods are relevant to the study
Demonstrate specific data collection approach
Provide an explanation on data analysis procedures

Features	Research Methods	Research Methodology
Meaning	Implies approaches used by the scholar to perform the research	Signifies ways to solve research problems
What is it?	Behaviour and tools used to collect data and perform data analysis	Provides an explanation and rationale behind choosing a specific research method
What it encompasses?	Includes tests, surveys, experiments, etc.	Studies the technique utilised in conducting tests, survey, experiment, etc.
Objective	Identify solution to research problem	Apply suitable procedures to identify solutions
Scope of practice	Has narrow scope of practice	Has wider scope of practice
When is it used?	Used in later stages of research	Used in initial stages of research

Sample of research methodology section

To summarise, research methodology is required to solve the research problem systematically by evaluating the logic behind implementation of research methods. On the other hand, research method is the facet of methodology providing an avenue to determine the solutions for the research problem.

Undoubtedly, the scope of research methodology is wider than that of methods as it the base which lets you determine the effectiveness of the method used.

How important are regular supervisor meetings?

You are bound to have a PhD supervisor as a scholar. Sometimes you may even have two supervisors who are in charge of monitoring our progress and extending you support throughout your PhD journey. A supervisor is assigned with the duty to keep a track of the progress that you make and have your schedule reports ready with him. This responsibility to monitor your progress is important for your benefit as well as it ensures that you do not lag behind in your research process and you are able to complete your PhD in a timely fashion with the regular guidance and support that has been extended by your supervisor. Supervisors have the calibre and discretion to extend this support to the supervisor in long distance also but however, some amount of meeting regularly is important to cope up with the intellectual and emotional demands that a PhD raises. The question that should be discussed here is, how often should the supervisor and scholar be meeting?

The first thing that is important here is that the frequency of the meeting between both the scholar as well as the researcher should be mutually agreed upon by negotiation. No one party should be dictating terms to the other party in terms of relationships. Too many meetings some time feel like an apt solution to pace up the work but that may not be necessarily true as if the meetings are too frequent , it can get counterproductive and become more like a burden or a chore rather than a practical and useful chance which could be used productively to guide or to learn.

There isn’t a thumb rule that says, it is the right frequency to meet. How often you meet your supervisor should be determined by the kind of support you think you need for your work. You subject knowledge, prior research experience and exposure to statistical techniques will determine how much of learning and support would be required by you. Usually scholars find it important to meet often in the initial stages of their PhD till they get on track and know exactly what is to be done, same thing in the end of your programme when you need to finalise your thesis. During the interim period, often people tend to meet less as most of the time scholars are busy with the allotted writing or research work quite independently.

How often you meet may not be as important as how much of time when you meet is used up productively. Try to maximise the productivity of how much ever opportunity that you get to meet your supervisor.

Is It a Good Idea to Work While Writing Thesis?

During the journey of thesis writing, the thing that scholars are most hard pressed on is “time”. This is all the more true if you work while you are doing PhD as being able to do justice to two things at the same time surely puts pressure in context to timings. Is it like, having … Continue reading “Is It a Good Idea to Work While Writing Thesis?”

Is it like, having a job while writing your thesis is a mistake? It surely becomes very difficult to balance your working hours with the time you have to devote to doing a thesis project. It becomes all the more terrifying when you have deadlines to meet from time to time at both the ends. And then if you fail to accomplish what you have set out to, it can become depressing, demotivating and perhaps to grow you in a state of vicious circle that would drain you not just physically but also mentally and emotionally.

There can be a lot of professional advice on techniques to balance work, family and thesis work while doing PhD, but here what you really need to know and keep in mind is if your working hours are too many then you need to reduce them to as minimum as possible so that you can increase the productivity of your thesis progress as that should be indeed your utmost priority.

My first and foremost recommendation is that full time PhD scholar should try not to be involved in a full job so that there is complete focus on the PhD work. This , trust me, is the fastest way to get done your thesis and always remember that your PhD research work is not anything less than a full time job that you do. There a middle path here and that is if you have to work, then try to get yourself a part time job. This can come in as a solution if there is no way that you can actually quit your job. I don’t know how many scholars are able to find such flexible and accommodating employers who could adjust work days or timings to suit your other priorities. If you have one such employer, know that you are the lucky one.

If you are able to strike such a balance, believe that your distractions will be reduced and you would be able to stay on the track of writing your thesis as you would not be occupied in thinking about other things that need your attention as much. So we could say that you must look at your research as nothing less than a full time job in itself so that you have your schedules, deadlines in place without many distractions

Get the Right Set of Skills beyond Your Research Arena!!

Getting a PhD is not necessarily a gate pass to the highly demanding corporate world, if that is your dream career. There does exist an industry PhD gap. By this gap I mean a gap between highly specialised PhD training and the expectations that the corporate world has from its industry friendly set of employees. … Continue reading “Get the Right Set of Skills beyond Your Research Arena!!”

Getting a PhD is not necessarily a gate pass to the highly demanding corporate world, if that is your dream career. There does exist an industry PhD gap. By this gap I mean a gap between highly specialised PhD training and the expectations that the corporate world has from its industry friendly set of employees. The gap can be really quite wide, if you have not honed those skills in you that would make you competent in the industry where you intend to practice your expertise of doctoral research.

Almost everyone around the world may feel that the PhD market is saturated but there is a deficit of the probable solutions to the problem. The fact of the matter is that the first job that you get is the most crucial one, right after your graduate experience. It is indeed the most difficult job to get as well so you need to know the possible options that could help you to make it not challenging beyond your capacity.

The most important thing to know here is that many of the PhD doctors don’t know the means and skills to provide the real and practical solutions to the problems that they may be expected to solve in their job profile. Hard work is the most important thing needed in your attitude to get you going where you want to be and the sooner you know it the better it is as the formative years are what set the foundation of where you are going to be in your future. You need to leave your past behind you and know how to move on.

With all this more, the bottom line is that you ought to have the right personality, drive, leadership and a strong practice of interpersonal skills that helps you to give the right productivity when you have to perform in a team. Other than your academic skills, that you would invariably develop and polish during the course of your PhD, the right personality would be very valuable and help you to carry your career much ahead than you could ever imagine. You may find a lot of competition here as there are a lot of competent job seekers available in the market, but that should not be a deterrent and a means to discourage your enthusiasm to seek success.

Without going any deeper into the problem and its possible solutions, know and remind yourself the most important thing that there is no set career path that is for everyone. Each one has a unique career journey and you got to make and create it by yourself.