blog

Like many PhD students, I had always looked towards writing my thesis with an equal measure of excitement and dread. Reaching the culmination of almost four years’ work is scary and it’s easy to be plagued with worries about this penultimate hurdle of the PhD process. However, the writing-up process doesn’t have to be difficult, provided you keep up with the literature – and there are numerous ways you can do so.

Early on in my PhD I discovered the benefits of signing up to a few targeted email alerts provided by databases such as PubMed or Web of Science. However, my advice would be to try not to sign up to too many alerts, since a flooded inbox will make it easy to ignore emails and lose track of important literature. Twitter is also a surprisingly useful tool; I follow a number of journals and people in my field, and I often see things of interest or relevance when flicking through my Twitter feed on the bus home or eating lunch.

There are lots of services available to researchers, such as Mendeley, that help to manage the literature and offer groups you can join in order to share content and make useful contacts. I regret that I didn’t make better use of these during my PhD, but services like this offer a useful organizational tool and collaborative network. Recently, while preparing for my viva, I’ve also begun to discover F1000Prime. The F1000Prime database allows you to search through articles recommended by their international Faculty Members, helping you sort through the seemingly endless pile of papers to find those that are making a real impact with senior academics. With the vast resources, databases and search engines available now, a tool such as this can guide the early-stage researcher to what they should be reading, and I am definitely making use of it now!

Keeping up to date with the literature in your field gives you a solid foundation from which to start writing, making it a potentially painless experience. I often found the stress of my lab work got in the way of the bigger picture of my project. Writing my thesis allowed me to get back to this by reviewing my project in its entirety and rediscovering what I started all those years ago and why. This in turn helped me to reflect on my personal growth and see how far I’d come in four years. I know at times it can feel as though you are stuck, but you are turning into a better researcher every day and, once you start getting those words on the page, you’ll realize this. So my advice is read lots, stay organized (with the right tools) and, once you finally get there, enjoy the writing up!