"It would be great to know everything what my father knows. Just to be born with it. Or push a button and load all data in my head. No, no! The God had a different solution. We have to learn everything by ourselves." - Me
Anyway we may get a support from more experienced to less experienced peers. Such a knowledge transfer between seniors researchers and PhDs took place at Doctoral Consortium at EC-TEL 2010.
Young and senior researchers were divided into two groups. I was in the group with Mike Sharples, Ralf Klamma, Urlicke Cress, Christian Glahn, Tomaž Klobučar, Peter Scott, Ronald Klemke who shared their experience of PhD procedures with us. Here is the list fo questions and answers, I would like to share with you.
Q: How to write a paper/a thesis?
A: Write an abstract of a thesis and several sentences for each chapter. Show the abstract to other people. Contact experts in your research area. Some of them will be happy to answer you as they were PhD students earlier as well.
A: Read abstracts and PhD theses of others to understand the thesis structure.
A: Before writing get a clear idea what is already done, what is needed to be done and what can't be done.
Q: How to motivate myself to write a paper/a thesis?
A: In Open University young researchers have to report annually about their progress. The reports are presented not only for internal but as well for external reviewers.
A: After 6 weeks of your research write two pages about your plans in the future, the next report should be prepared in a year and the next again in a year. Start writing already at the beginning of the PhD.
A: Plan your papers. Plan a paper that you will write in a year, in two and three and follow the plan.
Q: How can i know that my research question is important?
A: Remember, there is no secret labs that are exploring exactly your question . If they were any, you would be already there.
A: What does important work means? There are only 3 people in the world that are doing their research about the structure of Jewish middeaval poetry and they find that their reseach is important.
A: It is important that your research is valuable for your advisor. Otherwise you have a problem.
Some other phrases the PhDs should not forget:
"PhD is a project but not the deal of a life. "
"You are not a scientist but you are training to be a scientist"
