Essential Tips for PhD success: 26 Points that Students Should Learn

1. Follow the guidance of the PhD requirements of your institutions, universities, and grant or financial supporters.

2. Follow the guidance of your supervisors, mentors, professors, examiners, seniors, postdocs, and researchers, external and internal experts.

3. Always be in touch with experts, university's librarian, IT officials, mentors, and teachers.

4. Tell your professors about everything that you have done and want to do in future about the work.

5. Generate a question for PhD thesis.

6. Be sure for the hypothesis, background, rationale, materials and methods, and possible outcomes and output of your research.

7. Statistical tools and techniques are important. Thus, find some experts or statisticians and Google for software and applications about statistics and data analysis.

8. Buy a laptop or a desktop and a printer. Be perfect in Word/Excel/Powerpoint.

9. Create a Plan B. If plan A of your PhD research does not work, you should follow other procedures, materials, methods, hypothesis, and others. If Plan B does not work, you can create plan C. You should always talk to your supervisors about it.

10. Writing references is important in the format of your university or according to the suggestions given by your host institution's professors.

11. Software for reference styles such as End Note, Mendeley, and Reference Manager should be learnt.

12. Literature review should be thoroughly read. Never give up reading the literatures.

13. Plagiarism is a crime. Go on various universities' websites how to be away from it.

14. Buy books, journals, newspapers, articles from various websites and publishers. Download free access articles if they are permitted to do so.

15. Time management is the most important issue of PhD. Thus, make a plan of your 3-5 years PhD programs. Keep a calendar at your office. Write down everything in day-wise calendar what you will do in future.

16. Be in touch with various institutions other than yours for library copy of different books and journals.

17. Ask your professors, supervisors, and mentors if there is any problem in your academics and research.

18. Present your findings in your lab groups, social groups, and to a huge audience.

19. Always ask any comments, feedback, and note down in your note copy and laboratory book. Write down everything what you are told and suggested in your note copy.

20. Always keep an I Pad, laptop, note book, and a copy in your bag.

21. Visiting cards may be important. Keep them with you. Ask others' visiting cards and collect in your ID note book.

22. PhD reports should be written per annum or according to the style of your university.

23. Your draft report should be given to various experts for comments and feedback.

24. Give your report to your post docs or others you believe expert in grammar and language editing.

25. While writing PhD thesis finally,

a. Write aims and objectives first.

b. Write results and organize them.

c. Write materials and methods.

d. Write introduction and conclusion last so that it will help to tie up the thesis together.

But it completely depends on your own style and perceptions.

e. Check, check, and check everything you write, word-by-word, full stop by full stop and comma by comma.

f. Check your figures and tables and their legend.

g. When you finish checking in computer, print the pages and again check in hard copies.

h. Then, edit in your soft copy and print.

i. Send your thesis to experts, supervisors either in soft or hard version.

j. Finally edit according to their comments and suggestions.

k. Discuss with your supervisors and mentors.

l. Final incorporation of suggestions from them.

m. Submit the final version of your thesis.

n. Read your thesis completely and be ready for your exam.

o. You can practice in front of your seniors or juniors for the viva exam.

p. Be confident in your viva.

q. Be true in the exam. Tell the examiners what you did and what you want to do in future. Don’t lie in explaining your data.

r. If you get suggestions, comments from them, edit your thesis accordingly.

s. Submit your thesis to the institutions for PhD if you are awarded after viva has been taken.

t. Ready for graduation.

26. During your PhD, don’t forget

a. to go to pub.

b. to access social media (Facebook, twitter, researchgate, LinkedIn, ORCID etc)

c. to be members of various societies, clubs, and groups.

d. to spend your weekends with your family members.

e. to give oral and poster presentation around the globe.

f. to go to shopping centers with your family.

g. to write poems, stories, novels, essays, monograph, and others whatever you like.