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Research design refers to how the study was conducted and outlines detailed plans and procedures for how the study will be conducted.

Imposter Syndrome is the feeling that you are not good at your role, that you are an imposter and have only achieved your status and role via default when other colleagues are much more experienced and knowledgeable than you.

Workdays that stretch around the clock. Ending up teaching 165 Master’s students and doing bureaucratic tasks when you actually took this post doc position to do research. Pressures, competition, working on a string of poorly paid short-term contracts. Days when you feel like you can either choose academia or your sanity, not both.

No matter how organised we are, the best laid plans can sometimes still go awry. Encountering various problems with data, during both data collection and analysis, is quite common among PhD students but no matter how frustrating it can seem, there is usually a way around these issues.

It’s every researcher’s worst nightmare: Your data isn’t yielding the results you had expected, or your data is showing ‘negative’ results that completely negates your research aims and contradicts your hypotheses.

Imagine the horror of sitting in a conference and seeing another researcher present a paper that sounds almost exactly like your PhD research. Or, you pick up a journal article only to discover that it discusses very similar results to yours and has tested a hypothesis and asked research questions that sound exceptionally familiar...

Although the nature of PhD research and study is very different from other taught degrees, and our individual progress and results vary widely, it is still common for PhD students to compare the progress and results of their work with others.

For many PhD candidates, the doctoral thesis will be the largest piece of work they will have produced. It can therefore be difficult to ascertain exactly how much work you need to do for it. PhD students often ask, for example, how much data is sufficient for a thesis or how much they need to read and include in their writing.

All academic authors want to get their papers written up and published as quickly as possible and, hopefully, in the best journals possible. We also want to pay as little as possible for the privilege of seeing our work appear in a leading international journal with a high impact factor (IF).

Most active researchers and academics these days are aware of the concept of open access publishing and how it works, even though recent scholarly surveys have shown that most remain confused about, or simply unaware of, how this model could be useful for them career-wise. Early career researchers (ECRs), in particular, receive limited information from their institutions, scholarly societies, and publishing companies regarding their open access publishing options.

What sorts of writing habits do successful researchers have?’ What does ‘being successful’ mean?

This means being able to:

• Write up your research quickly and clearly;
• Use clear and effective English so that your papers have a higher chance of passing editorial checks and peer-review;
• Select appropriate wording so that native speakers can understand your meaning and the nuances of your research.

A thesis is a big undertaking, usually 60,000 to 80,000 words.  It’s likely to be the longest thing you’ve ever written, and when it’s complete, you’ll be examined on it.  It’s very common to be worried about whether you can write a successful thesis.  If you’re writing in English, and it isn’t your first language, that can be an even bigger worry.

The good news is that, if you get accepted for a PhD, it’s because your department believes in you.  However, they don’t expect you to already have all the experience you need.  You don’t have to already be familiar with the type of language expected in your thesis, or know how to structure it.

The Open Access movement aims to move scholarly publishing away from fee-based traditional publications and ultimately to outlets that are accessible to all free of charge. The movement began in the 1990s and resulted from a combination of factors including a pricing crisis for libraries and academic institutions, the evolution of the internet, and a rising demand for more content to be offered online. 

Open access publishing is a priority for many researchers, but you may be surprised to find that it is also a priority for a wide variety of institutions and research support staff. In this post, we will discuss the role of universities, librarians, and research funders in promoting open access.

There are many Open Access databases out there. These allow you to search for articles, journals, repositories, policies, books, images, and much more. An increasing number of universities, research institutions, and government agencies are creating Open Access databases with freely available materials online. So how do you find the best Open Access database to meet your needs and once you do, what are some tips for navigating the content? The following questions can help guide your choice of an Open Access database.

Over the past fifteen years there has been a movement towards Open Access publishing. Open Access publishing describes a publishing model in which scholarly articles are freely accessible, with no barriers to accessing content. There are a number of advantages to sharing your work through Open Access journals. Unlike subscription-based publishing models, Open Access journals allow broad access to scholarly articles free of charge to the reader.

Open access describes a publishing model in which scientific articles are freely available, with no barriers to accessing content. 

Despite the prevalence of online submission systems for articles, the covering letter provides an additional means to tell the journal and its editors why they should consider your article. This is particularly important because the initial editor screening your paper, who is deciding if it warrants peer review, may not necessarily be an expert in your particular specialism. It is therefore essential that you provide a concise summary of what your research adds, and how it will contribute to the journal, in your covering letter. This is especially relevant to highly technical or niche papers.

As a researcher, you know what questions you want to address and which problems you want to solve: the key hypotheses that you want to test and why these issues are important to you and your colleagues. One of the major barriers to writing successful funding applications is transferring your own passion for a particular research question to a wider audience: why should a funding agency or a set of reviewers find your research important and significant? Once early career researchers develop this essential persuasive skill, they can look forward to a successful academic career; after all, obtaining grant money is often one of the most important steps in getting any research project started.

What is SCI?

The Science Citation Index (now the Science Citation Index Expanded, or SCIE) is one of the core databases included in the products Web of Knowledge and Web of Science, owned by Clarivate. This was formerly owned by Thomson Reuters, who were acquired by Clarivate in 2016.