10 Best PhD Advice For All Students

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Researching for a PhD can feel like an enormous and never-ending task, especially when you're just starting. The amount of research you must do to write a single article can be overwhelming. First, you need to find a topic and then find existing literature and research to help narrow your focus. Next, you need to read all of that work to understand it so that you can write your article.

Writing will become more accessible as you get into your PhD, especially when you have good research skills. This guide will offer valuable insights into improving your research skills to write efficient papers, summaries, and articles with AI.

Unriddle's AI research assistant can help you achieve your PhD goals by improving your research skills. Using AI to help you research and organize your findings will speed up the process so you can get back to writing sooner.

Introduction to PhD

A PhD is an advanced academic degree. It combines general knowledge of a field with specific mastery of an area or subtopic within that field. For example, earning your PhD in political science means you have a general foundation in the field but likely also specialize in a more focused area, such as American or comparative politics or political economy.

PhDs, also known as doctorates, are terminal degrees, meaning they are the highest level of degrees you can achieve in specific fields, such as cognitive psychology, mathematics, English, economics, evolutionary biology, and public health.

What It Takes to Earn a PhD

PhD programs typically require you to complete advanced coursework, comprehensive exams that test your knowledge of your particular field of study, and a dissertation (or original research). The specific requirements will differ by program or university.

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What Every PhD Student Should Know?

1. Get Ready for Loneliness

Loneliness is a common experience for PhD students. You will spend long hours working on your own, and few people—besides those involved in academia—will understand your situation, let alone the stress and anxieties that come with it. As a result, you may feel isolated from your friends and family, even when you’re physically with them.

What’s more, it’s down to you to overcome hurdles, turn up every day, make important decisions and deal with the problems that your PhD throws at you. The academic environment thrives on excellence and intellectual competence, so it can be intimidating to admit you’re unsure of what you’re doing or to reach out for extra training and support. That means you may suffer in silence as you learn what’s required.

2. Prepare Yourself for a Tough Journey

It’s no surprise that PhDs are hard. That’s taken for granted. But you perhaps don’t realize how hard it will be. Your PhD won’t just test your intellect, but it’ll push your emotional resilience to its absolute limit. The intellectual learning curve you’ll go on will be immense. That’s because you’re pushing yourself up to the frontier of knowledge and then going beyond it.

Not only does that mean that you need to learn everything there is to know about your subject, but it also means that your PhD will be the hardest thing you’ve likely ever done. It’ll also push you emotionally. The amount of work involved in the intellectual pursuit of a PhD will cause you to question every decision you’ve ever made that’s taken you to where you are today. You’ll wonder why you didn’t follow my friends into a career-track corporate job or what else I could be doing.

And that’s okay. That’s kind of the point. If PhDs were easy, everyone would have one. But they’re not, which is why they are so rare. You’re meant to find it challenging, and the process is supposed to push you intellectually and emotionally. Naturally, you feel emotionally drained when the intellectual challenge is so great. Successful PhD students recognize these stresses as a normal part of the process, recognize their limitations and imperfections, and reach out for help and support to deal with them.

3. Reach Out for Support

PhD students are often also perfectionists. That’s great in some ways because it pushes you to do great things and work hard, both skills integral to a successful PhD. But it has a downside. You may find it challenging to acknowledge areas of your life or skillset that aren’t quite perfect and then seek support from others to counteract that. If you knew everything you needed to, you’d already have your PhD.

You don’t, and there is so much you need to learn. There isn’t just the literature and subject area to master but also more practical things like research design, data collection tools, and analytical techniques. In other words, there’s a lot to learn. Sure, it’s possible to equip yourself with all the skills you need alone, but the more sensible and practical way is to reach out for support.

Talk to your supervisors, or keep your eyes open for training courses and seminars. Share tips and advice with your PhD colleagues, and don’t be afraid to admit when you’re struggling with something. Academics are generally sociable and won’t mind being approached politely to help clarify a concept.

4. Be Ready to Be Surrounded by Smarter People

Reaching out for support shouldn’t be too tricky because more intelligent people than you will surround you. Chances are there is someone in your department or school who has the answer to the question or problem you’ve got. It’s just a question of finding them, asking them for support in the most effective way, and listening carefully to the advice that they give you. However, being surrounded by people smarter than you can also be intimidating as a new PhD student.

Chances are, you’ve been at or near the top of your class throughout your university career and even during your time at school. You’re used to being one of the most intelligent people in the room. Heck, you may have even made it my entire identity. It will be a shock when you become a PhD student if you have. Not only is your day spent interacting with other highly intelligent Ph.D. students (many of whom may be years ahead of you), but you’ll also be interacting with faculty on a much more professional level.

No longer will they be your ‘teachers,’ but instead, they are your colleagues and peers. Almost everyone you see will have more experience than you, and many of them will already have their PhDs. Before long, you’ll feel like the dumbest person in the room. In these instances, though, remind yourself that you are on a learning curve. Sure, these people have more experience than you, but one day you’ll get there too, once you learn the necessary skills.

5. Don’t Get Too Attached to Your Thesis

A common mistake new PhD students make is marrying their thesis. You may feel that the only way to succeed is to do your PhD my entire life. You may think I can’t possibly waste time on hobbies, friends, or social life. You may feel the need to spend all day (and all night) in the library, lab, or field and never see a life outside of the university. It’s clear why. The goal of a PhD is so elusive, and the amount of work required to get there is so enormous that it’s tempting, particularly at the outset of a PhD, to throw yourself entirely into your work to get the job done. But this is counter-productive.

Marrying your thesis is the worst thing you can do. You need to maintain a life outside of the university, however small. The distraction of non-PhD/academic friends or hobbies will be enough to keep you sane. Instead of marrying your thesis, treat it like a cruel mistress. See it as this part of your life that is doing its best to ruin you and to make your life as difficult as possible, but that, because it’s just a mistress,

I can keep it on the periphery as an addendum to an otherwise balanced, fulfilled life. What does that mean in practice? It means showing up when I have to and letting it do its best to ruin me. But – and this is the crucial bit – it also means stepping away from it regularly, having clear PhD/life boundaries, not taking things too personally, and realizing that your PhD is just one part of your life, not all of it.

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10 Best PhD Advice For All Students

1. Set Up Regular Meetings with Your Supervisor

Regular meetings with your PhD supervisor can help you stay focused and on track. While it’s common to schedule these meetings around your needs, it’s better to have a set time every week or two so you can establish a routine. This will help you build a good relationship with your supervisor and stay connected with your research even when you’re not motivated.

These meetings provide an opportunity for regular feedback, help you identify any issues early on, and allow you to set realistic goals. Supervisors are familiar with PhD students' challenges and can offer invaluable advice on their research and career development.

2. Figure Out How You Work Best

Everyone works differently, and one of the most important things you can do as a PhD student is figure out your work style. This might include preferences for short or long work sessions, working alone or with others, and whether you like to have a tidy workspace or one filled with notes and other materials.

Understanding your work style is crucial for success as a PhD student. Some people are morning people, others are night owls, and knowing who you are can make a big difference in productivity. The key is experimenting and determining what environment and schedule allows you to work most effectively. Whether working in short bursts or long, focused sessions, in a quiet library or a buzzing café, stick with it once you figure out what works best for you. Establishing a sustainable routine early on can significantly impact your productivity and well-being throughout your PhD.

3. Create Your Own Opportunities

Being proactive about creating opportunities for yourself during your PhD is essential. While ample research, publication, and networking opportunities exist, they won’t all land in your lap. Stay connected with your academic community to find out when conferences are searching for papers or other opportunities are available. Your supervisor won’t always nudge you to write a paper or present at a conference, so take it into your own hands.

4. Do Not Get Too Distracted From Your Thesis

With that in mind, it’s essential not to get too distracted. Ultimately, you won’t pass the viva exam without a solid thesis, so that’s where you should focus most of your energy. Writing additional articles and papers is excellent, but those publications and presentations won’t be helpful if you don’t finish your PhD.

5. Work Smart and Learn to Take Breaks

An effective PhD student shouldn’t need to chuck their entire life at the PhD. Instead, learn how you work best and use this knowledge to find a work pattern that boosts your productivity. Along with figuring out whether I prefer to start work earlier or later in the day, I found it helpful to figure out how long I could sit at my desk before my productivity started dropping. Taking frequent breaks is excellent, not just for your productivity but also for your sanity. By breaks, I mean everything from a five-minute walk-through to a proper holiday away from work.

6. Join In With Your Academic Community

Connecting with your community doesn’t always mean attending and presenting at events. You might join other PhD students on pub nights or events within your department. A PhD can be pretty lonely at times. Being able to connect with other people in a similar position can provide you with extra support and keep you on track.

7. Remember Your “Why”

Another essential thing every PhD student should do is remember why they’re doing the degree in the first place. Doctoral research is complex. It can be isolating and frustrating, and there can be long periods of no payoff. Sometimes you need to step back. Remembering why you’re doing all this in the first place can be a great starting point for reigniting your passion.

8. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

Aside from loneliness or burnout, it’s also easy to believe you not performing as well as other students around you. Maybe one has written more of their thesis than you, or another has just been published. Everyone works at their own pace and prioritizes different parts of the process. You should never compare how you work and your niche research project to someone else’s.

9. Ask Questions

Many new students fear asking questions because they don’t want to appear stupid. Believe me when I say that nobody will think this. You’re probably asking a question that someone else was already thinking! As a PhD student, you’re not expected to know everything.

10. Start Thinking About Publishing

You’re unable to publish original research for quite some time (as the first author, at least), but your first year is often filled with a lot of reading. In addition to using this reading to help with your project direction, you could turn this into a writing valuable exercise for three key reasons:

1. Boost your understanding of the topic

Writing things down in your own words will strengthen your comprehension.

2. It can form the basis for the literature review in your thesis

This is always useful, and it is also handy for any early-stage milestones that your university has.

3. A relatively easy and early publication:

a review article. It’ll help give you confidence in the publishing process.

12 Best Tools You Need For PhD

1. Unravel Research With Unriddle AI

Unriddle AI streamlines the academic writing process. For one, it speeds up reading comprehension so you can process information faster. The software also helps researchers write better by generating an AI assistant atop any document to help you find, summarize, and understand information without endless skimming.

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2. Build Custom Research Apps With Pathverse

Pathverse is a free software that allows you to build custom research apps without coding knowledge. Create intervention studies, send out timed notifications, and create custom surveys or questionnaires for your study participants. Pathverse also hosts an extensive library of features and an exclusive free tier for Ph.D. students and early career researchers.

3. Get Organized With Zotero

Zotero is a free reference manager that can help you organize and cite your research sources. It’s a valuable tool for keeping track of your research materials, generating bibliographies, and saving time formatting citations.

4. Write Your Dissertation With Scrivener

Scrivener (comes from the Old French meaning ‘to scribe’) is a software created by Literature and Latte. The company calls the software something created by writers for writers.

The software was designed for novelists and screenwriters but is widely used by academics because of the section categorization, which allows you to work on chapters individually and compile them at the end. Recently, Scrivener released its latest update for the Mac (the Windows version is expected soon), and they have done substantial visual and feature rehaul.

5. Catch Errors With Grammarly

Grammarly is a helpful grammar-checking tool that can identify grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors in your writing. It is an excellent tool for Ph.D. students who want to avoid mistakes in their academic writing.

6. Organize Tasks With Trello

Trello is a powerful productivity tool that allows you to organize your tasks and to-do lists visually. You can create cards, add deadlines, and categorize tasks by importance. It’s a great way to keep track of your work and manage your time effectively.

7. Set Goals With Ulysses

If you like Markdown's writing method, you will love Ulysses. It might seem like a simple writing app for your Mac or iPad, but this one packs a punch. The advantage of writing on Ulysses is the clean interface, and it has a goal-oriented approach to writing. If you want to finish 1000 words daily, you can set them with Ulysses.

8. Take Notes With Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking app that allows you to organize your notes, documents, and research materials in one place. It also allows you to set reminders, create to-do lists, and share notes with others. It’s an excellent tool for keeping track of your ideas and research materials.

9. Use EndNote for Reference Management

EndNote is an obvious choice many academics use, but it’s the most expensive product. Thomson Reuters owned EndNote, but they spun off all the analytical and academic brands into a separate company called Clarivate Analytics. For example, Clarivate owns the Web of Science Group.

10. Mendeley as an Alternative to EndNote

Mendeley was started by three German students in 2007 as an alternative to EndNote with investors from various companies like Last.fm and Skype, along with academics from Cambridge and John Hopkins.

They named the application after Gregor Mendel and Dmitry Mendeleyev. It was considered a rebel system to EndNote but lost a bit of that sheen when it was acquired by Elsevier in 2013. However, Elsevier's acquisition has helped Mendeley proliferate into different reference management segments.

11. Papers Reference Manager

Papers was an independent multi-platform reference manager system developed by two PhD students from the Netherlands Cancer Institute. They wanted to create an iTunes-style approach to reference management. Springer Nature, an academic group, owned it, and a couple of years back, Readcube acquired Papers.

Readcube had its reference management system, but they merged everything, and the brand is now called Readcube Papers. When independent, many academicians used papers due to their robustness and the sheer volume of citation styles. Post the acquisition, some of them moved (especially Mac users moved to Bookends), but the new app is as stable and comprehensive as the old one.

12. Bookends for Reference Management

Bookends is my favorite reference management software and the one I currently use. I was using Mendeley for my references and moved to Bookends after a careful investigation. Bookends is such a secret that even a Google search for the name wouldn’t suffice to find it (search for Bookends reference manager instead). Bookends is a Mac-only reference management system developed by Sonny Software based in Maryland, USA.

Complete Step-by-Step Guide On How To Use Unriddle's AI Research Tool

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use Unriddle. I’ve also copied it below :)

From here, it's pretty simple.

Unriddle helps you read, write and learn faster.

Interact with documents via AI so you can quickly find and understand info.

Then start writing in a new Note and Unriddle will show you relevant content from your library as you type.

Get started by uploading a document.

Or read on for the full rundown.

Interact with documents

When you upload a document, Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of this data.

Click 'New' in the right sidebar and then select 'Upload' to get started.

Use this assistant to answer specific questions about the text, summarize content and simplify jargon.

The trick is to be super clear about what you want.

If you're summarizing a research paper, for example, instead of saying “Summarize” or “Summarize this research paper”, say something like “Explain this research paper to me in simple terms. What method did the researchers use? What did they find? Why does it matter?”.

The second prompt will produce a much better overview of the paper because we're giving the AI more hints about what we want.

Automatic relations

Unriddle grasps the context behind each Note and Document in your library and automatically links them based on meaning.

Let's say you have a collection of nuclear physics papers in your library.

When you start writing a note about The Manhattan Project, simply mentioning "The Manhattan Project" will prompt Unriddle to find the connection between this note and the nuclear physics papers.

Even if you didn't explicitly mention the research papers, Unriddle's knowledge of Oppenheimer, his work, and the significant relevance of these papers means it understands the connection and automatically links them together.

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Citing your sources

Writing is hard when you have a ton of sources to track.

So we made it easy.

Highlight some text, click ‘Cite’ and you’ll see items from your library that contain information related to the selection of text you just highlighted as determined by our AI.

When you select an item Unriddle inserts a link into highlighted text that, when clicked, takes you to the referenced item.

Writing with AI

Click ‘New’ in the sidebar and hit ‘Note’ to open up a new note.

Here you’ll find all the text formatting options you’re used to and more.

Type ‘++’ to generate text based on the context of what’s already written.

Highlight text and click ‘Ask AI’ to open up the AI menu where you’ll find options to improve, expand, summarize and explain.

You can type custom prompts too!

Finally, you can open any note in a pane on the right side of the screen while interacting with documents. Just click the orange pencil icon at the top of the chat window.

Adjust the model, temperature and response length in the Setting sidebar.

Click the cog icon in the top right corner of the screen and look for "Chat Settings".

These apply across all documents but you can easily flip between them regardless of settings at the time of upload.

Model: the machine learning model used to generate responses.

Temperature: the amount of creative license you give to the AI.

Max length: the maximum number of words generated in a response.

Got feedback or questions? Send us an email and we'll get back to you within a day.

— Naveed

How Long Does It Take To Get A PhD?

Earning a PhD is a time-consuming endeavor, and the most recent data shows it takes an average of 5.8 years to earn a doctorate in the United States. However, completion times differ by field of study, with humanities PhDs taking longer than those in the sciences. A variety of factors contribute to these lengthy timelines. Here’s a look at why earning a PhD takes so long.

1. The Dreaded Dissertation

The dissertation phase can often take much longer to complete than the other requirements of a PhD. Researching and writing a dissertation takes significant time because students are expected to make an original and notable contribution to their field. Once doctoral students have successfully passed their comps, they are considered “All But Dissertation” or “ABD.” Yet, the number of students who complete their PhD program remains low—estimates show that nearly 50 percent of students drop out, often after reaching the dissertation phase.

2. Assistantship Obligations

Teaching and research assistantships are beneficial because they can help pay for a PhD program but may also take time away from working on your dissertation. Some students are expected to teach at least one class per semester on top of their other obligations as graduate students; for universities that reduce students' teaching or research load as part of their assistantship, times to completion improve.

Humanities students at Princeton University began finishing their degrees in 6.4 years (compared to 7.5 years), thanks to the institution's financial support and the reduced number of classes they taught.

3. Other Responsibilities

Doctoral students tend to be older. According to the National Science Foundation, graduate students pursuing a PhD in science or engineering were an average of 31.6 years old by the time they earned their degree in 2016. Some PhD students may have competing obligations, such as family. If a student’s funding has run out, and they have to find full-time work, it also may affect the time they can dedicate to writing their dissertation.

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Read Faster & Write Better With Unriddle for Free Today

Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of any document so you can quickly find, summarize, and understand info without endless skimming. Unriddle understands the meaning behind your writing and automatically links you to relevant things you’ve read and written about. Highlight text and Unriddle will show you the most relevant sources from your library using AI. Never lose a citation again.

Organize Your Research and Notes with Unriddle

Unriddle’s intelligent AI can help you take notes and organize your research. Generate text with AI autocomplete to improve and expand your writing, with suggestions based on the context of your work. Step into a collaborative workspace where everyone can contribute and chat with the same documents in real-time and much more!

Read faster & write better — try Unriddle for free today.