The PhD Handbook by Rosie Doyle and Fraser Robertson (original) (raw)

When I completed my PhD more than 30 years ago, there were almost no resources to help me. In fact, no one had ever finished a doctorate in my field at the university where I studied. Today, there is much better support to help students to get through it. The PhD Handbook: How to Take Care of Yourself, Your Research Project and Your Future by Rosie Doyle and Fraser Robertson offers something distinctive and useful to young scholars embroiled in the challenge of completing their doctorates. It is the essential guide that every PhD candidate should read.

What I really like about the book is its focus on all the important things that are presumed or taken for granted in the craft of scholarship. Completing a PhD is so much more than expressing the content of your ideas or being an expert in your field; it is about learning how to live as a scholar. Drawing on their experiences training thousands of students, Doyle and Robertson demystify the hidden skills of academic life, from project management to academic power poses and body language in the viva.

The book functions as a manual of the craft, providing tips and advice on how to start, get through and complete a PhD, as well as lots of exercises to help students when they are stuck. Unlike Patrick Dunleavy’s excellent Authoring a PhD or Howard S. Becker’s Writing for Social Sciences_,_ the handbook isn’t aimed at any specific discipline. It is just as relevant for someone pursuing a PhD in astrophysics as it is for someone working towards one in sociology.

One of the hardest things about creating an original piece of work is the anxiety of the unknown. When you’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done before, doubts, confusion and disorientation often arise. For PhD candidates, this can lead to “what if” questions, such as, “What if my work isn’t good enough?” or “What if I am not intelligent enough to do a PhD?” These kinds of questions add up to what the authors describe as “a continual narrative of potential failures.”

Doyle and Robertson suggest that changing the question can change your mindset and thereby bring your attention back to “the facts of your present situation”. You can diffuse “What if my supervisor thinks my work is lousy?” by focusing on “what is”. For example, “I am working on a draft of my literature review chapter that’s almost finished.” They also include a helpful activity in which students are encouraged to list their personal “what if” questions and “what is” statements in two columns. The PhD Handbook is both a guide and a notebook that students can write in and personalise. A student scribbling in it through each stage of their progress could end up with a kind of ledger of their academic journey to look back on.

Sometimes scholarship and writing can feel like a trial by ordeal. I had a friend who would pride himself on working marathon 16-hour days at the frontier of knowledge, but this isn’t a good way to do effective work. Instead, the authors suggest “time blocking”: creating “appointments with yourself” in your daily calendar to do the work you need to do, just for you. This approach helps you stay loyal to your project and prioritise your writing.

Another wonderful tip the authors recommend is to use the Pomodoro technique, which was devised by Italian Francisco Cirillo in the late 1980s. He suggested using a kitchen timer to break work into intervals, typically 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for tomato, after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used as a university student. This method rewards your concentration with rest and time for other activities. I am using the technique to write this review and it is working splendidly – so much so that in my next break, I plan to search eBay for an authentic Italian tomato-shaped timer!

The PhD Handbook is designed for readers to dip into and work through rather than read from start to finish. I particularly liked the section on preparing for the PhD viva. Doyle and Robertson rightly point out that no one can memorise a 100,000-word thesis and recommend students make a summary instead. They also suggest playing “devil’s advocate” with your thesis to identify potential weaknesses and explain why they exist, as well as the steps you’d take to address them in future. The authors end with some helpful guidance on life after the PhD and imagining a professional future.

In terms of voice, this book has an unpretentious, profoundly humane quality. Both authors offer PhD training courses to universities worldwide, and their work reflects this by emphasising practical solutions. I asked Rosie Doyle what her most important message is. She replied: “I think one of the main points I wanted to make was that, for a PhD student, investing time in taking care of themselves, such as accessing social support, taking breaks, looking after their health and generally managing their stress is part of ensuring a successful PhD and not a self-indulgent luxury. Also, I want to reassure them that every PhD student finds it hard – so they don’t beat themselves up about it or worry it means that they shouldn’t be doing a PhD; they just find ways to handle the demands as best they can.”

Fraser Robertson has the same kind of humane pragmatism about him. He lives in Glasgow, where I met him for a coffee. He told me about a PhD student he had met at one of his courses, who said: “I don’t use The PhD Handbook as a book to read all the way through. It’s like a PhD counsellor... it reminds me that I am not alone.” This story might be the strongest endorsement and best review of this remarkably useful book. The PhD Handbook: How to Take Care of Yourself, Your Research Project and Your Future is a resource that every PhD student needs at their bedside: a reassuring companion for the sometimes-bumpy pathway towards completing your doctorate.