PhD Mum

Did you know when a PhD students starts a PhD they are actually registered as an MPhil (a masters degree)? About a year in, the university will “grade” the student to assess if both the work completed and planned work for the next two or so years is achievable and merits a PhD award. If they decide it is, the student is then moved on to the PhD award. After the initial flurry of feeing like you haven’t done enough, wondering how can reading be your only job, then finally establishing a research question at about the 6 months mark, you can be forgiven for feeling lulled in to a false sense of “I got this”. At the 12 month mark, it is typically the case that you are either knee deep in or just about to embark upon recruitment and participant data. It is during this time that you are asked to upgrade. This is the first time that you will officially be assessed as a PhD candidate and as such, it is stressful! (What if they fail me?!). But the good news is, everyone who I have...

I realise that result sections are very different depending on your specialty and your personal style. But I thought I would give tips as to what I have found makes for a “good” results section in any research piece that I have read/written. I currently write about research within a medical context. The people who read my research are generally clinicians with little to no statistical knowledge or who do not frequently read statistical methods, but who have a lot of interest in the findings and potential implementation of the results.    Within psychology, I have experienced the tendency to “fish” around in the data to report the exciting and juicy significant findings, but this is often at the detriment to the overall quality of the research. This is probably the single most important point . Always refer back to your research aim(s) . This may sound like an obvious thing to do. But often, when your neck deep in figures and tables, you can get side tracked and fo...