What to Consider Before Publishing Your PhD Research: a guide to publication for non-native English speakers.

It is a generally accepted notion that publishing your research work is key to your future endeavors in the academic world. While for some it is a fruit of their hard work finally being able to contribute to the world and be known for doing so and for some it may be a personal goal but publishing has become more of a norm in the recent past. As a researcher heading towards the culmination of your work, this is the right time to think about publishing. There are many things to consider that this blog will outline. Why is it important to publish? By publishing your PhD research, you demonstrate the value of your work to others. Publishing also demonstrates that you have the expertise and determination to complete the PhD. This can help attract funding and build a reputation as an expert in your field. As a researcher, it is important to be transparent about what you’re doing and why. By publishing your results, you can share your insights with other researchers and the public. This can lead to new insights and discoveries, which can have significant impacts on society. Publishing is also an important part of maintaining your credibility as a researcher. This means not only sharing information with other researchers, but also ensuring that the quality of your work is maintained. Finally, publishing shows that you are committed to advancing knowledge in your field. Doing so can help you to gain recognition as an expert in your field and help you to continue contributing to research as an established scholar. Make Sure It Is Ready for Publication If you’re not a native English speaker, you have to take extra steps to ensure that your research is clear and comprehensible. This means including plenty of context in your writing, along with examples and explanations. Even if you’re...

Three-structure Interviews: Structure, Length and Spacing

A three-structure interview must take in three stages: semi-structured, unstructured and narrative interview. Three categories are not interchangeable, and hence it is crucial that you respect the structure of the interview. Structure It is not surprising that participants will narrate a story about their present experience in the context of a topic. You may be tempted to be all ears to comprehend their experience, but this should be followed in the second stage of the interview. If you do not keep yourself from carrying it on, it will deteriorate the focus of your interview and the sense of purpose. semi-structured interview for qualitative research comprises open-ended questions that seek answers to “How”. At this stage, you should aim at collecting data about their past experience in the context of a topic. It is essential that you know the historical account of participants that brought them to the current level. Combining the results will help you reach the right conclusion. For instance, you interviewed a cohort of 50-years-old diabetic patients, you may ask the following questions: How did you come to know about diabetes?” How did you feel when you found out you had diabetes? What habits did you blame for the cause of diabetes? When and where did you get checked for diabetes? With the help of these questions, you will come to know about their concerns, reactions to diagnosis, medical therapies and lifestyle changes. As you move onto the second interview, you will concentrate on collecting concrete details of your respondents’ present lived experience. You will not ask for opinions but the real experience of current time. At this stage, you can ask your interviewees following questions: How do you manage your diabetes? What are your motivations toward controlling diabetes? What do your meal, drink and snacks include? What is your biggest struggle that you face while managing...

Spoiler Alert! Know the key secrets to outstanding oral research presentation at conferences

Writing, submitting and defending your research paper are the biggest challenges you have to overcome to accomplish your PhD degree. However, merely presenting your research in front of your peers or your internal review committee wouldn’t add much value to your academic career. To be recognised as a professional researcher and to showcase your study, you must present your paper in academic conferences or seminars. Presenting your study in conference although seems intimidating, gives you an opportunity to take the stage and demonstrate the growth you have experienced during the PhD journey, showcase your research abilities, and prove that the results obtained are both valid and important to your field of study. Speaking in conferences is undoubtedly an exciting experience, but at the same time, it can be overwhelming (especially for the first timers).  Oral presentation structure  To successfully showcase your research in front of the research community, you should be aware of the structure of the presentation.  Like research papers, oral presentations aim to demonstrate evidence to establish the validity of the significant findings.  Oral presentation differs from research papers in terms of the level of interaction and rhythm to the audience. Also, rather than demonstrating everything in chronological order, it focuses on showcasing only the main theme.  The structure of the presentation consists of three sections : the opening, body and the closing. Opening section  The opening section states the main theme of the presentation, prior to the preview. The main theme is that one statement you want your audience to remember. It can be regarded as your significant conclusion, stated with minimum technical detail than at the end of the presentation. In terms of its structure and intent, this section is similar to the introduction chapter of a research paper. That is, it provides the object of the study, context and need for the study.  The...

Revising and editing your thesis; Is it important?

Are you giving enough time to the editing and revision of your thesis? If the answer is ‘No’, you need to act right now! Revision is the last step in your thesis, but the most important one. Giving a second pair of eyes to your academic document can do wonders, and save you from blaring blunders.  Imagine sending your thesis to the mentor(s) without editing and proofreading it. It will be nothing more than a clumsily written paper with lots of grammatical mistakes which may lead to a simple rejection. Typos will never take your thesis in the right direction. Hence, make sure to revise and edit your writing to avoid any pesky little mistakes from downplaying your research work.  Before starting to edit a thesis, you should always take a day off from your daily routine to relax your mind. And, should start fresh with the next day, this helps you to look into your thesis with a whole new perspective and a different angle. While editing the thesis, you should keep in mind the audience intent, changes in the sentences and any glaring surface errors in your research paper. When you edit, you should check for things like grammatical errors, punctuation errors, spelling, and issues related to documentation. Work on the points mentioned below: Precision: While editing you need to be precise about the ideas used in your thesis. Do a lot of research work to have a complete idea about the research done in your thesis. You should keep in mind that you are not changing the meaning of the sentences while editing and changing your thesis content here and there. All of the ideas in your paper should be connected and should relate to each other to some extent.  Complexity vs simplicity: While editing the thesis you should always use language that suits your audience...

Measuring relationship strength in meta analysis

The primary function of the procedures described so far is to help meta-analysis accept or reject the null hypothesis .Until recently,most researchers interested in social theory and the impact of social interventions have been content to simply identify relations that have some explanatory value.The prevalence of this “yes or no” question was partly due to the relativity recent development of the social sciences. Social hypothesis were crudely stated first approximation to the truth .Social researchers rarely asked how potent theories or interventions were for explaining human behaviour or how competing explanations compare with regard to their relative explanatory value .Today, as their theories and interventions are becoming more sophisticated ,social scientists are more often making enquiries about the size of relationship.   Giving further impetus to the “how much?” question is a growing disenchantment with the null hypothesis significance test itself.If an ample number of participants are available if a sensitive research design is employed ,a rejection of the null hypothesis meta-analyses that include combined significance level ,where the power is not guarantee that an important social insight has been achieved.   Finally,when used in applied social research ,the vote count and combined significance-level techniques give no information on whether  the effect of a treatment or the relationship between variables is large or small,important or trivial.For example, if we find the relationship between whether a particular (a) is a male and (b)believes that women share some culpability when a rape occurs is statistically significant and the correlation is r = .01,is this a ered? What if the result is statistically significant and the correlation is r =.30? This example suggests that the “yes or no?” question is not the question of greatest important .Instead, the important question is , “How much does the sex sex of the participant influence beliefs about rape?” The answer might be zero or it...

Summarizing and interpreting the information in case study research – PhD Help Series

In case study research,making sense of information collected from multiple sources is a recursive process in which the researcher interacts with the information throughout the investigative process.In other words, unlike some forms of research in which the data are examined only at the end of information collection period ,case study research involves ongoing examination and interpretation of the data in order to reach tentative conclusions and to refine the research questions .Case study researchers adhere to several guidelines as they simultaneously summarize and interpret information gathered when doing case study research. One guideline involves ongoing refinement of the study’s fundamental research questions in light of data obtained early in the investigation. For example, a teacher interested in factors that contribute to student attrition may discern from initial observations of her school’s classroom that rates.As a result,she may refine her initial questions from , What factors contribute to student attrition? to, Why are attention rates higher in classrooms in which teachers lecture exclusively?  Another guideline suggests constant focus on the research questions being investigated .A case study researcher can feel overwhelmed by the large amount of information normally obtained from interviews ,observations and documents. For example, a nurse exploring his hospital’s employment practices may generate 300 pages of transcribed interview data, several dozen pages of field notes describing observations of his hospital, and the number of pieces of potentially relevant physical evidence . A way to control the resulting sense of helplessness is to constantly remind oneself of the fundamental research questions being explored in the study.Each new piece of information should be examined in the light of these fundamental questions. A third guideline involves collection and interpretation of only those data that are potentially meaningful to the research effort .Although premature elimination of potential information is equally counterproductive .For example, a technology specialist seeking insights into her companies software...