how to finish your phd quickly

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Finishing your PhD thesis: 15 top tips from those in the know

Trying to complete a PhD thesis in time for the October deadline? We share some advice on getting over that final hurdle

• The key to a successful PhD thesis? Write in your own voice

Many PhD students are now in the final throes of writing their thesis. Turning years of research into a single, coherent piece of work can be tough, so we asked for tips from supervisors and recent PhD graduates. We were inundated with tweets and emails – and @AcademiaObscura helpfully created a Storify of the tweets. Below is a selection of the best tips.

1) Make sure you meet the PhD requirements for your institution “PhD students and their supervisors often presume things without checking. One supervisor told his student that a PhD was about 300 pages long so he wrote 300 pages. Unfortunately the supervisor had meant double-spaced, and the student had written single-spaced. Getting rid of 40,000 extra words with two weeks to go is not recommended.” ( Hannah Farrimond, lecturer in medical sociology, Exeter University)

2) Keep perspective “Everyone wants their thesis to be amazing, their magnum opus. But your most important work will come later. Think of your PhD as an apprenticeship. Your peers are unlikely to read your thesis and judge you on it. They are more likely to read any papers (articles, chapters, books) that result from it.” ( Dean D’Souza, PhD in cognitive neuroscience, Birkbeck, University of London)

3) Write the introduction last “Writing the introduction and conclusion together will help to tie up the thesis together, so save it for the end.” ( Ashish Jaiswal, PhD in business education, University of Oxford)

4) Use apps “ Trello is a project management tool (available as a smartphone app) which allows you to create ‘boards’ on which to pin all of your outstanding tasks, deadlines, and ideas. It allows you to make checklists too so you know that all of your important stuff is listed and to-hand, meaning you can focus on one thing at a time. It’s satisfying to move notes into the ‘done’ column too.” ( Lucy Irving, PhD in psychology, Middlesex University)

5) Address the unanswered questions “There will always be unanswered questions – don’t try to ignore or, even worse, obfuscate them. On the contrary, actively draw attention to them; identify them in your conclusion as areas for further investigation. Your PhD viva will go badly if you’ve attempted to disregard or evade the unresolved issues that your thesis has inevitably opened up.” ( Michael Perfect, PhD in English literature, University of Cambridge)

6) Buy your own laser printer “A basic monochrome laser printer that can print duplex (two-sided) can be bought online for less than £100, with off-brand replacement toners available for about £30 a pop. Repeatedly reprinting and editing draft thesis chapters has two very helpful functions. Firstly, it takes your work off the screen and onto paper, which is usually easier to proof. Secondly, it gives you a legitimate excuse to get away from your desk.” ( James Brown, PhD in architectural education, Queen’s University Belfast)

7) Checking is important “On days when your brain is too tired to write, check quotations, bibliography etc so you’re still making progress.” ( Julia Wright, professor of English at Dalhousie University, Canada)

8) Get feedback on the whole thesis “We often get feedback on individual chapters but plan to get feedback from your supervisor on the PhD as a whole to make sure it all hangs together nicely.” ( Mel Rohse, PhD in peace studies, University of Bradford)

9) Make sure you know when it will end “Sometimes supervisors use optimistic words such as ‘You are nearly there!’ Ask them to be specific. Are you three months away, or do you have six months’ worth of work? Or is it just a month’s load?” ( Rifat Mahbub, PhD in women’s studies, University of York)

10) Prepare for the viva “Don’t just focus on the thesis – the viva is very important too and examiners’ opinions can change following a successful viva. Remember that you are the expert in your specific field, not the examiners, and ask your supervisor to arrange a mock viva if practically possible.” ( Christine Jones , head of school of Welsh and bilingual studies, University of Wales Trinity St David)

11) Develop your own style “Take into account everything your supervisor has said, attend to their suggestions about revisions to your work but also be true to your own style of writing. What I found constructive was paying attention to the work of novelists I enjoy reading. It may seem that their style has nothing to do with your own field of research, but this does not matter. You can still absorb something of how they write and what makes it effective, compelling and believable.” ( Sarah Skyrme, PhD in sociology, Newcastle University)

12) Remember that more is not always better “A PhD thesis is not a race to the highest page count; don’t waste time padding.” ( Francis Woodhouse, PhD in mathematical biology, University of Cambridge)

13) Get a buddy “Find a colleague, your partner, a friend who is willing to support you. Share with them your milestones and goals, and agree to be accountable to them. This doesn’t mean they get to hassle or nag you, it just means someone else knows what you’re up to, and can help to check if your planning is realistic and achievable.” ( Cassandra Steer, PhD in criminology, University of Amsterdam)

14) Don’t pursue perfectionism “Remember that a PhD doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Nothing more self-crippling than perfectionism.” ( Nathan Waddell, lecturer in modernist literature, Nottingham University )

15) Look after yourself “Go outside. Work outside if you can. Fresh air, trees and sunshine do wonders for what’s left of your sanity.” ( Helen Coverdale, PhD in law, LSE)

Do you have any tips to add? Share your advice in the comments below.

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Dissertating Like a Distance Runner: Ten Tips for Finishing Your PhD

The above photo is of Sir Mo Farah running past Buckingham Palace into the home stretch of the London Marathon. I took the photo two days after my viva, in which I defended my PhD dissertation. Farah become a British hero when he and his training partner, Galen Rupp, won the gold and silver medals in the 10k at the London Olympic Games.

I had the honor of racing against Rupp at Nike’s Boarder Clash meet between the fastest high school distance runners in my home state of Washington and Rupp’s home state of Oregon. I’m happy to provide a link to the results and photos of our teenage selves since I beat Galen and Washington won the meet. (Note: In the results, ‘Owen’ is misspelled with the commonly added s , which I, as a fan of Jesse Owens, feel is an honor.) By the time we were running in college—Rupp for the University of Oregon and myself for the University of Washington—he was on an entirely different level. I never achieved anything close to the kind of running success Rupp has had. Yet, for most of us mortals, the real value in athletics is the character traits and principles that sports instill in us, and how those principles carry over to other aspects of life. Here I want to share ten principles that the sport of distance running teaches, which I found to be quite transferrable to writing my doctoral dissertation.

To provide some personal context, I began as a doctoral researcher at the University of Birmingham in 2014. At that time my grandparents, who helped my single father raise my sister and me, continued their ongoing struggle with my Grandfather’s Alzheimer’s. It was becoming increasingly apparent that they would benefit from having my wife and I nearby. So, in 2015 we moved to my hometown of Yakima, Washington. That fall I began a 2/2 teaching load at a small university on the Yakama Nation Reservation as I continued to write my dissertation. Since finishing my PhD four years ago, in 2018, I have published one book , five research articles , and two edited volume chapters related in various ways to my dissertation. As someone living in rural Eastern Washington, who is a first-gen college grad, I had to find ways to stay self-motivated and to keep chipping away at my academic work. I found the following principles that I learned through distance running very helpful.

(1) Establish community . There are various explanations, some of which border on superstitious, for why Kenyan distance runners have been so dominant. Yet one factor is certainly the running community great Kenyan distance runners benefit from at their elite training camps, as discussed in Train Hard, Win Easy: The Kenyan Way . Having a community that values distance running can compel each member of the community to pursue athletic excellence over a long period of time. The same can be said for academic work. Many doctoral researchers have built-in community in their university departments, but for various reasons this is not true for everyone. Thankfully, alternative ways to establish community have never been easier, predominantly due to technology.

Since my dissertation applied Aristotelian causation and neo-Thomistic hylomorphism to mental causation and neural correlates of consciousness, I found it immensely helpful to meet consistently with neuroscientist, Christof Koch, and philosopher of mind, Mihretu Guta. Mihretu does work on the philosophy of consciousness and Christof propelled the dawn of the neurobiology of consciousness with Francis Crick . Though Mihretu lives in Southern California, we met monthly through Skype, and I would drive over the Cascade Mountains once a month to meet with Christof in Seattle. As my dissertation examiner, Anna Marmodoro, once reminded me: the world is small—it’s easier than ever before to connect with other researchers.

It can also be helpful to keep in mind that your community can be large or small. As some athletes train in large camps consisting of many runners, others have small training groups, such as the three Ingebrigtsen brothers . Likewise, your community could be a whole philosophy department or several close friends. You can also mix it up. As an introvert, I enjoyed my relatively small consistent community, but I also benefitted from attending annual regional philosophy conferences where I could see the same folks each year. And I especially enjoyed developing relationships with other international researchers interested in Aristotelian philosophy of mind at a summer school hosted by the University of Oxford in Naples, which Marmodoro directed. For a brief period, we all stayed in a small villa and talked about hylomorphism all day, each day, while enjoying delicious Italian food.

Whatever your community looks like, whatever shape it takes, what matters is that you’re encouraged toward accomplishing your academic goal.

(2) Know your goal. Like writing a dissertation, becoming a good distance runner requires a lot of tedious and monotonous work. If you don’t have a clear goal of what you want to achieve, you won’t get up early, lace up your running shoes, and enter the frosty morning air as you take the first of many steps in your morning run. There are, after all, more enticing and perhaps even more pressing things to do. Similarly, if you don’t have a clear goal of when you want to finish your dissertation, it is easy to put off your daily writing for another day, which can easily become more distant into the future.

(3) Be realistic about your goal . While it is important to have a clear goal as a distance runner and as a doctoral researcher, it is important for your goal to be realistic. This means your goal should take into account the fact that you are human and therefore have both particular strengths and limitations. Everyone enters the sport of distance running with different strengths and weaknesses. When Diddy ran the city it would have been unrealistic for him to try to break the two-hour barrier in the marathon, as Eliud Kipchoge did . If Diddy made that his goal, he probably would have lost all hope in the first mile of the marathon and never finished. Because he set a more realistic goal of breaking four hours, not two hours, he paced himself accordingly and actually finished.

The parent of two young children who is teaching part-time can certainly finish a dissertation. But the parent will have a greater likelihood of doing so with a reasonable goal that fits that individual’s strengths and limitations. If the parent expects to finish on the same timescale as someone who is single with no children nor teaching responsibilities, this will likely lead to disappointment and less motivation in the middle of the process. Motivation will remain higher, and correspondingly so will productivity that is fueled by motivation, if one’s goal is realistic and achievable.

Another element of having a realistic goal is being willing to adapt the goal as your circumstances change. Sometimes a runner might enter a race expecting to place in the top five and midway through the race realize that she has a great chance of winning (consider, for example, Des Linden’s victory at the Boston Marathon ). At that point, it would be wise to revise one’s goal to be ‘win the race’ rather than simply placing in the top five. At other times, a runner might expect to win the race or be on the podium and midway realize that is no longer possible. Yet, if she is nevertheless within striking distance of placing in the top five, then she can make that her new goal, which is realistic given her current situation and will therefore sustain her motivation to the finish line. Sara Hall, who could have and wanted to crack the top three, held on for fifth at the World Championships marathon because she adjusted her goal midrace.

The PhD candidate who initially plans to finish her dissertation in three years but then finds herself in the midst of a pandemic or dealing with a medical issue or a family crisis may not need to give up on her goal of finishing her dissertation. Perhaps, she only needs to revise her goal so that it allows more time, so she finishes in five years rather than three. A PhD finished in five years is certainly more valuable than no PhD.

(4) Know why you want to achieve your goal . My high school cross-country coach, Mr. Steiner, once gave me a book about distance running entitled “Motivation is the Name of the Game.” It is one of those books you don’t really need to read because the main takeaway is in the title. Distance running requires much-delayed gratification—you must do many things that are not intrinsically enjoyable (such as running itself, ice baths, going to bed early, etc.) in order to achieve success. If you don’t have a solid reason for why you want to achieve your running goal, you won’t do the numerous things you do not want to do but must do to achieve your goal. The same is true for finishing a PhD. Therefore, it is important to know the reason(s) why you want to finish your dissertation and why you want a PhD.

As a side note, it can also be immensely helpful to choose a dissertation topic that you are personally very interested in, rather than a topic that will simply make you more employable. Of course, being employable is something many of us must consider. Yet, if you pick a topic that is so boring to you that you have significant difficulty finding the motivation to finish your dissertation, then picking an “employable dissertation topic” will be anything but employable.

(5) Prioritize your goal . “Be selfish” were the words of exhortation my college cross-country team heard from our coaches before we returned home for Christmas break. As someone who teaches ethics courses, I feel compelled to clarify that “be selfish” is not typically good advice. However, to be fair to my coaches, the realistic point they were trying to convey was that at home we would be surrounded by family and friends who may not fully understand our running goals and what it takes to accomplish them. For example, during my first Christmas break home from college, I was trying to run eighty miles per week. Because I was trying to fit these miles into my social schedule without much compromise, many of these miles were run in freezing temps, in the dark, on concrete sidewalks with streetlights, rather than dirt trails. After returning to campus following the holidays, I raced my first indoor track race with a terribly sore groin, which an MRI scan soon revealed was due to a stress fracture in my femur. I learned the hard way that I have limits to what I can do, which entails I must say “no thanks” to some invitations, even though that may appear selfish to some.

A PhD researcher writing a dissertation has a substantial goal before her. Yet, many people writing a dissertation have additional responsibilities, such as teaching, being a loving spouse, a faithful friend, or a present parent. As I was teaching while writing my dissertation, I often heard the mantra “put students first.” Yet, I knew if I prioritized my current students over and above finishing my dissertation, I would, like many, never finish my dissertation. However, I knew it would be best for my future students to be taught by an expert who has earned a PhD. So, I put my future students first by prioritizing finishing my PhD . This meant that I had to limit the teaching responsibilities I took on. Now, my current students are benefitting from my decision, as they are taught by an expert in my field.

While prioritizing your dissertation can mean putting it above some things in life, it also means putting it below other things. A friend once told me he would fail in a lot of areas in life before he fails as a father, which is often what it means to practically prioritize one goal above another. Prioritizing family and close friendships need not mean that you say ‘yes’ to every request, but that you intentionally build consistent time into your schedule to foster relationships with the people closest to you. For me, this practically meant not working past 6:00pm on weekdays and taking weekends off to hang out with family and friends. This relieved pressure, because I knew that if something went eschew with my plan to finish my PhD, I would still have the people in my life who I care most about. I could then work toward my goal without undue anxiety about the possibility of failing and the loss that would entail. I was positively motivated by the likely prospect that I would, in time, finish my PhD, and be able to celebrate it with others who supported me along the way.

(6) Just start writing . Yesterday morning, it was five degrees below freezing when I did my morning run. I wanted to skip my run and go straight to my heated office. So, I employed a veteran distance running trick to successfully finish my run. I went out the door and just started running. That is the hardest part, and once I do it, 99.9% of the time I finish my run.

You may not know what exactly you think about a specific topic in the chapter you need to write, nor what you are going to write each day. But perhaps the most simple and helpful dissertation advice I ever received was from David Horner, who earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford. He told me: “just start writing.” Sometimes PhD researchers think they must have all their ideas solidified in their mind before they start writing their dissertation. In fact, writing your dissertation can actually help clarify what you think. So “just start writing” is not only simple but also sage advice.

(7) Never write a dissertation . No great marathoner focuses on running 26.2 miles. Great distance runners are masters of breaking up major goals into smaller goals and then focusing on accomplishing one small goal at a time, until they have achieved the major goal. Philosophers can understand this easily, as we take small, calculated steps through minor premises that support major premises to arrive at an overall conclusion in an argument.

Contained within each chapter of a dissertation is a premise(s) in an overall argument and individual sections can contain sub-premises supporting the major premise of each chapter. When you first start out as a doctoral researcher working on your dissertation, you have to construct an outline of your dissertation that maps out the various chapters and how they will relate to your overall conclusion. Once you have that outline in place, keep it in the back of your mind. But do not focus on writing the whole, which would be overwhelming and discouraging. Rather, focus on writing whichever chapter you are working on. The fastest American marathoner, Ryan Hall, wrote a book that sums up the only way to run long distances in the title Run the Mile You’re In . And Galen Rupp discusses in this interview how he mentally breaks up a marathon into segments and focuses on just finishing one segment at a time. Whatever chapter you’re writing, make it your goal to write that chapter. Once you’ve accomplished that goal, set a new goal: write the next chapter. Repeat that process several times and you will be halfway through your dissertation. Repeat the process a few more times, and you will be done.

By the time you have finished a master’s degree, you have written many chapter-length papers. To finish a dissertation, you essentially write about eight interconnected papers, one at a time, just as you have done many times before. If you just write the chapter (which you could call a “paper” if that feels like a lighter load) you’re writing, before you know it, you will have written a dissertation.

(8) Harness the power of habits . Becoming a great distance runner requires running an inordinate number of miles, which no one has the willpower to do. The best marathoners in the world regularly run well over one hundred miles a week, in addition to stretching, lifting weights, taking ice baths, and eating healthy. Not even the most tough-minded distance runner has the gumption to make all the individual decisions that would be required in order to get out the door for every run and climb into every ice bath apart from the development of habits. The most reliable way around each distance runner’s weakness of will, or akrasia , is developing and employing habits. The same can be true for writing.

If you simply try to write a little bit each weekday around the same time, you will develop a habit of writing at that time each day. Once you have that habit, the decision to write each weekday at that time will require less and less willpower over time. Eventually, it will take some willpower to not write at that time. I have found it helpful to develop the routine of freewriting for a few minutes just before starting my daily writing session of thirty minutes during which I write new content, before working on editing or revising existing content for about thirty minutes. My routine helped me develop the daily habit of writing, which removes the daily decision to write, as I “just do it” (to use Nike’s famous line) each day.

I have also found it helpful to divide my days up according to routines. As a morning person, I do well writing and researching in the morning, doing teaching prep and teaching during the middle of the day, and then doing mundane tasks such as email at the end of the day.

(9) Write for today and for tomorrow . Successful distance runners train for two reasons. One reason—to win upcoming races—is obvious. However, in addition to training for upcoming races, the successful distance runner trains today for the training that they want to be capable of months and years ahead. You cannot simply jump into running eighty, ninety, or one-hundred-mile weeks. It takes time to condition your body to sustain the stress of running high mileage weeks. A runner must have a long-term perspective and plan ahead as she works toward her immediate goals on the way to achieving her long-term goals. Similarly, for the PhD researcher, writing a dissertation lays the groundwork for future success.

For one, if the PhD candidate develops healthy, sustainable, productive habits while writing a dissertation, these habits can be continued once they land an academic job. It is no secret that the initial years on the job market, or in a new academic position, can be just as (or more) challenging than finishing a PhD. Effective habits developed while writing a dissertation can be invaluable during such seasons, allowing one to continue researching and writing even with more responsibilities and less time.

It is also worth noting that there is a sense in which research writing becomes easier, as one becomes accustomed to the work. A distance runner who has been running for decades, logging thousands of miles throughout their career, can run relatively fast without much effort. For example, my college roommate, Travis Boyd, decided to set the world record for running a half marathon pushing a baby stroller nearly a decade after we ran for the University of Washington. His training was no longer what it once was during our collegiate days. Nevertheless, his past training made it much easier for him to set the record, even though his focus had shifted to his full-time business career and being a present husband and father of two. I once asked my doctoral supervisors, Nikk Effingham and Jussi Suikkanen, how they were able to publish so much. They basically said it gets easier, as the work you have done in the past contributes to your future publications. Granted, not everyone is going to finish their PhD and then become a research super human like Liz Jackson , who finished her PhD in 2019, and published four articles that same year, three the next, and six the following year. Nevertheless, writing and publishing does become easier as you gain years of experience.

(10) Go running . As Cal Newport discusses in Deep Work , having solid boundaries around the time we work is conducive for highly effective academic work. And there is nothing more refreshing while dissertating than an athletic hobby with cognitive benefits . So, perhaps the best way to dissertate like a distance runner is to stop writing and go for a run.

Acknowledgments : Thanks are due to Aryn Owen and Jaden Anderson for their constructive feedback on a prior draft of this post.

• Matthew Owen

Matthew Owen (PhD, University of Birmingham) is a faculty member in the philosophy department at Yakima Valley College in Washington State. He is also an affiliate faculty member at the Center for Consciousness Science, University of Michigan. Matthew’s latest book is Measuring the Immeasurable Mind: Where Contemporary Neuroscience Meets the Aristotelian Tradition .

• Dissertating
• Finishing your PhD
• graduate students
• Sabrina D. MisirHiralall

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How to finish a PhD quickly

Considering a PhD ? The idea of committing a chunk of your life to research can be both exciting and daunting, but there are ways to make sure your timelines don’t blow out, your motivation doesn’t run out, and you can always see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Here, CDU’s Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor Tara Brabazon, offers her top 10 tips for submitting your thesis quickly.

Establish your research problem quickly

Start every PhD with the question: what is the research problem? What problem are you trying to solve?

Once you’ve figured that out: what is the gap in knowledge? What will your research do in that gap?

Locate the research problem, locate the research gap, and that problem can propel you through that research. From that point you can construct the methodology, the ontology, the epistemology to solve it, but you have the foundation for a really strong introduction and conclusion.

The crucial strategy to finishing quickly is reading, and reading a lot.

Once you’ve been admitted into a program you may want to drink your body weight in Chardonnay with excitement but use those three months to read widely.

Read your field, read other theses. Read always, read early, and use our libraries and librarians .

Reading without good note taking is not terribly efficient because you’re too reliant on your memory. Great note taking saves you months of your life and months of your candidature. If you have a great note taking system in your PhD, for the rest of your career you can use the notes for your PhD to enable other research projects.

Write all the way through your candidature

From the first week of your enrolment, you need to be writing.

We learn to write by writing, so write all the way through your enrolment. This relaxes you with your writing so you don’t end up in the dreaded ‘writing up’ process that slows down your thesis.

I cannot tell you how many students have finished a PhD writing 250 words a day. For some students, giving themselves a word length deadline strategy works.

A great supervisor can save you years

Yes, years.

They know the field, they’ve done the deep reading, they continue to read deeply and widely, they put themselves through peer review all the time, they undertake professional development, they understand the standard of a PhD.

They’re able to read your drafts quickly and know how to help you.

See also: How to find the right research supervisor

Use deadlines and milestones to your advantage

The students that finish on time complete their milestones on schedule. The moment you’re mucking about with milestones, your thesis is going to blow out unless you make a decision to do something different–today.

Make sure your confirmation of candidature, your mid-thesis review, your final thesis review is delivered on time and make sure in these milestones, you get external assessors to look at your work. You need another set of eyes beyond your supervisor to have a look at the work you’re doing.

Use these punctuation points to check the standards of your research.

Select a thesis area that is possible to finish

If you walk into a topic knowing that an ethics process is going to be lengthy, then you’re admitting at the start that you’re going to have troubles finishing.

If you want a quick PhD, you need to select a topic which has a frame around it.

Your PhD is not the best research you will ever complete – you are in research training!

People forget that the PhD is a qualification, and like all degrees you start it and you finish it.

Put your entire thesis into one document as quickly as possible

I cannot tell you what placing all your work does to your brain. Suddenly you take a breath, you can see your thesis, it has a shape. Now this full PhD draft keeps you incredibly motivated and reminds you what you’re actually doing.

The longer the candidature, the more mess can occur in that candidature. So remember, start the PhD seeing the ending and that will give you motivation and meaning.

That’s the gift of putting the entire thesis into one document. You can see the end in sight.

Learn to take feedback

Learning to take feedback is tough, but the best students take the tough, hard critiques early, and ask for the tough, hard critiques early.

It’s very easy to ignore uncomfortable truths particularly when you’re in a PhD. But it is the grit in the oyster that creates the pearl. The issue that emerges from that robust feedback early on invariably ends up being the gift of your thesis—you put the problem into the work.

That crucial feedback that emerges not only makes the thesis but ensures a rapid completion of that thesis.

Weekly meetings

Regular meetings are a characteristic of quick finishers.

I know it seems horrible for a lot of students but it creates an accountability cycle.

Stay connected with your thesis every single day

And yes, this one includes part-time students.

Don’t talk about it, do it. Even half an hour a day—but make it every day. That is how you finish.

There’s never a perfect time to do a PhD. Don’t wait for the perfect time to read—read now. Don’t wait for the perfect time to write—write now.

Life is difficult. Write and read on the difficult days.

See more from Professor Brabazon  here .

Interested in pursuing a Higher Degree by Research ? Join CDU’s community of internationally recognised researchers, making real-world impact in northern Australia and the Asia Pacific.  Scholarships are available . Learn more .

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How to Finish Your PhD

Out now in paperback and ebook editions.

Are you stuck in your PhD? Is progress imperceptible to the naked eye? You’re feeling overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done and there’s no clear path. The more you worry, the less work you get done; the less work that gets done, the more you worry: it’s a vicious cycle. With the help of this practical book, you’ll take a new approach to your thesis.

I’ve coached thousands of PhD students through to the finish line. I also managed to complete my own PhD when it seemed vanishingly unlikely. Some people breeze through their PhD, knowing exactly what they’re doing and never giving their supervisor a moment’s worry. That probably isn’t you. For most of us it’s tough – that’s why relatively few people get to call themselves Doctor. It’s hard, but not impossible. I want to help make it possible for you.

I’ll help you understand why you’re stuck and what you can do about it. By the end of the book,  you’ll have the clarity and confidence you need to finish your PhD. Together, we’ll create an action plan that’s right for you. Each chapter includes activities and downloadable resources.

You won’t find anything about theory, methodologies, or epistemologies here. There are plenty of other books on how to write a PhD – this book is on how to finish it. Take a look at the outline below to see what we’ll cover.

How to Buy 

How to Finish Your PhD  is available in  paperback and ebook  editions. You can order through your favourite online retailer or independent bookstore. The ebook edition is available through Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and all the other major channels. If you’d like to buy in bulk for your students (20+ copies),  please contact me for discounts or any other queries.

ISBN:  978-1838242909

Introduction  (read for free)

1. what’s the purpose of a phd.

• Why are you doing a PhD? (I’ll help you remember)
• What on earth is a thesis, anyway?
• How can you set some limits and avoid doing too much?

2. Getting Ready to Do Things Differently

• Forgetting the past and focusing on the future
• Adopting a growth mindset
• Overcoming imposter syndrome and defeating your inner critic

3. Making a Plan

• You’re the project manager!
• Who’s on your team?
• What needs to happen and when?
• Anticipating problems and solving them in advance
• Breaking everything down into more manageable chunks

4. Working with Your Supervisor

• What type of supervision do you need?
• Managing the supervisory relationship
• Resolving conflict
• Agreeing plans with your supervisor
• Soliciting effective feedback

5. Managing Competing Priorities

• Understanding your circle of control
• Managing your time effectively
• Choosing the best time to write
• Looking after your health

6. Becoming a More Productive Writer

• Protecting your writing time
• Finding the right place to work
• Improving focus and eliminating distractions
• Making writing easier for yourself
• Defeating procrastination

6. Building Routines and Keeping Going

• Meeting your monkey sidekick
• Creating startup and shutdown routines
• Developing good habits
• Measuring progress
• Avoiding perfectionism

7. Getting Ready for Submission

• Thinking about your examiners
• Breaking down the editing process
• How much time do you need for editing?
• Knowing when to stop
• Your submission checklist

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10 habits that helped me finish my PhD

Doing a PhD is a long-distance run where you don’t know when (and if) you get to cross the finish line. Moreover, you are running through a misty landscape, unsure for long stretches where you are and whether you are heading in the right direction (and what is the right direction, anyway).

Sounds familiar? It surely was familiar to me. Few years into my PhD, I found myself in a very uncomfortable situation: it was slowly time to finish my work & write up the thesis, but I didn’t have any reasonable, publishable results yet. I was in the middle of a big mess — and my mind was a big mess, too. I was distracted most of the time, jumping from paper to paper, from idea to idea, starting something but not finishing it, procrastinating with little busy work, and pushing away what was important. This stressed me out more and more, so that finally I had to face the reality and do something about it.

So I read some blogs about self-management and productivity and started to experiment with my behaviors. And I discovered that productive habits and routines were indeed the perfect solution for my situation.

The power of habits

Why are habits so powerful? The short answer is that having any kind of regular routine is helpful because it alleviates the burden of choice . Decision making is exhausting for the brain, and when we have to make too many decisions in a given day, we feel overwhelmed and even unhappy.

So developing habits frees us from wasting our decision capacity on little everyday things like when we are going to do what. As a result, we will feel more focused and capable to do better work for longer time.

Moreover, habits and routines are a great help with achieving goals . Setting goals is not sufficient to actually achieve them – we need to do something, and for big goals it means doing a lot. Some people even argue that you don’t need to set goals at all – just develop the right habits and they will bring you the desired outcome.

You can design your routines by deciding which behaviors you want to do daily or weekly, and allocating certain time (and/or a place in a sequence) for them. For example: after I wash my teeth, I do some yoga, then I have breakfast.

Before a habit becomes automatic, you need to repeat it daily for a month or two. There are many tricks that help you stick to your chosen behavior and not give up. For example, you can place little notes to yourself at visible locations around your room or house, set an alarm clock that will remind you that it is time for your habit, use a big calendar and mark every day when you do your habit with a big cross, or even ask a friend to act as an accountability partner and report to them every day (or week) how you are doing with your routine. If you want to learn more, here is my favorite minimalist guide to sticking to habits .

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10 habits that saved my PhD

Now, let’s be more precise: How can you overcome your problems and finish the bloody PhD? Here I show you the most important daily and weekly habits that I developed during grad school, habits which helped me complete my thesis and stay (mostly) sane.

• Planning , which included daily, weekly, and long-term planning of my projects. I tried to plan my day at the end of the previous day, so that I could be productive from early morning and didn’t waste time with figuring out what I need to do. Furthermore, I learned to divide my todo list in two parts: “ big rocks ” that I tackled first thing in the morning, and “todo” containing all the little things that needed to be done, like emails and other organizational stuff. Big rocks were the most important things, but they were rarely urgent. So if I would not prioritize them, they would be endlessly postponed. Moreover, I found it important to break down these “big rocks” into small actionable steps , otherwise they would feel too big and intimidating, so I would rather procrastinate than work on them.
• Morning routine was another game changer for me. I designed an optimal start into my day where I could do all the necessary things quickly without employing much decision making and start my work day with a fresh and focused mind. I included here healthy habits like morning yoga that gave me the necessary energy boost for a whole day of hard work.

• Daily writing in my lab book : Towards the end of my PhD I (finally!) started to document my research activities in a great detail — in a lab book. (If you wonder why I started so late with it: As I was working with computational models, lab book was not required, unfortunately.) I described here not only my procedures and results, but also included notes about the papers I read, and reflections about ideas and open questions I had. Starting with the lab book was THE great turning point in my PhD: turning away from procrastination and towards great productivity that allowed me to graduate much faster than I thought was possible. Regularly using the lab book brought multiple benefits : First, it generated detailed documentation, so I didn’t need to repeat simulations or re-read papers anymore. Second, writing about my difficulties actually helped me find solutions. Third, I wrote texts that I could recycle in manuscripts and my thesis. Fourth, it gave me daily painless writing practice that later enabled me to write up my thesis quite fast, without writer’s block and procrastination. And fifth, it created a feeling of daily progress, which motivated me to keep going and not give up.
• Taking notes when reading papers : I used to just highlight the relevant parts in the text and write my comments and questions on the side as I was reading a paper. Later I realized that I can avoid the need to re-read papers (for example, when searching for appropriate references) when I write a little summary of the most important points (most important for me and my project!), including my evaluation of the methods and results and their relevance to my project. Since the papers I read were related to my own work, this additional writing practice helped me build a rich vocabulary for describing my own research.
• Weekly meetings with my supervisor and co-author turned out to be an excellent measure against procrastination. For example, I could not spend the whole week lost in the literature — I had to do at least something that I could bring to the discussion. These meetings were a great opportunity to talk about my research challenges, which was itself often sufficient to resolve them. Moreover, here I found motivation in times of despair: when I was fed up with my project, talking about what I did and what I thought often increased my interest in the project again.
• The big picture day : Friday afternoons were reserved for stepping away from the daily work and trying to get a larger overview of what I was doing, what the recent results meant, and where should I go next. These moments allowed me to cut through the fog and search for the direction and meaning in what I was doing. It was also the perfect time for planning my activities for the next week.

• Having a regular hobby that has nothing to do with your research. For me, it was music and dancing. What I learned the hard way: don’t stop with your hobby when you feel like you need to be working more. My hobbies helped me overcome the dark periods when I worked hard for my thesis, but the effort was not reflected in the achieved results. During these times, it is important to have something else that works, something where one can experience progress.
• Regular sport activities : The long days at the desk during my PhD were not good for my body, I felt that very clearly. My back was aching, the shoulders were stiff, even my digestion seemed to work worse than before. I had to start with regular sport to not hurt myself. Jogging, other aerobic activities (dancing :)), and yoga not only helped with my body, but as a result I felt more energized and focused as well.
• Having a social life is similar to cultivating a hobby, but here it’s about interpersonal connections that, at the end, make life worth living. Similarly to giving up a hobby, we might tend to sacrifice our social life when the work gets tough. But that’s a bad idea: when I stopped meeting friends and going out for more than few weeks, I felt isolated and unhappy. A phone call with a good friend or a Friday night out would improve my mood and make me ready for work again.

These 10 habits made a great difference in my PhD productivity and well-being. But what about you? Do you have experience with some of the listed habits? Or do you cultivate other habits that help you with your PhD life? Please, share them with us in the comments!

Do you need to revise & polish your manuscript or thesis but don’t know where to begin? Is your text a mess and you don't know how to improve it?

Click here for an efficient step-by-step revision of your scientific texts. You will be guided through each step with concrete tips for execution.

5 thoughts on “ 10 habits that helped me finish my PhD ”

Thanks…I would rather call these as the 10 PhD commandments…….specialisation, not bringing work to home, daily planning are my habits…in these scale I consider myself as a 5/10 boy. Sport….sport….I have to get into it……..Friday night out….?

Haha, thank you! Friday night out was an example: find a way to socialize that works for you 😉

If it possible to make download as PDF documents it will be so readable. Thank you

Dear Moustafa, unfortunately, no pdfs of my online articles are currently available. I’m sorry! Best, Martina

Comments are closed.

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Open Access

Ten Simple Rules for Finishing Your PhD

* E-mail: [email protected]

Current address: Gene Center, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Affiliation Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Affiliation Society for Experimental Biology (SEB), Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

• Jacopo Marino, 
• Melanie I. Stefan, 
• Sarah Blackford

Published: December 4, 2014

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003954
• Reader Comments

Citation: Marino J, Stefan MI, Blackford S (2014) Ten Simple Rules for Finishing Your PhD. PLoS Comput Biol 10(12): e1003954. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003954

Editor: Philip E. Bourne, National Institutes of Health, United States of America

Copyright: © 2014 Marino et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors have received no specific funding for this article.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

After years of research and with completion in sight, the final year of the PhD often represents the most challenging time of a student's career, in which the ultimate reward is the PhD honor itself. A large investment in time, energy, and motivation is needed, with many tasks to be completed; concluding experiments must be carried out, results interpreted, and a research story mapped out in preparation for writing the final thesis. All the while, administrative obligations need attention (e.g., university credits and mandatory documents), papers may need to be published, students mentored, and due consideration paid to planning for the next career move. Without some form of strategic action plan and the employment of project management skills, students run the risk of becoming overwhelmed and run down or of not meeting their final deadlines. Personal time management and stress resilience are competences that can be developed and honed during this final period of the PhD.

Here, we present ten simple rules on how to deal with time issues and conflict situations when facing the last year of a PhD in science. The rules focus on defining research goals in advance and designing a plan of action. Moreover, we discuss the importance of managing relationships with supervisors and colleagues, as well as early career planning.

Rule 1: Plan Your Last Year in Advance

Preparing a plan of action for the final year of your PhD is vital. Ideally, devised and agreed upon with your supervisor, a plan will help to optimize the time left and reduce feelings of being overwhelmed. Individuals plan in different ways; some prefer to work towards their goals in a stepwise linear fashion, whilst others are more comfortable flitting from task to task until all the jobs are done. There is no definitive way to plan, so find out what works best for you. You may decide to map out a timeline, or perhaps a mind-map is your preferred planning style. Whichever method you use, it's important that you adhere to your plan whilst allowing for some flexibility (but not distraction or procrastination).

Your time frame will vary according to the organization of your graduate school, your supervisor or advisory committee, and even your graduation date, but one year before submission of your doctoral thesis is the time when you should decide on how best to invest the last months of your research and associated activities. Having a plan of action will help to avoid time wasting, e.g., being distracted by superfluous experiments that might be interesting but are not necessary. Furthermore, from a psychological point of view, referring to a concrete plan can make you feel more secure and in control. Ideally, the supervisor and PhD student should both agree on the overall plan (with provision for the unexpected, e.g., technical issues), with intermittent reviews every few weeks to check that progress is being made. Your supervisor should also be able to advise you on the organization and writing of your thesis—for example, its structure—and the number and length of chapters to include.

Rule 2: Make Your Priorities Clear

Select the activities you want to include in your plan. What are your priorities? They are likely to include experiments that will give the thesis a conclusion or that may be necessary to publish a final paper. Mandatory administrative tasks will also need attention, and allowing time to prepare for your next career move will give you the best chance of a seamless and successful transition post-PhD. As a final year PhD candidate, you are likely to have acquired high-level competencies comparable to those of a junior postdoctoral researcher, in which case your supervisor may offer you responsibility for new projects or graduate students. Saying no to him/her can be difficult for various reasons, e.g., fear of potentially creating conflict in your relationship or causing a negative reaction or of perhaps losing the opportunity to be included in future research activities and publications. It can also be difficult to let go of a topic or project to which you are wedded or to miss out on the opportunity to help train the next generation of scientists. In such situations, referring back to your plan (Rule 1), previously agreed upon with your supervisor, should help to remind you both of your priorities and deadlines, making negotiation easier. However, should any conflict of opinion arise between you, bear in mind that finding a mutually agreeable solution is the best way forward. You can take advice from a mentor or refer to the many publications that provide approaches and tactics for effective negotiation. If the relationship between you and your supervisor is more complicated and cannot be resolved by a discussion, you may need to turn to your graduate school, your academic committee, or other senior managers in your institution, who can act to mediate the situation.

Rule 3: “The Truth Can Wait”

A research project is never really finished, so do not try to do everything before submitting. In fact, the perfect doctoral thesis does not exist; there are students with good research projects and many publications and others with more difficult and testing challenges who are still waiting for their first paper. If the project is ambitious, it might take several years to reach the final goal, and thus the thesis might only be a small part of the whole story. If the project is going well, it will open up new research questions and future directions, some of which will be beyond the scope of a PhD. At some point, you need to decide that what you have is enough for a PhD and start writing (a strategy we heard described at a dissertation-writing seminar in Cambridge as “the truth can wait”; it helps to write this on a post-it note and stick it on your computer!). Starting to write the thesis is not easy when there is a sense that more could be done to accumulate more data and a fuller story; a common mistake is to go back to the lab instead of getting started with the results chapters of the thesis. To postpone writing will cause delays and not necessarily improve the thesis whilst increasing the prospect of unfulfilled and extended deadlines. Thus, once the experiments that you have agreed on have been completed, it is really important to start writing with the data in hand.

Rule 4: Enlist Support

Finalizing experiments and writing the thesis (and even papers), as well as considering your next career transition, can be stressful and even isolating. It is a contrast to the relatively more relaxed earlier years of the PhD experience, and the writing process does not come naturally to everyone. The prospect of facing these stresses alone can make the experience even harder to bear, so it is advisable to communicate with and find support in those you trust and respect. Relying on such people during this period can help to ease the strain and enable you to achieve your final aims so that you arrive at your PhD graduation with your sanity still intact! Talking about personal feelings with selected colleagues usually helps you to realize that you are not alone, whatever difficulties and challenges you might be experiencing with your research project, supervisor, or coworkers. Sharing uncertainties and talking through issues can be constructive, helping you to understand the strategies other people use to cope with similar problems. As well as colleagues, it can also help to talk to friends and family, even though they won't be as au fait with the highly particular challenges you are experiencing. You can share your feelings and anxieties with them, but they can also act as a welcome distraction to help you to relax and take a break from thinking about the stresses of your PhD.

Support and advice can also come in the shape of courses, books, blogs, mentoring, etc. There is much published on the subject of how to write a thesis [1] . Furthermore, graduate schools, such as those in which we are based, usually offer courses to help PhD candidates improve their personal and professional skills. For example, the University of Zurich organizes courses on, amongst others, time and self-management skills, managing conflict, and academic writing and publishing [2] . The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard lists workshops and resources offered across the university on topics such as scientific writing, time management, and overcoming procrastination. In addition to relying on your supervisor, postdoctoral researchers in your group or department (or even friendly collaborators) may agree to read chapters of your thesis and comment on aspects such as content, logical flow of ideas, and the overall structure. At a later stage, you may want to engage someone to check your grammar, spelling, and reference style (this can be especially important if you are not writing in your native language). If your PhD defense includes a presentation, try to practice beforehand, preferably in front of some of your peers, and include asking for feedback and possible questions that may come up. This should make you feel more prepared and confident.

Rule 5: Get Familiar with the Software

Being familiar with software for both writing and making figures will facilitate the creation of your thesis. One of the most effective tools with which to produce a scientific document is LaTeX ( www.latex-project.org ). This software, freely available, is not as immediately understandable as other text editors, but the advantages are greater: it offers a professional layout similar to published books, it makes the insertion and management of figures easier as their position in the file does not depend on text editing, and it allows for easy typesetting of mathematical equations and referencing of articles from a bibliography database. Moreover, the text file size does not increase while inserting figures, making its handling easier. An example LaTeX package for typesetting dissertations is “classicthesis”, written by André Miede ( http://www.miede.de/index.php?page=classicthesis ). Although advantageous, LaTeX can also present disadvantages. In contrast to commonly used text editors (e.g., Microsoft Word), it does not make it easy to track changes in the manuscript, often a preferred way for supervisors to correct theses in an electronic form. Therefore, we suggest you discuss the preferred software with your supervisor when you agree upon your plan (Rule 1).

A professional design software can also speed up the creation of figures for your thesis, which can be further used for your final PhD presentation, so check whether your institution provides an introductory course to some of these software packages. Taking a one-day class can save you a lot of time later. Organize your bibliography; many excellent reference managers exist that allow you to catalogue and annotate the papers you have read and integrate them seamlessly with text processing software (e.g., Endnote or the freely available Mendeley and Readcube). Choose one that fits your needs and check whether your university provides institutional licenses (and be disciplined about adding each paper you read to it!).

Consider using version control software. This allows you to keep a log of all the changes you make to a file or directory and makes it easy to recover a previous version if something goes wrong or to merge two versions of a file. This is often used in software projects to produce, document, and improve computer code, but it can also be useful when working on a long text document, such as a dissertation. Commonly used free version control systems include git/GitHub [git, github], Subversion [svn], and Bazaar [bzr] (see Table 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003954.t001

Most important of all is to have a backup strategy. A hard-drive crash at the wrong moment can set your work back by weeks and jeopardize the timely completion of your thesis. Institutions or departments will often have a backup system employees can make use of. This may require you to install a specific piece of software on your computer that backs up your data at regular intervals or to save your file on an institute server. Contact the information technology (IT) department at your institute to learn about your options.

Rule 6: Know Your University's Procedures and Regulations

During the course of your PhD, you will have been acquiring project management skills, such as organizing your time and resources, reviewing progress, and meeting deadlines. In order to avoid last-minute surprises, you can capitalize on and develop these skills during the final year of your PhD. Prepare a list of all the documents and certificates that you will need, even before you start writing; it will be of critical importance to include this information in your plan and priorities (Rules 1 and 2). Having a good working relationship with someone who can help you to navigate a bureaucratic process will usually be an asset and will ensure you are familiar and aware of all the rules. Considering the amount of documents and certificates that are needed for handing in a thesis, it is advantageous to introduce yourself to the institute secretary or human resources manager, as well as any other staff who can help you to deal with the administrative side of the process. Don't rely on previous documents, which may have been revised since the last person in your group graduated. Be aware of all the necessary institutional administrative requirements (e.g., credit points, research seminar attendance, publications, etc.), as well as the faculty criteria, including deadlines (as well the date of the graduation ceremony), thesis copy numbers and format, font size, binding, and supporting documents. Take time to go through the list of documents and start collecting them in a folder. Get the formatting right early on, e.g., by using a dedicated template file. With your documents in order, you are bound to feel you have the situation more under control, which can help to reduce stress and enable you to focus more closely on writing your thesis.

Rule 7: Exploit Synergies

You are doing a lot of work for your thesis, so use it to your advantage. The literature review in your introduction can also be used to write and publish a future review article, an idea that might also be welcomed by your supervisor. If you are intending to write a grant proposal for a postdoctoral fellowship on a similar research topic, you can use some of the thesis introduction and future directions as a basis for your research plan. If you are keen to gain teaching experience, you could propose a short course on your specialty area. For instance, at Harvard Medical School, senior graduate students and postdoctoral researchers can be involved in lecturing on short, specialized “nanocourses” [3] . You may also be able to deliver a specialized lecture within a class your supervisor is teaching or, ideally after you have completed the PhD, teach at a workshop or summer school.

Take advantage of opportunities to deliver a talk as an invited speaker at a conference or at another institute, for example, if you are visiting a research group or investigating possible postdoctoral options. This will give you the chance to practice your defense presentation in front of an unfamiliar audience and, at the same time, allow a potential future supervisor and colleagues to gain a more complete picture of your research interests, skills, and personality.

Rule 8: Pay Attention to Your Career

It is not always easy to decide on which career path to follow after your PhD. You have been trained primarily towards an academic research career, and so many PhD graduates choose to continue on with a postdoctoral position as their first career destination. This is perfectly acceptable, and many industrial employers look upon early-career postdoctorals favorably. However, it is worth bearing in mind that permanent tenured positions are hard to secure nowadays and competition is tough, with less than 5% of those who complete a PhD ultimately realizing an academic career [4] . For those who are determined to have an academic career, a strategic research plan is crucial; for those who are unsure, a viable alternative career plan is equally important.

Knowledge of your professional and personal skills and capabilities, personality, values, and interests, as well as how to map them onto the job market and sell them to employers, will help you to make effective career decisions and a successful transition to your next job. In addition, factors such as your personal situation and priorities, mobility, and preferred work–life balance all need to be taken into consideration before entering the complicated world of the job market. Be ready to make compromises either in your work or personal life, depending on your priorities. Take advantage of courses and professional career guidance and coaching while you are still at university, as they are usually offered free of charge. Along with books and websites, face-to-face career support can help raise your self-awareness and knowledge of the job market so you can start to decide which types of career may best suit you. Blackford's book and blog [4] contain useful material on career planning for bioscientists, with concrete examples of different career paths within and outside of academia, and further information and resources. In addition, the Science Careers portal offers an online tool [5] to create an individual development plan and explore your career options based on your skills, interests, and values. Also, take advantage of dedicated career job boards associated with specialist websites, such as that of the International Society for Computational Biology [6] .

How soon should you start job seeking? Finding a job whilst writing up your thesis can seem like an attractive prospect, but it's important to consider that applying for jobs can easily take up as much time as working a full-time job. Then, if you do secure a job, the time left for writing up your thesis, completing experiments, and wrapping up your lab work will be seriously limited. It is exceedingly hard to write a doctoral thesis in the evenings after work or on the weekends, so in case you are offered a job before you have finished the PhD, consider seriously how this might affect your work and life. On the other hand, finishing a PhD when scholarship money has been seriously reduced (or has run out) comes with a different set of challenges. Many students need to tap into their savings (if indeed they have any), drastically reduce their spending, and move out of their accommodation. Losing employment at the university can also affect health insurance, social security, and visa status. Finishing up a PhD under these additional constraints and pressures can be extremely challenging, both logistically and psychologically. To ensure that you can concentrate all your time on (and get paid for) finishing your PhD, start planning ahead one year earlier. Be aware of your university's regulations, talk to your supervisor about the funding situation (is it possible for you stay on as a postdoctoral researcher for a short period?), and know what you need to do in order to finish on time (Rule 1).

Rule 9: Network

Unofficial statistics tell us that only around 30% of jobs are advertised, so to enhance your employment prospects you would be well advised to network in order to access the hidden job market. During the final year of your PhD, and even earlier, you can build up and extend your network so that your chances of finding the job of your choice are optimized. If you are looking for research positions, your supervisor might have contacts or know about positions available in academia or industry. Reviewing your personal network further will reveal it consists of colleagues, friends, and family. You may also have a wider network of collaborators (research and industry), people associated with your research whom you have met during the course of your PhD, as well as many others. Conferences, seminars, informal gatherings, and learned societies are great places to meet the academic community face to face or to broaden your horizons. Job fairs are held at universities and sometimes during conferences, where experts from industry look for potential employees as well as sometimes provide informal advice on your curriculum vitae (CV). Try to exploit these opportunities if they come your way.

A relatively recent, and highly democratic, addition to the networking system is social media, through which it is possible to meet people online from all over the world and from all walks of life. More and more professors, researchers, students, policy makers, science “celebrities”, science communicators, industry personnel, and professionals have a presence on social media, using it primarily for work-related purposes. Researchgate, LinkedIn, and Twitter are probably the most useful platforms for networking with academia, business, and the wider world, respectively. Your online profile should be fully completed and reflect your expertise, achievements, and personality. Used to greatest effect, social media will give you access to information, jobs, and influential people—its importance to you as a PhD student cannot be overestimated.

Rule 10: Leave on Good Terms

Wrap up the work in your lab, especially if you are leaving the institute. This includes any required training of new personnel in the methods and techniques you use, having lab notes in order, making it easy for other lab members to access your protocols and data, organizing and labelling your reagents and equipment, and documenting your computer code. If someone is taking over an unfinished project from you, take time to hand it over. Discuss with your supervisor to find a solution for who will do the final experiments, how to proceed with the writing of journal manuscripts, and what should be the order of authorship. If you have started a project that you want to take with you to your new lab, discuss with your supervisor how to handle possible future publications and how to agree on material transfer. If your work resulted in patents or patentable innovations, make sure you are clear about regulations concerning patents and intellectual property, both at your PhD institution and at the institution to which you are moving. Stay in touch with your former colleagues and cultivate the contacts you have made in graduate school; they are sure to be useful during the course of your career.

Acknowledgments

Jacopo Marino is grateful to colleagues from the University of Zurich for the everyday discussions that have inspired this manuscript. Melanie I. Stefan is likewise grateful for discussions on the topic with fellow predocs (and sympathetic postdocs) at the European Bioinformatics Institute. She would also like to acknowledge advice and support from Nicolas Le Novère and Susan Jones, which helped her navigate her PhD and graduate in a timely manner. She has since learnt a lot from discussions with colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Tokyo, and Harvard Medical School.

• 1. Turabian KL (2013) A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. 8th edition. Chicago (Illinois): The University of Chicago Press.
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• 4. Blackford S (2013) Career planning for research bioscientists. Wiley-Blackwell. Available: http://www.biosciencecareers.org . Accessed 30 October 2014.
• 5. Hobin JA, Fuhrmann CN, Lindstaedt B, Clifford PS (2012) You Need a Game Plan. Science Careers Career Magazine. Available: http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2012_09_07/caredit.a1200100 . Accessed 30 October 2014.
• 6. International Society for Computational Biology (2011) ISCB Careers. Available: https://www.iscb.org/iscb-careers . Accessed 30 October 2014.

Tips for Completing Your PhD Thesis on Time

Completing a PhD course is undoubtedly one of the most fulfilling pursuits for academics. Recently, however, a new term arose: ABD (“All but Dissertation”). ABD refers to students who have completed their coursework and passed the exam, but have yet to complete and defend their theses. Indeed, ABD students are more common than previously thought. The PhD Completion Project revealed that the ten-year cumulative completion rate for PhD students ranges from 64% (engineering) to 49% (humanities). While not all students advance to the doctoral writing stage before dropping out, a significant portion do, based on these numbers. Leaving graduate school without finishing your thesis has psychological and occupational consequences. Completing your thesis on time is, therefore, essential for career advancement and personal growth.

Overcoming a Time Crunch

Being pressed for time will likely happen, especially if you are holding down a part-time job during your doctoral studies. The pressure to finish is greatest during the last year of your PhD and this is usually the time when conflicts and tensions arise. There are tips that can help you finish your PhD on time , even when you’re pressed for it.

• Prepare an action plan for your last year. This will help you optimize the time that you have left and avoid feeling overwhelmed by all the things that you have to do.
• Clarify your priorities. Ask yourself what you intend to finish first and stick to it. It may be helpful to break down your priorities into smaller and simpler tasks.
• “The truth can wait.” That is, it is vital to start writing your doctoral thesis once you have your data, even if more can be done.
• Know all the rules and regulations of the university. Prepare a list of all the documents and papers that you will need before you need them. This will help you avoid pitfalls in your last year.
• Familiarize yourself with software. Producing scientific documents entails the use of specific programs, such as LaTeX. While the program may not be as easy to understand as other editors, there are marked advantages such as ease in publication and faster manipulation of images.
• Pay attention to your career. While you may think that this is not the best time to think about your career , it is. Your career should follow suit after your doctoral studies, and focusing on what lies ahead will help you frame the current situation.

Key Tasks for Finishing Your PhD on Time

Finishing your PhD thesis on time is not as daunting as it sounds. Although many students will be pressed for time, completing your study is possible with a little ingenuity from your part.

• First, ensure that you meet all the PhD requirements set by your institution. Never presume anything without double-checking with your institution and your supervisor. This can save you from a lot of wasted time and stress.
• Keep a good perspective. Your peers are unlikely to read your thesis , but they are likely to read journals and articles resulting from it.
• Contrary to what most people say, your introduction should be written last. Breaking your thesis into defined stages is important for success. On that same note, your conclusion also should be written last.
• Get familiar with project management applications, such as Trello.
• Buy your own laser printer. This will save you from having to rush elsewhere to have your drafts printed. It will save you time and money as well.
• Get feedback on the entire thesis—from start to finish. Getting feedback for individual chapters is fine, but you should aim to get feedback on the entire work.
• “Begin with the end in mind.” Make sure you know when your doctoral studies are supposed to end, and when your work will be considered as done.

Planning and Writing Your Thesis

Breaking down your tasks into manageable blocks is one way to ensure that you actually finish the entire thing. There are plenty of techniques to help you along the way, such as the 25-minute Pomodoro for academic writing. Undoubtedly, writing your thesis is at least as hard as performing the actual study, but it is never impossible. With the right tools at your disposal and a positive mindset, you can finish your PhD on time. Below is a checklist of things that you need to do to get to graduation day.

• Draft your proposal and research design
• Acquire IRB consent
• Pilot study
• Gather data and information for your study
• Analyze your data
• Write, write, and write some more . Ideally, aim to write for a minimum of 30 minutes a day
• Defend your thesis

Completing your PhD paper on time is definitely possible. Knowing the tips and tricks of the trade can help you to get on your way towards a life in academia.

Thanks for the very useful article to complete the Ph.D. thesis before the deadline. The doctorate course is very difficult for the student so the student could not able to complete the work on time. But your article helps to finish the article to complete the work for the students.

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How To Complete Your PhD Thesis Faster

Getting a successful PhD is a tedious, grilling and extensive process. One has to endure constantly working up long nights to meet the deadlines. Some have to managed to combine school activity and work. One has to be prepared to invest time and energy in creating the research proposal, undertaking actual research, interpreting the results, writing the thesis, publishing papers, assisting professors, doing presentations and meeting time bound deadlines, among other tasks in a given period of time. Now imagine, doing the same process faster in relatively less time as provided by a university. A strategic, comprehensive and streamlined plan of action can help you complete your PhD thesis more effectively. Few of the key points may help you in achieving this:

Understand the requirements

First and foremost, make sure that you are comprehensively aware of the PhD submission requirements of your university. Presumptions without clarity may significantly affect the effectiveness of submitting a thesis. For example, students often miss the guidelines on formatting requirements. Therefore, to save your time on post-production, make sure you have a pre-made template with pre-set margins, spacing and fonts required by your university.

Create a timeline

Develop a well-constructed and practical timeline. Plan for your dissertation well in advance. Take research projects that are well oriented towards the kind of dissertation you seek to undertake. A realistic schedule and plan will help you keep track of your progress and ensure that you complete your PhD thesis analysis on time.

Keep it clear

Make your PhD proposal as clear as possible with specific details about your sample, variables and methods you intend to use. This will save you time on amending the paper when the supervisor requests an expansion of the sample or considering alternative methods. Also, choose a dissertation topic that interests you or one you are passionate about if possible, and keep it as narrow as possible.

Find a suitable supervisor

It is vital for your overall submission of a PhD thesis to find strong and respected supervisors who will provide support and feedback during your study and especially during projects, research and deadlines. Moreover, their experience will provide constructive criticism and make the submission journey easier and quicker.

Avoid perfectionism

Avoid focusing on perfection while writing your PhD thesis. A PhD thesis doesn’t have to be a masterpiece when you first draft it. You can make small revisions and editing after the main part of the research has been done. This will keep you from being distracted by smaller details.

Find support

Develop a group of similar minded people who have been, or presently are in a similar situation. Finding colleagues or friends for discussions or support may go a long way. Constantly share your milestones with them and agree to be accountable. Moreover, finding a friend or colleague who possesses strong quantitative skills may help you get more insights about technical methods you can implement in your thesis.

Finally, if you are feeling stuck, or overwhelmed by the sheer pressure, don’t hesitate to seek PhD help from the best thesis writing services. This will not only assist you with time and motivation, but also boost the chances of getting better marks due to support from respective professionals.

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Tress Academic

#73: What’s needed to finish your PhD?

December 1, 2020 by Tress Academic

Are you uncertain if you are ready to submit your PhD dissertation? Or hesitant to wrap up your work and move your project to the finish line? You might be stuck in the wrong mind-set, or not sure if you’ve enough material, or simply procrastinating thesis submission. Let us help you to identify what might be holding you back, and how to figure out what’s really needed to make it to the finish line. 

Have you ever thought about what is actually needed to finish your PhD? Really identified what still needs to be done so that you can wrap it up? Have you identified the remaining tasks that you have to accomplish in order to complete your thesis and hand it in? Or are you dragging this out–conducting one experiment after the other, running another round of analyses, and asking yourself what else you might include?

We often observe that advanced PhD students are hesitant about wrapping up their PhD work, deciding on a clear strategy for finishing, and getting ready to hand-in their dissertation. Below, we discuss reasons why you might be dragging it out instead of finishing on time. We will also let you know how you can avoid getting stuck in the final PhD phase, and instead head towards your PhD graduation day with speed and determination. 

We have a super helpful free worksheet ‘ ‘Completing my PhD: what’s needed’ attached, which will help you to shift your mind and focus your attention toward those essential tasks you should be working on during the final months of your PhD so you can submit your thesis on time. 

If you want to hear more about how to complete your PhD study successfully, sign up to our free webinar for PhD candidates .  

Phases of a PhD study

PhD projects go through different phases: 

In the start-up phase, you decide on your project goals, your individual research objectives or which hypotheses to test, and you study the literature, get your supervisory committee together, and design your experiments or decide on your field-work. 

Phase II: 

The second phase begins when you start executing your project – now you are working on achieving your research objectives. The emphasis in the middle part of your PhD is on project execution and data gathering. It also includes the writing of the scientific papers that will be included in your dissertation, and writing the dissertation itself. The transition from phase one to phase two is not always clear-cut, and some features can run parallel – especially if you are working with a series of sub-projects that together will form your overall project.

The final phase starts when your research draws to an end. This comes when your research questions are answered, data are gathered, and field-campaigns are completed. Your focus is now on doing remaining analyses, data interpretations, revising papers that came back from review, and on dissertation writing. While some parts of phase two and three may run parallel, the emphasis in the final PhD phase clearly is on finishing your PhD project, and getting your thesis ready so you can turn it in. In this final phase, your mind should focus on PhD completion and on your life after the PhD – if you want some inspiration, check out our blog post “Life after the PhD – it’s waiting for you!” 

In the final PhD phase but stuck in the mind-set of an early PhD?

At the beginning of a PhD study, what exactly you are going to investigate or develop is often quite open- you are looking around for inspiration, ideas, latest approaches or methods. And even in the second phase, you keep an open eye on how to take your project further. As you are generating your own data and getting first results, you may come up with new ideas, and thus refine and improve your projects. So you work with the mindset of a researcher who’s on the lookout for novel aspects that can be included, or further work you could undertake to make your project even better. This is perfectly fine, and the way it should be in phase two.

Obviously at some point you’ve got to shift your mind, call it a day (or years), and stop watching out for new things. Your focus now should be on completing your sub-projects, papers, analyses, and wrapping up. This is the end-phase of your PhD, and you should now shift your mindset towards honing in on what you achieved and handing in. 

But not all PhD students manage this transition. Although the end of their PhD time (also regarding their working contract or scholarship) approaches, they cling to the mind-set of an early PhD student. 

Being ready to finish a PhD often is a deliberate decision you take rather than an automatic result of a definite end-point of your research. Because, well, the end-point may not be so clear after all – you could go on answering further research questions. Towards the end of your PhD, you may be at the height of your experience so far, you have insights you’ve not had before, and your research skills are well-trained. Plus, you may have exciting results and heaps of data, and in that situation it is very tempting to just go on with your research instead of heading towards the finish line. 

If you are a PhD student in the final phase, you should always ask yourself: What are you lacking so that your supervisors and faculty would accept your submission of the dissertation? That shows that you have shifted your mindset towards PhD completion. To give you a start with that, we’ve included a free worksheet ‘Completing my PhD: what’s needed’

Apart from working with the wrong mindset, there are a couple of other reasons why PhD students hesitate to enter the final stages of their PhD and move on to submitting their dissertation. 

Why aren’t you moving towards the end of your PhD?

Reason 1: procrastinating thesis submission.

You may feel quite comfortable in your role as an advanced PhD student. You’re well accustomed now to the daily trot of work at your department, your work is exciting, you’ve got nice connections to other PhD students and the wider scientific community. Why should you shake up your life and put yourself under the stress of completing? It may sound strange, but this is playing a big role. Although you know that your contract is running out, for now, you feel safe – and handing in will end that feeling of safety. 

Also, as long as you go on doing more analyses, reading, and writing, the outcome of your PhD is open, and you feel that you can still improve it. But when you decide to finish and present your work to the faculty for evaluation, it is fixed – judgement day! What you hand in constitutes your PhD, and that may feel scary, and may be the reason you drag-it-out. 

Reason 2: No clear idea how to move towards the finish line – being confused

Towards the final PhD stage, your project and results may look quite messy, and you may have difficulties bringing it all together. Maybe you have lost the overview of everything you did over the past years, and are lost as to how to finally mold it into one coherent thesis. Or you may still be awaiting final reviews of papers to be included in your dissertation, and may be unsure how to write up the other parts of your dissertation. 

If you want more directions for the final phase of your PhD, sign up for our free webinar ‘The 4 Secrets to a Successful PhD’ ! 

Reason 3: Uncertain if you have enough or what exactly you are lacking?

We often meet PhD students who think they do not yet have enough data, groundbreaking results, or sufficient knowledge in their subject area to get the PhD done and move on to the defence. However, this uncertainty is more frequently the outcome of muddled feelings, and quite possibly imposter syndrome for some, rather than being based in evidence. 

If that’s the case for you, ask yourself, why do you think you don’t have enough material yet to finalise your dissertation? Would you know any more or would you have better results if you postpone any longer? And since you are a scientist, why not get some evidence. 

How to find out when you’ll be ready to submit?

Learn from peers:.

Figure out what other PhD students did before you, what exactly they have included in their PhD theses, and what was necessary for them to complete successfully. Ask postdocs who recently got a PhD from your faculty how much they included and what they submitted, and how the entire evaluation process went for them.

Discuss with supervisors:

Obviously this is also an issue that you discuss with your supervisors. But be careful what you ask them. They may be as excited about your findings as you are and would certainly have ideas for more or additional work, while forgetting that your contract is coming to an end. Above all, you should be clear about wanting to complete, and communicate that you are keen to achieve that. Then you can discuss if you’re ready or which essential bits are still missing. 

Often, the last PhD committee meeting is used to give the green lights for entering the final PhD phase, wrapping up your PhD work, and moving it toward submission. This is a perfect occasion to ask your supervisors if there’s anything that is still required from your side, or if they think you’re good to go. 

Check PhD regulations:

Finally, look at the exact requirements of your university or faculty – do you fulfil all formal criteria for finishing your PhD? Including the educational part, coursework with necessary credit points, teaching or supervision, you name it! What are the administrative or formal steps you have to undertake upon handing in your dissertation? So get those PhD regulations out one more time and double-check exactly what you have to do. 

Gauge the benefit of going on with your PhD work :

Ask yourself if there is an additional benefit to continuing? Like: A really big breakthrough is just around the corner and would amplify the impact of your PhD work. Or you could have significantly better chances on the (post-doc) job market. So, how does the additional time and resources you invest in completing later stack up against the benefit of completing sooner (and being on the job-market sooner)? If your university has a ‘pass’/‘fail’ system and no grading for your PhD work, and you know that you can finish with great results already – then why should you go on?

Consider the above mentioned points, and then make a decision on when you will be ready. We suggest you make up your mind for yourself. It’s important that you know what you want to do. It is a sign that you are ready for graduation if you are able to judge your achievements realistically and make that decision for yourself. Do you want to hear more about how to complete a PhD?

We’d love to help you make the remaining time in your PhD more enjoyable. Would you like to hear more about how to complete your PhD study successfully, sign up to our free webinar for PhD candidates  

Resources: 

• Blog post #2: So you want to finish your PhD on time?
• Blog post #43: Life after the PhD – it’s waiting for you!  
• Blog post #60: Are you delayed with your PhD?

More information:

Do you want to successfully complete your PhD? If so, please sign up to receive our free guides.

Photograph by thisisengineering at unsplash.com

© 2020 Tress Academic

From admission to dissertation. Tips on making the PhD journey happy, productive and successful

How to Finish PhD Quickly

Follow these top notch tips to finish phd quickly..

• Join PhD in full time with a private university.
• Choose the latest topic of research.
• Get a supportive PhD supervisor to finish PhD quickly
• Write at least 5 SCI Journal papers for a quick PhD.
• Write a perfect thesis in 2 years of time.
• Show the qualitative work to PhD panel to finish PhD quickly.
• Apply for a shorter periodic submission of the thesis.
• Tell the administration about your works frankly.
• Fulfill all the formalities with the Ph.D. university.

In order to finish your PhD quickly, act as a hero in your PhD. Do whatever your university asks you to do.  Keep your supervisor in your grip. Serve all the other faculty and cooperate with them and assist them in some of the works. Prepare your thesis from the start of the first year of your PhD. Do publish some papers within 2 years of time. Do not postpone the reading and writing activities. Finish your Coursework successfully. The very important thing is to know how long PhD takes at your university. Sometimes PhD duration depends on university norms

Join in Private University and Small University (Not Oxford)

Now know about how to join any university to finish your PhD quickly. When you wish to join any university, just make sure that you join a small University. Usually, a small University will help you to finish your PhD quickly.

If you opt for any big University, you are troubling yourself. But at the same time, you make sure that the university is recognized and eligible. This is very important to make your PhD valuable in the future to get any job. Your career is very important nowadays. For this reason, you are willing to do your PhD. So check for many universities online and come to conclusion at the end.

This is the only way to get your PhD to finish quickly. Be aware of fake universities because nowadays you see many fake universities around. They are trying to cheat you very badly in regards to your PhD. They are ready to offer free PhD and even without going to college.

If you do hard work and publish papers fast, you can easily win a PhD quickly. This is the only way to show your talent and capability to your supervisor.

What happens when you join in part-time PhD course? When you join PhD course from a big University, what happens is that the University may put many conditions where you cannot really complete your PhD.

This is how many times happen. Never prefer doing your PhD in a big and reputed University. The reason is very simple. You will never complete it as fast as you think.

This, in turn, will lead you to a situation where you cannot complete your PhD in a limited number of times. A small reputed University requires PhD students a lot. They need to produce more PhD as time goes on. They want to bring more reputation by producing more PhD awards. So what you can do is just search for a good University which is very good and has a good name in the public.

Another benefit of joining a small University is that you can get all your certificates in time. And also when you want to do your job abroad, it is very easy to get your certificates without any delay. This you must realize and try to join in a small University, this way you can get settled down very fast and finish your PhD course legibly.

Always prefer a full-time Ph.D. (Part-time sucks)

When you do a full-time course the benefits are amazing. The first advantage is that you can finish your PhD early and fast.  With lots of experience, I am saying this. When you do part-time, the worst thing is that you will never do this perfectly and with interest. You may have to lose your PhD in the end. There are many examples of PhD candidates joining the course and just giving up after some time.

They never paid heed to what they are exactly doing and what they suppose to do. This is always the problem with part-time PhD courses. Another problem is that you are already doing some full-time job. At the same time, you are also doing a full-time job. This may cause a great disturbance to your part-time PhD. You cannot do justice to your full-time job.  If you wish to do part-time, then do not do any other job except research.

But this is a rare condition.  So see once for all to finish your PhD in time with only PhD full time. This is a good idea if at all you want to achieve success with your PhD.  Always have a clear understanding of how PhD part-time and full time differs.  They are a great lot of differences between them. These days full-time PhD has a lot of value than a part-time one. So never intend to do PhD in part-time that will suck if you are a little bit disinterested.

Choose a Latest topic in your area of research (gain credibility)

The latest topics will give you more chances to accept your research thesis. Even when you publish some papers, if you choose a good topic you can finish it published fast. If your thesis and research papers are of old topics, and a beaten track by all, it will have less chance to accept. Your thesis also will ask for more depth analysis.  I have taken in my PhD a very latest topic.

This is very fresh and my supervisor gives me all free hands to research.  This is not a beaten bush topic. The advantage is that you will get fewer questions to ask on this topic. No one is so expert in the latest topic. So you can defend easily in your thesis presentation or Viva Voce. How to get your latest topic is very simple.

Just go to Google Trends and there you will find what topics are highly relevant in your area right now. Pick up the relevant topic and a very popular one. I mean by popularity is that is very recently popular. So when you take this topic, you are in safe hands. Your research area can bring you trouble. So if your area is good, then all is good. If your research area is a very old one, you will have to be more careful with good analysis. Your supervisor knows well about old topics.

Opt for a supporting supervisor/guide(not egoistic)

Many PhD students are suffering right now just because of their bad supervisor. There are 3 problems with any supervisor. The first one is he may be very egoistic by nature. Even his family members might have left him or her. So what about you? You can never impress your ego natured supervisor; however good are you in your dealing with him. So choose who can be humble.

Never opt for a supervisor who is too sensitive and introverted. The reason is that he is too much concerned with anything. If someone scolds him, he cannot withstand that humiliation. This is called the sensitive person. So when it comes to you, if you do not complete some tasks given by him, he will never be happy with you. Because he is very sensitive, he will complain about you to the administration.

The third reason is that your supervisor is too aggressive and hot. These people take instant decisions. This will ruin your PhD life in a short time. There may arise some circumstances that all of a sudden, some choice has been taken, and they want to terminate you. You will never understand what is exactly taking place in the mind of the supervisor. In fact, nothing happens it is just a hasty decision.

Be regular to the university/college (do not skip)

If you join in a full-time PhD, you will have to come to college regularly. Otherwise, how can you finish your PhD quickly? You can never do it. Be regular to college. This is the only option to finish your PhD study fast. If you have an appointment outside, try to postpone them. You will get accustomed as the days by. Once you start coming to college, you will feel to come regularly.

While studying your PhD course, Get rid of some enjoyments. For example, if watching movies is your passion, there is a high chance that you bunk your college life. If you have an addiction to drinking, that may also ruin your attendance in the college. So when you have full attendance means you are doing something in the college regarding your PhD course. Naturally, you will finish your PhD quickly.

One more block to come to college regularly is when you fall in love with someone. Love is common. But never move beyond the limit. Your mind is basically occupied with many reasons not to mention here. So check with your mind and how much interested are you in your PhD course. Are you so much so passionate about doing and finishing your PhD quickly? Go ahead now with zeal.

Get a good impression from your supervisor

Your supervisor may be very good. But if you are not good, what happens? It is all waste of time to join a prestigious course like a PhD. So think once before you leap into a PhD. Take some choices that you will be behaving well. If not the behaviour of your supervisor may not give you so much success. No one likes the bad person. Your supervisor to does not like you. He may not like your bad actions.

Another way to get a good impression is to be humble and simple. Do work more. I mean not your PhD but other works like helping out your supervisor in classes, and outside. Try to give some personal help doing little things that a normal person does. This is the first point of an impression to any supervisor. Who cares if you study well and has nothing in the end.  Getting an impression is all.

Another way to get a good impression is to publish more papers than expected. Who is not happy if someone appreciates his scholar for his success?  So try to impress your supervisor by doing things beforehand. It is a very basic principle to finish your PhD very quickly.  The last very important bonus idea is to ‘Never Speak badly about your supervisor anywhere in the college or outside’

Meet your supervisor a few times a week (build a relation)

Always be in touch with your supervisor. If you are not in touch, he may think that you do like him. So never give such an impression. Never think that you are disturbing your supervisor if you meet him often. This is not a good idea. Nobody thinks in the way you think. Put yourself in the position. If your student comes up to meet you, how do you feel? You feel delighted. So do not give negative thought to meeting your supervisor as much time as you can in a week.

Meeting means not for any person. Your every meeting must be related to your subject.  Ask as many questions as you can and get your doubts clarified. This is the only meeting that I am speaking about. So what I suggest is to frame some 5 questions in a week to ask your supervisor. Be ready with those five questions. Ask one question in a day. That is it. It is very simple.  So just do it.

When you meet your supervisor, you must remember two things: The first is your mouth odour. Smell good in front of your supervisor.  When you ask a question with a bad odour, your supervisor will feel bad in the heart. Dress good and never ask questions at the end of the day. Because you get a lot of sweat and this will also cause bad feeling. Approach your supervisor when you are fresh.

Respect your doctoral committee.(recommendation is strong)

Do not forget that your supervisor is not everything. Your PhD depends on some specially appointed doctoral committee. There are 4 to 5 members involved with you. Respect all of them. Do not speak ill of them anywhere. Try to meet them once in a while and give about your progress. Their recommendation will also work very well for you if something goes wrong. So respect them good.

Another major problem is that most of the PhD scholars do not know their doctoral committee members. How that is possible? You must know your all members and their names and designation. I have seen some of my co-scholars are not able to tell who their doctoral members are. So know them properly. They will help you a lot along with your supervisor.

Be Regular to Doctoral Committee Meetings

You must attend doctoral committee meetings regularly without a skip. A doctoral meeting means it is enlightenment to you. You can complete your PhD quickly by just following the advice given to you. Especially keep in touch with an outside expert guide. He can also pull your PhD to finish fast and quick. Be ready for a doctoral meeting beforehand itself. Make your commitment to attend them.

During the doctoral meeting, bring your sincere work and give a good presentation. You try to show them the amount of hard work that you have been putting in for the last few months since the last doctoral meeting had taken place. So it is your hard work that speaks many things.

Your doctoral committee realizes your hard work. That is well and good. They will promote you and give a good report about your progress from the last meeting. In this way, you have no problem with your PhD delay further.

Publish good research papers faster than usual

In my experience, I found out that scholars wait till the end before they really publish papers. Recently I knew of a PhD scholar whose thesis was put on hold by the doctoral committee. The reason is that he published a single paper to impress. He waited till the last year of his PhD. And now he cannot do it. It takes ample time to publish in a Scopus indexed Journal or SCA journal.

Try to communicate research paper within in the six months of your PhD course. This is just to finish your PhD quickly. This will allow you to be in a relieved position in the third year of your Ph.D. It takes someone year time to publish a paper. If you wait till your third year, then when are you going to publish is a big question. So within the six months of time from your joining date, you must write.

While publishing your journal, make sure to edit fast. Follow all the rules of the journal. Do not skip any rule. This way you can publish paper faster than usual. Guidelines are the backbone of your research paper. Write your abstract well and also your introduction. This is what the editors first go through when they read your research paper. So concentrate in the first year to publish fast.

Always keep a notebook and jot down your ideas

Without a notebook, how will you do your PhD studies? PhD is all about ideas and thought which are new and creative. Always manage one notebook for scribbling your ideas in the best way possible. All these ideas will be very helpful during your PhD thesis and when you prepare synopsis. So always do this before reading something. Make all points in a notebook.  Write everything systematically.

Never misplace your notebook and lose it. Once you lose it, it is not a notebook but you lose all your precious ideas and thought that you have been putting through the years. Do not place your notebook in an unsafe place or give it to your friend. You friend may lose that. You may also land in the problem if you forget your notebook on the bus that you travel. You will never get it back.

When you do something in writing, there is a high number of chances to steal your information from your friends. So be utmost careful. Observe your friends and colleagues. They can act very well in front of you and rob your ideas and thoughts and use for their benefit. Naturally, they try to publish your paper in their name. This is a very sad thing for any Ph.D. Scholar. Even your supervisor does this sometimes. ( stealing your ideas)

Never hire someone to write your paper

Hiring someone to write your paper means you are not in a position to write. This implies that you are not eligible for any PhD studies. So do it on your own. Society expects a lot when you finish your PhD. You need to give something to the public and the students in the future. If you always hire someone, then what is the importance of your personality in obtaining a PhD degree? Never hire.

When you hire someone to do your research paper, it happens so that they hired is not serious in writing your paper. The research may not be so qualitative. PhD research needs a lot of analysis and a foundation of knowledge. Some writers easily cheat you by rewriting some articles. They tend to use some software like article writer. So it is a big deal of risk when you want others to write your paper.

So the best thing is to write on your own. We all know that it is late to write. In the end, it pays off. So writing is always a good task for you to complete. There is a slow and gradual development. You can get success as you go on writing and writing. If you write a research paper, you are more careful not to cross your research guidelines. You will not research unnecessary points and add.

Avoid Plagiarism 100%

This is the main part of your thesis. If you are caught in a plagiarized act, you will be automatically terminated from your PhD. There is a certain amount of plagiarism accepted.  But it should not cross like more than 25% and in some countries, it is less. So any act of copying and pasting directly in your thesis or using any software to write your thesis can be a big danger to your PhD studies.

There are certain aspects that you can consider to get rid of plagiarism. Be hardworking and try to type yourself and research on your own. When checking some sites, you can do it safely just to understand the concept and what others are telling about the concept. You cannot in any way copy the same information that you received on the internet and paste it in your thesis with some modifications. This very act comes under plagiarism.

Sometimes we ourselves do not understand how we are stuck in plagiarism. It means somebody stole your information. There are chances even to happen this way. So try to avoid all kinds of plagiarism acts and this is the only way to complete your PhD at a safe and appropriate time. Once you are caught in the act of plagiarism check, you cannot come back again.

Be Unique and Creative

Your writing must be very unique and creative. The way you do it must be with your own thoughts and ideas. Uniqueness means that what you write is very unique written by yourself and not by anybody in the world. You have written alone yourself. That is why we call it a unique paper. This uniqueness is what makes you eligible to publish the paper in any reputed journal. So this matters.

Another aspect of the article is that you must be creative in delivering your ideas into the research paper. If your ideas are not appropriate and creative, they will not impress others. Publication criteria depend on your creativity. The more creative your paper is the better the chances to publish a paper. So be creative. This is the only best success formula to achieve your PhD doctorate.

The other way around is how to bring unique and creative content? The best way is to remain alone thinking of your subject area. Go to some beach area and think in uniqueness. Go to some mountaintop and think of some creative ideas. Make some experiments on how to bring new results. Be authoritative and creative and unique in every way possible. So uniqueness pays you better.

Organize research stuff in the way you understand

I have seen my PhD colleagues who confuse a lot in organizing content that they gathered and collected. This is the mistake that every PhD scholar does. What is the use of collecting so much information and dumping it in your computer folder? You never know what is in the folder. Suddenly you require some notes about a topic. You get nailed by trying and checking from that stuff.

The best advice we give to every PhD scholar is to organize stuff in a systematic manner. Divide your folders in a computer into topic-wise. At least have some 50 folders explaining the stuff that is inside your folder. This method of keeping in an organizing way is very important to save yours during your research. If some doubt arises while preparing a thesis, this method will save you a lot.

I suggest you also get hold of references and bibliography. Save all of them in a different folder according to the topic. Tomorrow you must know from which source has the information been collected information. It will be very easy even to frame your thesis with the right bibliography and references. The powerful references will have ultimate value to your thesis. Give more references and your thesis will look wonderful. The lesser references mean you have done less work.

Be ready with synopsis beforehand

Pre Synopsis must be a part of before submitting your thesis. Get ready with pre-synopsis beforehand itself. Your whole thesis depends upon an effective pre synopsis. Prepare a synopsis before it is too late. You will be in a position to make a worthwhile thesis dissertation. Pre synopsis will give you all that you can make of in your thesis.

While you prepare your pre synopsis, you may have little or no experience. But still, try to take careful advice from someone and do the thing done. Keep all the primary sources and secondary sources with you. Gather all the sources and put them together and start writing in a peculiar and specialist way of styling. So you can finish your synopsis very early and be ready to present it to all.

Your synopsis must be also given a clear indication that you will write your thesis extraordinarily well. You will explain to her how clear are you about your thesis. How good are you to write a thesis? And this is the phototype of your thesis. Once you write your thesis, this is the endpoint to start your thesis. The synopsis is meant to write your thesis by building up ideas and plans about it.

Prepare for your thesis from the start

If you want to finish your PhD quickly, you have to do that no one does with the thesis. Start writing your thesis fast and you can finish it fast within a limited amount of time. You start doing your thesis from the first day itself from the date of joining your PhD. But do not tell your supervisor. She may not practically agree to this proposal. “With a little experience, no one writes a thesis,” He says.

What if you realize that writing a thesis is like writing a story? Think that you are directing a movie. If you are a director. You shoot it. As such think that you are the director of your thesis. Do write it from the start of your PhD work. This is the magic formula. Though you may start it with less knowledge, write at least one small paragraph about your research area or topic. Automatically you will become successful in writing your thesis. You will be surprised to see your day to day improvement.

Write from scratch. Learn this writing. This way of writing may be sometimes difficult. Once you are accustomed to doing it, you will. Make and practice writing as your zeal. It will finally give you the best fruit that you will ever expect. Writing takes its own success. The more lines and thoughts you write about your thesis, the better will be your thesis. The future will be better.

Use the Library to your benefit

Nowadays, due to the technology and mobile, the library has been used very little. Whatever the information we want, we access our mobiles for knowledge. But I say most of the information on a website is not up to the mark. A book written officially can give the best results. A book written by the best author can give you a good pick up to start thinking of your PhD research.

If possible, go to some USA Libraries. They are the best ones in the world. The library can reveal some important truths about your subject. The information on the internet is just given from the latest knowledge. You may not get traditional depth knowledge from the internet. So you make a point to use to your best all the library facilities around you.

Go abroad and visit some best of the art libraries. They have some very specific information about your research topic. It can give the best output.  So try using libraries where ever you go. There you can also read some newspapers. They contain current knowledge and updated knowledge. Relate every traditional knowledge with new knowledge and current updated knowledge.

Do relax and not stressed up

Always be relaxed and do not get stressed up. The more you relax, the better your output will be. Do not think that PhD means you have to do it for 3 long years full time and 6 years part-time. Nevertheless, you can do it so easily. Your days can pass swiftly. In the end, you say that you have finished it so fast and you are unable to do things rightly. So relax and bring productivity.

Sleep well and take enough rest during your research. Try to get up early. My recommended time is 4-30 pm. This is the recommended time for you. If you get up early by 5.00 am you can bring productivity to your research. This is the only way to relax. Never spend nights with your mobile browsing and chatting and sleeping late at night. This will also hurt your relaxation and stress will rule over you.

Also, practice some yoga techniques. I do not tell you to do extreme yoga but a kind of breathing technique can be practised. So do everyday yoga to improve your relaxation. This will further boost your brain. So PhD contains heavy brain work. The brain must be well fed with water yoga and some exercises physically.

Never show/reveal your research paper to others

We are too much excited when write your research paper. Never be in such a condition. The mistake is that when you reveal your paper to others and show how good has been written, then there is the possibility of jealousy. This will lead to the stealing of your research paper. There are unknown enemies to you in the college itself who want to degrade you. So they may steal your papers.

Never give your email to anyone around you. Never write passwords anywhere. Check your laptop’s password. Give appropriate passwords to your system. All these measures will help your information to be safe. Once you are negligent with your laptop or a system that will be an end. You cannot revert back to the mistake. Do not trust anyone while pursuing your PhD studies.

Do not share online on Facebook or any other app about your research paper. Keep all your research papers offline. Once it is out, others may take chance to publish them. Be careful and generous in your research. It will benefit you in the later stages. Always have a locker to your study desk. This will help you to remain safe with your research stuff.

Be Obedient to your supervisor

What is being obedient? It means that you have to do whatever your supervisor tells you. It may not be related to a PhD. Sometimes your supervisor may ask you to pull a chair for someone. You must do it. Yet other times your supervisor may tell you to bring some vegetables from the market. Yes, you have to do even this under a circumstance if you want to finish your PhD fast. Do whatever rubbish work your supervisor may tell you. This is the only way to finish your PhD fast and happily.

When you want to obey, you have to get rid of your ego and serve them. Serving them is the best part of your research. Once you serve them you can become anybody’s friend in the college. Service is the best option. It is a great quality for your research. It will bring your enough name and fame. It will bring you success in your PhD studies. Once you are into this service to your supervisor, you will see the victory.

Defend yourself strongly without shyness

Always defend yourselves strongly. In a PhD, it is very important. Don’t think that others will feel bad if you defend. You may hurt them. No, it is not so in PhD. This course demands you to defend and argue positively. But never show your temper when doing this. There goes wrong. You must be in a peaceful state when doing this.

Write a book besides pursuing your PhD

Most of the PhD students never think this. If you want to finish PhD quickly, you have to write a novel or a book other than your area of research. Write from your degree background.  This will bring a good name and fame to society and the college itself. When you write a book, it will be read by your supervisor and others. Imagine if this is real, will anyone reject your thesis being an author for a book.

Follow all the Ph.D. guidelines of your college

Your college has some guidelines or you might have received one rule book. Take that and read what you suppose to fulfil to finish your PhD. Each university or college has its own rule. So if you do not know the rule, you could not finish your PhD. There will be lots of objections to you. So read patiently all the rules when you are free. Many PhD students never read the rules of PhD given to them by the college. Sometimes we find the document on the website itself.

Attend workshops on writing skills

PhD is all about writing your thesis and research papers at the end. If you do not know how to write your ideas and thoughts, then you are a failure. So attend some workshops that are conducted to improve your writing skills. These workshops will give you the talent to write anything practically with the help of your ideas. So writing is what makes your PhD to run successfully.

Syam Prasad Reddy T

Hello, My name is Syam, Asst. Professor of English and Mentor for Ph.D. students worldwide. I have worked years to give you these amazing tips to complete your Ph.D. successfully. Having put a lot of efforts means to make your Ph.D. journey easier. Thank you for visiting my Ph.D. blog.

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Kentucky Derby 2024 winner, payouts, results: Mystik Dan scores upset photo finish win in thrilling Run for the Roses

In a finish you have to see to believe, three horses hit the finish within a fraction of a second to end the race.

Mystik Dan (18-1), is the winner in the 2024 Kentucky Derby in an absolutely stunning photo finish. It took several minutes to sort out an official winner, with Mystik Dan, Forever Young and Sierra Leone crossing the finish line just fractions apart.

Click here to check out Yahoo Sports' Jay Busbee's full recap of the 150th Kentucky Derby .

Here's a look at the entire thrilling race:

The ENTIRE running of the 150th Kentucky Derby. 🌹 pic.twitter.com/rgntojtUNJ — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 5, 2024

2024 Kentucky Derby payouts

3 - Mystik Dan WIN: $39.22 PLACE: $16.32 SHOW : $10.00

2 - Sierra Leone PLACE: $6.54 SHOW: $4.64

11 - Forever Young SHOW: $5.58

$1.00 EXACTA 3-2 $129.28

$0.50 TRIFECTA 3-2-11 $556.92

$1.00 SUPERFECTA 3-2-11-4 $8,254.07

Full Kentucky Derby results:

1. Mystik Dan

2. Sierra Leone

3. Forever Young

4. Catching Freedom

5. T O Password

6. Resilience

7. Stronghold

8. Honor Marie

9. Endlessly

10. Dornoch

11. Track Phantom

12. West Saratoga

13. Domestic Product

14. Epic Ride

15. Fierceness

16. Society Man

17. Just Steel

18. Grand Mo The First

19. Catalytic

20. Just a Touch

WOW. 😱 Mystik Dan WINS the 150th Kentucky Derby in a PHOTO FINISH! pic.twitter.com/N2jfd2TsKe — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Official results

1. Mystik Dan (18-1)

2. Sierra Leone (9-2)

3. Forever Young (6-1)

Mystik Dan wins by a nose

MYSTIK DAN WINS THE #KENTUCKYDERBY 🐴 pic.twitter.com/Z4NYslS8K9 — Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) May 4, 2024

It's a 3-way photo finish at the Kentucky Derby!

PHOTO. FINISH. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/nSwdqkgdA8 — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

The Riders up call has been made, this year by Martha Stewart, at the 150th Kentucky Derby, and the Call to the Post has been played. Just about 10 minutes remain until the expected start of the Kentucky Derby and while the odds have shifted slightly throughout the day, but Fierceness has been the favorite since the morning line odds came out earlier in the week, after a 13 1/2 length victory at Gulfstream Park in the Florida Derby. Sierra Leone has had the second best odds all day as well continuing a trend from all of Derby Week.

Its been a mostly clear and warm day in Louisville, but cloud cover has rolled over Churchill Downs. The good news is that no rain is expected for the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, and the track has been fast and dry with conditions expected to be good for the race.

Here's who the NBC-family celebrities are picking to win the 2024 Kentucky Derby...who ya got?

The celebrity picks are IN for the 150th Kentucky Derby. 🤩 🌹 pic.twitter.com/DNleYJpsCm — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Imagine showing up to the Kentucky Derby and winning a car? Not bad if you wind up trashing your betting ticket at the end of the day's races at Churchill Downs.

Jimmy surprises one lucky winner at the @KentuckyDerby with a brand-new @Ford vehicle! In partnership with Ford. 🚗 #FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/SPm07haBg9 — The Tonight Show (@FallonTonight) May 4, 2024

An extremely tight finish in the $1 million Old Forrester Bourbon Turf Classic Stakes as Program Trading beat Naval Power by a nose in a photo finish. And absolute thriller in the final race of the day before the Kentucky Derby.

5 - Program Trading WIN: $10.18 PLACE: $5.26 SHOW : $4.14

11 - Naval Power PLACE: $4.34 SHOW: $3.60

7 - Webslinger SHOW: $6.92

$1.00 EXACTA 5-11 $19.75

$0.50 TRIFECTA 5-11-7 $101.30

$1.00 SUPERFECTA 5-11-7-1 $978.15

PROGRAM TRADING (4/1) BY A NOSE! What a finish to the Turf Classic. 😅 pic.twitter.com/TrTxFyCVFd — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

A little less than two hours from the 2024 Kentucky Derby and the walk up to the Run for the Roses is underway. Country music star Wynona Judd sang the national anthem to more than 150,000 attendees at Churchill Downs. Just one more race remains before the Derby, Race 11 the $1 million Old Forrester Bourbon Turf Classic Stakes.

Stars from all kinds of entertainment worlds are at the 150th Kentucky Derby, including from the world of WWE. WWE women's world champion Becky Lynch and her husband, former WWE world heavyweight champions Seth Rollins are celebrating in Louisville. This as the WWE held its Backlash event in France and announced that WrestleMania 41 will be in Las Vegas next April .

Look who popped up on the red carpet. 👀 @WWE ’s Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch teased a special Wrestlemania announcement coming later today. pic.twitter.com/1uuroF6RJQ — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

The Mint Julep is the beverage to have at the Kentucky Derby...or any Kentucky Derby party, but you do you know how to make one? If not, no problem! NBC Sports has you covered!

Derby day calls for a Mint Julep. 🍹 #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/qASy6v7lvq — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Race 10, the $1 million Churchill Downs Stakes is in the books and Gun Pilot is the winner after closing at 5-1 odds.

10 - Gun Runner WIN: $12.68 PLACE: $7.20 SHOW : $5.04

5 - Here Mi Song PLACE: $18.86 SHOW: $10.10

6 - Zozos SHOW: $4.58

$1.00 EXACTA 10-5 $142.01

$0.50 TRIFECTA 10-5-6 $783.41

$1.00 SUPERFECTA 2-4-3-11 $14,675.18

Up next from Louisville is Race 10, the $1 million Churchill Downs stakes on dirt over seven furlongs. Just two races remain before the main event in Race 12 — The 150th Kentucky Derby.

Up next is the $1M Churchill Downs Stakes (G1). We have 2 races left till the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby (G1) Bet with @FanDuel . pic.twitter.com/t8EGWlsHe7 — FanDuel Racing (Formerly TVG) (@FanDuel_Racing) May 4, 2024

A Big upset in Race 9 of the day as Trikari, which closed at 47-1 pulled of a stunning upset in the $600,000 American Turf Stakes for trainer H. Graham Motion.

2 - Trikari WIN: $96.43 PLACE: $40.20 SHOW : $22.98

4 - Formidable Man PLACE: $23.22 SHOW: $14.18

3 - Lagynos SHOW: $19.60

$1.00 EXACTA 2-4 $662.17

$0.50 TRIFECTA 2-4-3 $2,985.51

$1.00 SUPERFECTA 2-4-3-11 $69,493.26

WOW. 😳 Trikari a 47/1 horse WINS the American Turf. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/vatYoFxRMl — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

The next race on the card, Race 9 for the day, is the American Turf Stakes, a $600,000 race for three year olds over 8 1/2 furlongs (1 1/16 miles) on turf. Here are the entries for the 2024 edition of the race, sdet for 3:40 p.m. ET:

Twirling Point (scratched)

Trikari, 39-1

Lyganos, 37-1

Formidable Man, 19-1

Legend Of Time, 7/2

Stay Hot, 11-1

Lord Bullingdon, 21-2

Noted, 25-1

Cugino, 6-1

Abrumar, 33-1

Can Group, 32-1

Agate Road, 5-1

Blue Eyed George, 35-1

Rock'n A Halo (scratched)

Dancing Groom (scratched)

More stars are pouring into the Kentucky Derby on the red carpet at Churchill Downs

The red carpet never disappoints at the Kentucky Derby. 🌹 #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/y3VYeAA7sX — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Race 8, the $600,000 Pat Dye Mile is in the books — The Kentucky Derby is Race 12 — and D. Wayne Lucas' Seize The Gray came home first with Nash second and Vlahos third. Here are the official results and payouts for the Pat Dye Mile:

5 - Seize The Gray WIN: $20.84 PLACE: $7.94 SHOW : $5.16

12 - Nash PLACE: $4.46 SHOW: $3.22

11 - Vlahos SHOW: $5.50

$1.00 EXACTA 5-12 $40.22

$0.50 TRIFECTA 5-12-11 $196.07

$1.00 SUPERFECTA 5-12-11-7 $919.56

Seize The Grey passes multiple horses down the stretch to win the Pat Day Mile. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/JHQOnZzwxV — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

The horses aren't the only head turners at the Kentucky Derby. The Run for the Roses is as much about being seen as seeing the races.

First Turn Club fashion. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/QqyMzhf4xV — Kentucky Derby (@KentuckyDerby) May 4, 2024

Just a touch of equestrian flair. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/b5NjMKquiV — Kentucky Derby (@KentuckyDerby) May 4, 2024

The 150th Kentucky Derby is an excellent time to celebrate the Run for the Roses, and who better to remember first than the G.O.A.T. Secretariat, who's 1973 track record of 1:59 2/5 still stands.

On this Kentucky Derby day, here’s your reminder that Secretariat was faster than any horse you’ll see today. The year is 1973 and this is his track record run. Untouched for over 50 years. The GOAT. pic.twitter.com/56TrkQV67M — Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) May 4, 2024

Bloodlines are a huge part of horse racing and the Kentucky Derby is, obviously, no different. NBC numbers guru Steve Kornacki breaks down what that looks like in this year's field and the Derby winners who have sons in this year's race.

The Kornacki Derby is back. 🙌 Steve Kornacki previews the sons of former Derby-winning horses in this year’s field. #KyDerby pic.twitter.com/8blcx4Re4a — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) May 4, 2024

Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been a regular at the Kentucky Derby for years and 2024 is no different for the future Hall of Fame QB who is expected to be ready for OTAs this summer, coming of a season-ending Achilles' injury he suffered on the first drive of the season in 2023.

Aaron Rodgers answers rapid fire questions at the Kentucky Derby. 🌹 pic.twitter.com/s3jOPALnOb — Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) May 4, 2024