Katie's Notes

An academic blog by a linguist specialising in qualitative healthcare research & medical humanities

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PhD diary

A journey as a doctoral student between 2017 and 2020. I keep these posts because, looking back from my early days, I can see how much my perspectives have shifted as a reminder of the learning journey.

  • Week 8: Project Management

    I attended a session titled Project Management, which was very useful. The tutor showed us some methods for applying a scientific model of corporate or programme management to an academic environment. Three factors: cost, time and scope, represented as the Triple Constraint triangle model, were interesting. It gives you a clear idea of how to read more

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  • Week 7

    I had another meeting with my supervisors this week. My next step is to start writing a statement about the research plan and the literature review chapter of my thesis, which will be assessed in September. I am about to plunge into writing!   read more

    Week 7

  • Week 6

    Week 6 became a starting point to complete writing one chapter by this summer. I started using EndNote on my MacBook Pro. I still can’t fully handle it, but I managed to integrate a new bibliography with my old draft. I also started recording my reading diary and summaries with Evernote. There is nothing complicated read more

    Week 6

  • Week 5

    Week 5 was tough for me, but I have taken things positively and learned to take harsh comments. I need to improve how I send a working draft to my supervisors, for example, by revising drafts with tracked changes turned on after accepting supervisors’ comments and clearly leaving my changes about what I have edited read more

  • Weeks 3 and 4

    I have spent most of my time reading journal articles and preparing to teach. For week 4, I completed some compulsory training while continuing to revise my research protocol. I have had the same routine of work and the same kind of food for the last two weeks: ramen noodles with kale and peas. On read more

    Weeks 3 and 4

  • Week 2

    My first week was not very busy except for Tuesday. The first meeting with my supervisors on Thursday went well. I joined a training session and created my teaching plans. I work until 7 pm in the study room at the library, but it gets dark on the streets around 8 pm when I go read more

    Week 2

  • Week 1

    Registration and the induction programme for new PhD students took place this week. There were 20 new students in the Spring semester, seven of them belong to my faculty. One great thing about the new student life is that individual desks, lockers, office facilities, a shower and a kitchen are allocated for us in a read more