Tips and Suggestions for New PhD Students

Adapted from a similar outline for Regent University

This document is a compilation of suggestions from several 2nd year PhD students. Obviously,
different students work in different ways and have different opinions. Please take what is helpful
from this document and discard the rest.

General
 Don’t try to be brilliant or impress your professors or peers. Just follow instructions and get
your work done.
 Read all project assignments on or before the first day of each period or semester. Plan
and begin the projects that require someone else besides you to get the project done. For
example, the consulting projects are dependent on your client.
 Don’t let your work on one assignment take so much time that you are unable to complete
other assignments. Use the guidelines for time in the syllabus.
 Do turn in journals or other postings as needed. They are an important % of your semester
grade.
 Write journal entries and forum in a way that help you prepare for comprehensive
questions. Elements of your journals can be good review tools … key concepts &
constructs, etc.
 For those that have not done much with research statistics, get a statistics text.
www.statsoft.com/textbook/ for statistical help
 Learn to speed read, it’s a time saver.
 The first semester feels the hardest. Hang in there and lean on your peers.

Support & Communication

 Please connect, connect, connect with others very important in the journey!
 Take pictures during residency of everyone in your group/class for later reference.
 Get one of 2nd or 3rd year students to give you examples as needed – so long as you do
not copy the work of others.
 Discuss articles with classmates when researching common areas to help maximize
research time.
 Don’t be afraid to interact with your professors. Most professors very helpful in discussing
if you get stuck. Email a question or set up appointment.
 Take advantage of all the opportunities to get help:
o When uncertain what do, be sure to submit a draft early. 
o Set aside plenty of time for quizzes (open book).
o Take advantage of a redo.
 Set up a Google Group email for your study group (Example, Group 2). The most useful
feature, and the one we used in our group, is the central email account that is sent to
everyone in the group.
o http://groups-beta.google.com/googlegroups/tour3/page2.html It is much more user
friendly than emailing through Bb or trying to remember to include everyone in your
emails.
o For more info,
o http://groups-beta.google.com/googlegroups/tour3/page2.html and
o http://groups.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1046906

Electronic Searching
 This was the most challenging part of my first two semesters. Even though I was very
computer-savvy, I spent far too much time searching and too little time reading and writing.

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  Click “full text” and “scholarly/peer reviewed” in the search engines (ABI/Inform, EBSCO,
etc) for anything other than a Major Project (filter out stuff you have to use ILLiad for).
 Use www.ulrichsweb.com (via library website) for determining whether a journal is peer
reviewed.
 If you can’t find anything, borrow an article from a fellow student (from dialogue or email)
and use it’s bibliography to begin your own search.
 Download no more than five articles and skim them and their bibliographies before
continuing to search electronically. This will save you lots of time, since you will find
relevant articles quickly in the bibliography as well as finding alternate search terms that
will help you avoid gaps in your research.
 Use Google Scholar to find relevant articles (narrow search to “at least summaries”) and
then use “Journal Finder” in the online library to go straight to that journal (then year, then
issue, then article). Be careful to avoid non-peer-reviewed journals.
 Google Scholar - sign into it via the online library and the links will take you to the articles
through the library’s database instead of having to search in Scholar and then find the
article in the Journal Finder. Sign in link:
Example: Try this http://0-scholar.google.com.library.regent.edu/schhp?hl=en&tab=ws&q= .
This is a one-stop shop to search through all of Regent's databases.
 Set up bookmarks for Google Scholar, PhD Articles Search/Start, Journal Finder, etc.
 Always name your saved articles. I suggest last name of first author (dash) first words of
title. Example: Winston-Servant Leadership at Heritage.pdf
 Immediately copy the citation into a Word doc!!!
 I use Endnote X4. The best thing I have done so far to save time.
 Buy Endnote for citation and saving the references you used for past assignments --- well
worth the investment. Saves tons of time!
 Use the “cite this” button on most search engines to get good citations in APA form. Check
them for accuracy (often have problems with too many periods, incorrect capitalization, no
ending page number, and wrong author name order).
 Learn to use the “paste special” feature under the “edit” menu in Word in order to avoid
having to re-style the text of every citation.

Schedule
 Invite your spouse to help you create a realistic schedule. (Very Important)
 Schedule in your 25-hours/week and stick to it.
 Be specific. If a paper is going to take you 17 hours carve out time for each part: lit review,
the writing itself, editing etc.
 Schedule in make-up time for when life happens. I have found than an “all-nighter” once a
semester helps me to make up for missed study time.
 Share your schedule with significant others. Let them know where your time is going so
they can be supportive, understanding, pray for you, keep you accountable, etc.
 Late is better than never. After one late period, focus on other assignments in order to
prevent domino effect of late assignments. Late penalty is the heaviest for first period.
 Set up your own incremental due dates for minor and major projects so that you can make
use of the instructor feedback/draft process.
 Use drafts with your professors for everything. I have experiences on both ends. Drafts
are good.
 For most people the main adjustment is in social engagements: Weddings, Funerals, etc.

Dialog
 Learn to use your time well in dialog. It is not necessary to do tons of reading and research
before beginning to write a post. Stop as soon as you learn something new and write
about that.

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  Do some reading and avoid starring at the screen for an hour since you have nothing to
say.
 Keep all the dialogues for your group; they make for a great lit review.

Organization
 Use an assignment list/chart with dates (provide sample). Edit this on the first day of each
new period. Check off assignments as you do them to encourage yourself. Yes, Yes, Yes.
 Print out assignment descriptions for each project at the beginning of the semester
(including dialogue topics). Helps you to keep track as well as to remember what you
studied (useful as a study guide and in writing your journal).
 Use all the electronic tools such as calendars, to-do programs etc.
 Create folders on your hard drive to organize assignments. Sample hard drive folder and
file organization:
o ILU PhD (top folder)
 Generally useful articles
 Journals
 702
o Name-Journal 1.doc
o Name-Journal 2.doc
 703
 704
 LPHD 702
 702 Syllabus.doc
 702 Assignment chart.doc
 Dialogue
o Citations for dialogues.doc
o Forum 1a
 My Posts 1a.doc
 Smith-Journal Article.pdf
 Jones-Journal Article.pdf
o Forum 1b
 Major 1
o Articles
 Bekker—Sociorhetorical exegesis.pdf
o MP1 Instructions.doc
o MP1 Article citations.doc
o Name-Major Project 1.doc
 Major 2
 minor 1
 minor 2
 …

 Advance suggestions for LPHD 703:

Identify organization for Organizational Diagnosis project early in semester.
Major Project Literature review:
Use a good system of documenting … more time initially will save effort in the end.
Early draft (introductory paragraph) to your lecturer – factor in cycle time
Earlier decision on major categorization of articles