Lessons learnt

It's been a while that I have not update my blog. Not in the mood I guess..

Well, it's been 3 months and half that I have started my PhD program here.

First month:

I was reading..reading and reading..
At this stage usually students will gain information about:
a)what is the state-of-the-art of your current research area
b)what has been done by other researchers about your area
c)what are the problems, issues and important things in your area
d)people who are doing research in the area

It's a bit tried though..you have to read and that makes you feel bored sometimes.
The challenge is: you have to be patient with the terms and terminologies used by the other researchers when reading academic journals.

Second Month:

The reading phase still continue..you will starts to see the patterns of ideas where you can group them together. This is really important when you have to start writing about your topic. While you are in the early stage of PhD, it is advisable to keep records about what you have done and the most important thing is to keep records about your reference lists! From my experience it is good to:

a) to save your journal by its title name. Really helpful whenever you need to find the reference later
b) put your references using any reference manager (ie EndNote,refworks and etc.). If you put them straight away from the moment you save the jounal file into your pc, that would be helpful. I found it is useful when I starts writing my literature review! So it save your time.. and you can keep your notes in you reference manager.

Third month:

I need to submit final refined proposal. Erk..here, at this stage, you should be able to recognise what you are planning to do, scope your research..then it's easier to plan your 3 years PhD journey and you know your direction. I am still refining my proposal. This is very important phase where you should decide...what you are going to do..it's your research.. it's your responsibilities..