Hi, I hope some gentle souls out there can take a few minutes to help me. In short, I am thinking about a PhD but I know nothing on how to go about it. I am a professional journalist. I have been worked in Southeast Asia for years. I am planning to eventually make the jump to academia and I believe a PhD is the best way to go about it. But I have been outside university for years and never really looked at PhD. For a start, I am not sure how you propose a PhD. Do you submit an idea to a University? If so, how do you choose the University? How long should the proposal letter be? Can I submit to more than one universities... and so on. The topic I have in mind is linked to politics and radical Islam in Southeast Asia. Thanks for your time.