Hi,

I'm a new PhD student. Hope you could help me out a bit.

I'm reading some literature now and I was thinking about the PhD output. Normally, would a PhD have a single output or is it possible for a PhD to have an output with a collections of smaller outputs or even multiple (main) outputs even?

Sorry for the noob question. Still new to this :$
Dan

Hi Dan,

It is my understanding that it is possible to have multiple outputs from your PhD, it all depends on how much work you do! If you look through the archives on this site you'll see people who have had "too much" material to go into their thesis. These people (and I might end up one of them) are encouraged to publish this work. My subject area is huge and as a result I have collected a huge amount of data. It might well be possible to convert this surplus output into some other qualification or save it up for postdoc work.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the outputs at the beginning though. It's also well worth you discussing this with a potential supervisor. Don't be fooled however, a PhD is a substantial piece of work and I'm not sure how common it is to have surplus output. I will have to look to my forum colleagues here!

Hi Dan,

At my transfer I was advised that it is common to have more data than actually appears in the thesis, though I guess this might vary depending on your specialism, & part of the discipline is working out what to leave out. I'm assuming then that individual findings chapters can be dedicated to different outputs, but don't quote me on that bit! Otherwise, I agree there is the potential for publication post-doc.

Hope you're enjoying PhD life so far!

Mog :-)