Ok, I have two questions.

1. How many hours should I be putting into my PhD considering I am only in the 2nd month? I know there are a few posts about this. Probably just like everyone else, I am thinking I am not putting in enough time, and thus when I should have time off, it ruins it!

2. What's the best way to go about making notes for a lit review? I know this sounds like a silly question, but it has been a while since I have studied. What methods do everyone on here use? Do you read, and make brief notes on paper at the same time? Do you select certain chapters from books and then read, then make notes after?

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

It depends on the needs of the project, how productive a worker you are, and the pressure put on you by your supervisor.

Most people I knew when I was PhDing, were 9-5 in their first year. but it is hard to say what exactly is the right amount of time for any individual person.

My supervisor told me that I should of be working 12 hours a day at least... I hated my project so that was never going to happen

12 hours a day! I think I would go mad. I am currently putting in around 5-7 hours a day!

This has been raised before. The upshot is that it varies from person to person. I can't really see a need for 12 hours a day unless a specific deadline is looming large. It is after all a marathon so don't burn yourself out in the first few miles.

Relating hours to a literature review, if you're clear what exactly you need from the literature, what is directly relevant, what is interesting but not directly relevant, and what is not relevant then you can have a very focussed and disciplined attack on the literature and work sensible hours. Sometimes you can read too much at the expense of actually getting on with doing the PhD itself.....

Don't even start making notes for your literature review. Find suitable journal articles instead, transfer to Endnote, print them, read them, highlight important parts, and transfer them straight away in your draft chapter. By doing that you will save yourself months and will always have something to produce to your supervisors. Even if you decide to delete certain sections later on, the feeling of achievement will be there. It won't derive from development of sophisticated systems for categorisation, summaries filing or note taking. Remember that these activites may only distract you from the one and only important task. And that's submission of a PHD thesis. My advice, start writing your thesis TODAY.

Thanks, some good advice there.

I have been told by a few people now, to start writing the PhD straight away, which I think is a good idea.

... In terms of reading an taking notes, it's horses for courses - whatever works for you. I like to keep electronic and paper copies of all my papers, but I work with the paper copies. Some people will sit with the paper and their computer and immediately type in interesting points they find in the paper. I slightly vary that approach by highlighting points and annotating points on the paper (this allows me to work rapidly through the paper without stopping). Then when I've finished it, I'll go back and use my scrawlings to make notes on my computer, noting its Endnote reference number so I can cross reference if needed. If you have Endnote, you can even copy and paste your notes into the "Research Notes" section for the paper's Endnote entry.

Other people prefer to make handwritten notes as they go but, for me anyway, it appears to double effort because you end up having to type them up later anyway. Clearly, having a laptop that you can take to libraries with you is very useful!

as far as taking notes I go for the highlighting sections on paper journals but also writing in the margins for quick ref when I go back to the paper (lots of yellow doesn't mean anything)

Then I'll write down the key points I want from the paper and insert the reference (from endnote) after it

If at any point I feel its a little close to plagarism - i.e. copying a scentence word for word - I highlight it (on the word doc in green) that lets me know it needs re-worded.

Once you've got all the facts in you document you can go back and make a story out of them

Its often helpful to start of with the most recent review of the subject area, because they should have most journals ref'd and in good story form

S

Oh! and EVERY paper you ever print off goes straight into your ref manager e.g. Endnote- straight away, its much easier to do as you go

Also I'd say that sometimes Endnote is easier for searching journals, than PubMed (for science) - because its more specific to the keywords you have put in (my personal pref anyway)

Definitely each to their own - what works for some will not work for others.

The thing I've found really useful is keeping a blog containing notes and comments on everything I read. The thinking is, if it's public, I have to make them make sense, therefore, I have to really understand the article. Again, this is personal for me. I know that if I rely on notes in a notebook, I'll end up with some scrawled ideas that will not make sense later on. A blog is also a good way of enabling searching through notes.

Works for me anyway.

Thanks everyone, some good ideas! but would as always welcome any more thoughts if you have them. Thanks again!

Yes! I agree with most of the comments & would stress on the "start writing now" concept. There is no time sooner, even if you think of deleting the written sections later in your PhD, the practice of writing is an essential skill you must develop and keep on doing. Coming to the final year, I see this as a major point in completing the thesis on time. The only minor point is that maybe you could excuse yourself until you are into 6-9 months, if you dont have a specific project title or experiments, but if you have that could only be subjected to minor changes then start now on writing, not taking notes.