I'm currently in my first year and have decided that my new years resolution should be to start to write up as I go along.
Just wondering whether anyone has managed to do this and how they went about it.
Anyone who has written up or is in the process of doing so, do you have any advice on the type of things that you think you would have found useful to write up as you did your research ?

Hi Cakequeen,

I too am thinking that I should start writing to save work later.

Things I will be writing this year:
I am in the sciences so names of equipment, model numbers, program parameters. I am also reading papers of others in my field to see how they write the methods section so that I am getting practice writing the method section and have it ready to go.

Literature review. I have to do a literature review and this will go towards my first chapter. Make sure you have a record of all the papers/books you have read on your subject. If possible have pdfs so you can read on your pc. My job this term is to learn to use endnote so I can incorporate references easily.

Diary. I have a diary and every day I write in brief what I have done. If savings documents on the computer include year and month in file name. Then when, in the future, you go back to look at earlier work theses things should be easier to find.
Diary is also handy to prove to supervisor you are doing something when you have little on paper to show for the week/month.

Remember that it is not unusual for the work done in the first year not to be that important in the end and may not get included much in the final thesis. This doesn't mean don't write about it (the practice is worth it and helps you learn how to describe your subject), but don't go too mad. Several pages of bad grammar and unstructured paragraphs can be tarted up later on, a page of perfectly written prose you have poured over for hours isn't much use if in the end you don't use it.

Chrissie

Hello again,
Had another thought.
Does your university have file space on its servers so that you can access your documents anywhere in the world?

Every month save a folder of any work you think might be important or will be used later on. Then if your pc dies (or in a friends case the laptop with all 3 years of data and the backup hard drive got stolen) you have at least a way to access stuff.

I use 'timemachine' to backup everything, but important stuff I have written goes on the uni server.... just in case....

Hi Waddett,
Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking about writing up already. I left all of the writing up for my Masters until the very last minute and it almost ended in disaster, so I want to try and get into the habit of writing something even if I don't end up using it.

Like the diary idea, I started one today :-) especially as I don't have much to show yet for the work that I have been doing

I've recently started using endnote & endnote web and would definitely recommend it, it makes life so much easier. I just make sure that I use web of knowledge to export any references that I'm interested in and the endnote tab in word is nice and easy to use as well

How we humanities people laugh at the scientists questioning if they should write as they go along! The absurdity!

I'm a genetics PhD student, and I had that intention when I started, I think its a nice idea, but hard to put to in practice. If I had started writing up as I went along, I would pages of wasted words. Projects change direction, I would say, try and write up results as you go along and your methods, leave your lit review and discussion until last (if you are a science student!).

Hope that helps!

Apart from a literature review done in first year. I basically wrote my thesis in the final year but I did have a clear idea of how I intended to do it. That said, if you can write up as you go along it's a good idea.

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I think part of the Ph.D. experience is learning how to write since that's a huge part of what it means to be an academic. The more practice you get at it the better you become, at least that's what I'm hoping. So there are no 'wasted words'. Anyway, I've found lots of opportunities to recycle stuff that won't end up in my thesis for various applications, progress reports and papers.

I wonder how many science PhD students (maybe this applies to humanity students too?) mainly focus on writing and publishing journal papers, and just "put them together" to form a thesis towards the end? I am in my second year. I recently realised that what will get you a job is mainly your publication record, that's why I'm thinking of taking this approach.

I agree with what teachingpurposes and larrydavid say.

I would also add that the process of writing as you go along is as important as what you actually write. I found it easy to get off track in data analysis and go into interesting aspects of the data which were not 100% relevant to my research. So I found the process of writing what I was doing kept my mind focused on the goal. The goal being ...get the thesis finished and then get on with your life.