Should you do a PhD? Doing meaningful doctoral research - an introduction

This is a short introductory video to a series of videos that I am recording to answer basic questions that I frequently get asked in relation to Doctoral research. In these videos we focus on considering, and succeeding, at your Doctoral research. 

 

We will look at whether one should do doctoral studies. Should you do a PhD? How does one prepare a research proposal? What are some tips for successfully completing your doctoral dissertation / thesis? How do you prepare for your defense? And, what about publishing your PhD or parts of your research?

You can find all of these videos on http://www.youtube.com/dionforster - I will post them there as they are ready. I have already recorded some and just need to edit and upload them.

Please note that these videos, and the views expressed in them, are my own and are not formally associated with the University of Stellenbosch, or the University of Gothenberg (where they were recorded).

Feel free to leave me a comment or a question at:

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/dionforster

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DionAForster

Twitter or instagram: http://www.twitter.com/digitaldion or @digitaldion on Instagram

Find out more about my research and publications at: https://sun.academia.edu/DionForster

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What to do if your paper / report / portfolio / presentation exceeds the maximum limit.

Being of the verbose persuasion - as you may have been able to ascertain from my constant nonsensical posts to this blog... I have found on more than one occasion that my work exceeds the maximum number of pages, or words, allowable for publication. I have a paper that is currently under review, which I KNOW is going to be returned to be edited back to the word limit (hopefully for inclusion in a journal).

My doctoral Thesis was about 160 pages longer than most, my Theology masters was about 20 pages too long - and that excludes endnotes and glossaries and the bibliography... Heck, I like to write!

However, that is a problem, when like me, you are needing to develop that all important publications list!!!

So, here's some advice from our friends at PhD (a.k.a. Piled higher and Deeper) for getting your paper or thesis into the allowable word limit:

From PHDcomics.com

Technorati tags: Publish, Journal, word limit, doctorate, PhD, fix

Geekier than thou!

Today I realised just what a Geek I am. I overheard my daughter trying to explain to her friends that her Daddy is a Doctor, but not a Doctor who operates on people, no, her daddy reads books, looks at people's brains, teaches people, and loves computers....

Yup, even my daughter thinks I am Doctor Geek. Well, in 2007 there is nothing cooler than being a Geek! The world is changing! Girls used to love football players, now they love the guy who can operate their Personal Video Recorder, hack the local municipality computer to squash their traffic fines, and who is geeky enough to work for Apple, Google or Microsoft (in that order) and get the BIG MONEY!

You may remember this wonderful cartoon that I blogged about a year and half ago (June 2005)? It illustrates that Geeks rule in the new world!

So, to remind you of that, I thought I would use this fallow time between Christmas and New year to share a few Geek quotes... Learn these and you'll be off to a good Geek start for 2007. They come from here.

Top 10 Geek Quotes:
1. There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't. - Unknown

2. If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0 - T-Shirt

3. Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips." - Unknown

4. My pokemon bring all the nerds to the yard, and they're like you wanna trade cards? Darn right, I wanna trade cards, I'll trade this but not my charizard. - Unknown

5. 1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 a l1f3 - tee shirt

6. I'm not anti-social; I'm just not user friendly - T-Shirt

7. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Unknown

8. A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila. - Unknown

9. This one's my favourite! I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code
- Unknown

10. My software never has bugs. It just develops random features. - Unknown

There you have it... If you understand more than 5 of these you're a Geek. If you understand number 1, you're rated an UBER Geek (with ubermicro.... See www.purpwnage.com for more on ubermicro). However, based on my daughter, I am Geekier than thou!

Any other UberGeeks out there!? Any better quotes? I'd love to hear from you! The comments button is just a mouse click away.

PS. The title for this post, and the cartoon, come from a great website called geek culture... I bought a few pins and T-Shirts from them. They also have a fantastic daily cartoon!