This paper present the content: a functional research group; tips for completing doctoral studies; tips for writing a monograph dissertation; tips for writing a compilation dissertation; tips for writing articles; tips for applying research grants; structure of a monograph dissertation; structure of a compilation dissertation. | Practical tips for doctoral students Dr Pekka Belt, Dr Matti Mottonen & Dr Janne Harkonen PRACTICAL TIPS FOR DOCTORAL STUDENTS University of Oulu Teaching development unit University of Oulu Teaching development unit Dr Pekka Belt, Dr Matti Mottonen & Dr Janne Harkonen Practical tips for doctoral students 2010 ISBN 978-951-42-6276-0 PREFACE Too often PhD students struggle with writing of scientific articles and their doctoral thesis, because there are no straightforward instructions on how to do the work swiftly and efficiently. There is no need to learn all the related aspects from scratch, as one can learn from others and learn together with others. The university environment has a tendency to over-complicate matters, either intentionally, or unintentionally. It is true that all matters have a number of dimensions and deeper, more detailed information is always available. It is also true that a PhD student must learn to think from different perspectives. However, from the perspective of a PhD student, it is vital to obtain an adequate understanding on how to successfully write scientific documents. For this purpose, one may benefit from a certain amount of advice, but overly detailed information and unnecessary snobbery with related terminology will result in inefficiency. This document aims to provide tips to PhD students for writing a doctoral dissertation, and for writing scientific articles. The central focus is on how to conduct the work effectively and speed up the process. Our intention is to enable researchers to rationalise their graduate studies and the writing of their doctoral thesis, while maintaining high scientific standards. The authors formed a three people research group some years ago and completed their doctoral studies in three years. These three years consisted of fragmental starts and finishes of projects, worries over the continuity of funding, required .
