Timeline

Here is how a Ph.D. should typically proceed (after your Diplom/Master):

• Year 1
  
• meet any remaining departmental requirements (courses, etc.)
  
• catch up on any materials you need for your Ph.D. research (including the Ph.D. Qualifications)
• if you have time, get started on a small project in the research lab
  
• get formal approval from the department
  
• Year 2
  
• successfully complete one or more smaller projects in the area of your Ph.D. research with your advisor
  
• based on the projects, publish a couple of papers in the general area of your Ph.D.
• read lots of papers related to your research area
  
• identify research opportunities and come up with ideas
• write a thesis proposal and defend it
  
• Years 3 & 4
  
• pick a second reader
  
• do the research
• continue to publish
• start looking for jobs or postdoc funding
  
• write up and defend your thesis

Note that you usually don't launch into your Ph.D. right after your coursework; generally, you should do one or two smaller projects to see whether Ph.D. research is really for you, to get familiar with the field, and to work out how to work with your advisor. 

The times aren't fixed--just typical. For example, if you did your coursework at UniKL, you may already meet all requirements.  If you have already done a thesis or project in the lab, you may be able to launch into a Ph.D. right away. Or, satisfying your departmental requirements might take a little longer than one year if your previous degree was significantly different from ours.

Things to Remember

• With a Ph.D., you need to demonstrate your ability to conduct scholarly research on your own, at an advanced level. 
  
• Look at some resources on the web, for example How to Be a Good Graduate Student
• To help you keep on track and make progress, schedule regular (preferably weekly) appointments with your advisor.
• Keep a lab notebook (online if you like), logging results, interpretations, paper notes, and ideas.
  
• Keep track of your departmental requirements, university deadlines, funding, etc.; nobody else is doing that for you.
  
• If there are issues, concerns, or problems, talk to your advisor about them right away, don't let them simmer.
• Teaching experience is part of the Ph.D., so you should expect to assist in courses no matter how you are financed.
  
• If you're financed through a project (rather than a stipend or fellowship), that's what pays the rent; you are effectively doing your Ph.D. in addition to a job and your Ph.D. may take longer.  It helps to pick a project that's close to your Ph.D. interests.
  
• Do not become a service organization for your fellow students (except to the degree that it's an explicit part of your job description on a project or as a HiWi); you don't get a Ph.D. for fixing other people's computers or bugs.
  
• After your coursework, get started by picking small, simple projects that lead to small, simple publishable papers, then work your way up to more complex projects and more challenging papers.
• For the initial projects, your advisor will suggest ideas and topics that familiarize you with the techniques, allow for publications, and demonstrate that you can work in the area. 
  
• For the Ph.D., the ideas and scientific contributions should primarily come from you.
  
• Leave enough time (> 1 week) for your advisor to give you feedback on your papers before you submit them.
• You should become more of an expert on your Ph.D. topic than your advisor: the literature, techniques, key results, key people, etc.
  
• Keep in mind that your advisor is spending time with you because he enjoys interesting scientific discussions with you, learning something from you, and likes to see good, regular publications.
  

Paper Writing

Writing papers is a prerequisite for getting a Ph.D., and you should generally plan on publishing 1-2 conference papers per year, and at least one journal paper, while you are getting your Ph.D.  For getting a Ph.D. with honors, you should aim for publications in the key conferences and journals in your area.

Paper writing takes practice, so get started with something small and simple, then work your way up.

Please have a look at these resources for writing papers:

• A concise Cell-style set of recommendations and conventions for Article Preparation
  
• A longer discussion of Paper Structure
• Notes about the Structure of a Scientific Paper by Arthur Georges (mirrored from here).
• Here are some more notes about writing.

Some more comments about writing:

• A good way of improving your writing is to read a lot and pay attention to the structure and wording of other papers. 
• In fact, as a researcher, you should read a lot of papers, in your field and in neighboring fields. 
• You can also use other papers as a structural model for your own paper; that is, organize your paper and your argumentation along roughly the same lines as another paper.  However, do not plagiarize or copy any content or text from any other paper.

On scientific integrity and plagiarism:

• Do not copy text or ideas from other papers or people without clear attribution.
• When you copy text from other papers, it must be as a quotation: italicized, indented, and with a reference.
• When you use important ideas from other papers, you need to reference those papers.
• When you use ideas that other people have given you verbally, you usually should attribute them as "personal communication", usually after asking them.
• Do not copy or quote content, text, sentences, etc. from your own papers.
• Copying diagrams, figures, and images from your own papers may be OK depending on the circumstances, but usually only with clear attribution to the original paper.
• It is generally OK to reuse formulas from other papers; you usually have to justify them either by re-deriving them or by referencing the original paper anyway.  If the derivation itself is complicated, you need to reference where the derivation itself was first done.
• All the research you publish must be reproducible, and there needs to be documentation on how you obtained the results you are publishing.
  

Ph.D. Research

This presentation contains some general points related to Ph.D. research and graduate studies.

Ph.D. Proposals

This presentation outlines the questions you should be able to answer about your Ph.D. research.

Ph.D. Proposal Presentation

Ph.D. Proposal Presentation