Hey everybody and welcome back to another video, my name is Lucy and I’m a PhD student
at the University of Birmingham and today I want to talk to you all about how-to books,
self-guide books, self-help books that you can read as a PhD student
to help you with your studies. You're going to read these before you start,
during, probably wouldn't make sense to read after. Anyway let's get on with the video!
Now I did read some self-help books before I started the PhD. I’ve also tried to, kind of,
read books as I’m going along, like writing ones in particular. I would say,
despite doing an English Literature degree, reading self-help books is
not my favourite format. I am much more of a visual person, so I do like videos or Instagram
posts and things like that but I have a couple of recommendations here for you
that I think will be useful. And also bear in mind I’m a humanities student,
so I haven't read any that are particularly for science graduates and also obviously I’m from a
UK university. I’m sure there are so many more for different universities around the world,
but I tried to find ones that were useful for me as a UK-based English Literature PhD student.
So the first book I want to talk about is How To Write A Lot by Paul Silvia. Now this is a
really well-known book in academic circles, a lot of PhD students will come across it,
I think a lot of people are aware of it. It's pretty popular and basically the aim of this book
is just to get you writing more. I think a lot of times as a PhD student, when it comes to writing,
we can become paralyzed with fear and we feel that everything we write has to be perfect and
the truth is it doesn't. And this book is just a really great way of just getting you writing more,
increasing your writing output, setting good boundaries between your work life, ‘your writing
life’ and your personal life and in that sense I really think it has some useful things in it. If
you just want to get writing, if you feel like you're stuck and don't know where to start with
your writing this isn't going to teach you how to write, but it will just get you into good habits,
get you into a good kind of schedule or routine so that you are writing more. It does also have,
if you get the more recent editions, a section on the end about writing funding applications and
proposals that could be useful if you are doing that, depending on obviously when you read this.
The Craft of Research by Greg Booth, so hard to remember all their names. The next book I
want to talk about is the craft of research by three people whose names I’m really struggling
to remember Wayne Booth, Greg Colombe and Joseph Williams. so the craft of research is
another one that you will have potentially come across before it is hugely popular
with PhD students as a self-help guide because it covers pretty much every aspect of research you
would want to know about all the way from sort of when you first get the idea and you you're first
planning maybe your first article or your first paper all the way to having written that paper
and all the kind of steps in between it also does it in a really approachable way that makes
it super accessible and straightforward to pretty much everybody I would say a lot of self-help guys
like a lot of academia can tend to be a little jargon heavy this one is not this one is super
straightforward it's really approachable it's really readable and it has good action on advice
all about research if you have a question about research this is such a helpful place to start
because it literally covers every aspect of research you would want to know about.
So the first two books I spoke about very much focused on writing and research and the next book
I want to talk about more focuses on the social political side of doing a PhD. Now I’m going
to put a little asterisk by this, I think this varies a lot depending on institution and country.
I think different countries have different sort of expectations around what a PhD student, should be
doing, how they should be networking. I’m pretty sure this is written from an American perspective,
so it is I would say, slightly different in the UK but there are definitely transferable skills
and transferable knowledge you can get from this. So the book is the Unwritten Rules of PhD Research
by Miriam Petra and Gordon Rugg, took me a while there! Gordon Rugg. So like the previous books I
mentioned this also has a really easy approachable writing style, it's a fun read I would say,
it is enjoyable. There is some dry humour in there and it makes it a very quick read in comparison to
some of the others that can be a little, flat in terms of enjoyment. It does very much focus on
the social networking political side of doing a PhD, how do you interact with your supervisors?
What do you need to be doing to creating networks? To be getting your name out there?
However, I think that is a reality of doing a PhD and something it's better to be aware of and
be doing well, than just being oblivious to it or doing badly, because networking and
building up a network and your reputation and make sure you're talking to the right people is a skill
that you need in most careers to be honest. And although it can feel a little conniving
and a little manipulative, I think you can do it in a nice way and you can do it in a genuine way,
but you should still be trying to do it because ultimately it's just one of those things you
kind of have to do. I think especially in American universities my understanding is
this is something that is emphasized a lot more than perhaps in UK universities,
but as with everything American culture spreads to the UK and I think it is spreading in this aspect
where having a strong network and being able to connect with people from different institutions
is super important. So that's why I read this book, that's why I’d recommend it.
It also has a really good section on writing conference papers so if that is something you
are wondering about and you don't necessarily want to read or buy multiple books and you
just want to know about conference papers, maybe buy this book because you'll get a mix of both.
So the next book I want to talk about I actually brought and read because I follow her on Instagram
and I think it's so great and so useful and even though she is now, a maths lecturer, I believe it
still has a lot of information that is useful to me as an English Literature student. So I thought,
you know what I’m going to buy her book, I’m going to support and it is #GradBoss by Toyin Alli. This
I would say is the most practical how-to guide of all the books. It is full of worksheets,
actionable advice, very clear-cut sort of, almost exercises you can do during your PhD.
Now what I would say again is this is written from an American perspective, so it reflects
the American experience of grad school life, perhaps more than the UK one and also she is, she
was a Maths PhD student. So again there are some differences there, not everything is as relevant,
but you get that with all these books. Not all of them will be relevant 100% of the time but I
still think it's really useful from, you know a time management sector, managing your workload,
the kind of more practical logistics, I suppose of doing a PhD. I took a lot from this book and
I think it's really useful. Oh, the other great thing is she's a really recent graduate! So this
is written from someone who has a similar age to me, so in that way it felt a lot more relatable.
Whereas a lot of the other books are you know, they were written a couple of years ago by
people who are older who did their PhD a while ago. So in that sense, it does have that fresher
outlook I would say that maybe we can relate to more, something I could relate to more.
The final book I want to mention was actually a book I found through Toyin’s Instagram and
basically this is probably the only book on my list that is not aimed at PhD students.
This is not written as a self-help guide for PhD students or a guide to help you with a particular
aspect of doing a PhD. This is just written as a general non-fiction, self-help guide for women.
I’m not quite sure what category would be in, but it is The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women by
Valerie Young. As I said before this is not a PhD focused book, it is a non-fiction book. Maybe it
would fall into business as it's about successful women? I’m not quite sure what category it would
be on the Waterstone shelves, but in this book Valerie Young goes into the kind of process behind
impostor syndrome. Focusing in particular on how women experience imposter syndrome more than men,
why they experience it more, what they can do to kind of combat it, how they can spot it within
themselves and it's a really good deep dive into imposter syndrome. And the reason I read it and
the reason why I’d recommend it is I’m a woman in academia, so although again it's not aimed at
academia there's a lot of relatable things in this and there's a lot of kind of messages you can take
away and apply to your academic experience. And two impostor syndrome is rife within PhD
culture and it's something a lot of post-grads will experience. I’ve done a video on mental
health and PhD students I kind of touch on it there, but impostor syndrome is something I think
nearly every PhD student will feel at some point of doing a PhD. So the fact that this is a book
all about - not how to combat it - because it isn't necessarily written in a super self-help
style, but certainly how to recognize it within yourself and how to maybe spot the
early warning signs and then do something about it. So I suppose it is kind of a self-help? But
I just found this really useful! I’m also someone who really benefits from having the, kind of,
knowledge behind why things are the way they are, or like the psychology behind
mental health. I guess I’m not quite sure where to put that, but
for that reason I found this really enjoyable. I wouldn't say it's the most,
easy quick fun read but it's a very interesting read and I think it's well worth your time.
Especially if you are a woman who wants to go to academia, or one who wants to go into business,
or just a woman who experiences imposter syndrome because it's aimed at you. It is the book for you!
Those are my five, kind of, books I found useful to read,
either just before or during like the first few months of my PhD. Obviously it's not an exhaustive
list, there are so many others out there that I’m sure other people will find useful, but these are
the ones that I got something from and go back to. I hope you found this video useful, as always feel
free to leave a comment or a like down below. I respond to all my comments, or I try to at least,
and I love hearing from you and what you have to say and helping you with
any problems you're going through and of course you can always reach out to me on
Instagram if you don't want to do it publicly. So yeah, I will see you next Sunday and Byeee!