I started this Blog in 2009 because I wanted a place to put the answers to some "frequently asked questions." At the time I was receiving a steady stream of calls from people thinking of applying for a PhD at Glasgow and heard myself repeating similar things during these calls. I thought it might be helpful to have somewhere to point people at so that they could run through the material themselves. I asked a colleague who said "what you want is a blog" ... but after I'd put some material up on the site I began to realise that it wasn't a blog so much as a web-site that I was constructing. The early posts on the site aren't weekly updates in the sense of a typically blog, rather they are my attempt to summarise the main challenges. choices and issues that PhD students and applicants face. So after a few months the site became a "not blog" ... to my great surprise, the site has generated a fair bit of traffic despite its "not blog" status. With around a thousand hits a month and a healthy group of followers I'm therefore going to turn my "not blog" into a blog in the coming months. Far and away the most commonly visited postings are the ones on epistemology and on gaps in the literature ... these will still be there for those that want them. What you'll find in the coming months is something closer to a "thought for the day" format which is more typical of a blog. Be sure to let me know what you think. Meantime, I'm delighted to say that my "not blog" came third in a ranking of the top 50 online PhD sites ...
http://www.phd-programs-online.net/thesis-writing.
Not bad for a "not blogger" ... imagine what will happen when it turns into a blog. If you're working on a PhD ... hang in there. If you're thinking about starting ... stop thinking and start starting!
Oh, and happy summer
Robert
