PhD Survival Guides
Your PhD did not come with an instruction manual. Unfortunately.
These practical guides are the next best thing.
Stuck on your literature review? Research still feeling fuzzy? Data analysis turning your brain to soup? Discussion chapter refusing to discuss?
Yep, there's a Survival Guide for that.
Start with the bit of your PhD that's currently causing you the most grief.
Ah. You’ve reached the “Wait… what AM I actually researching?” stage of the PhD.
This guide helps you untangle your concepts, theory and research questions so you can see how the whole thing fits together and stop going round in increasingly confusing circles.
“I’ve read SO much. Why can’t I write the damn thing?”
Welcome to the literature review stage where another 17 downloaded PDFs probably aren't going to save you(!).
This guide helps you move beyond collecting and describing literature to organising ideas, making connections and building a literature review that genuinely has something to say.
“I have all this data. Now what on earth do I DO with it?”
Excellent question. Because having 400 pages of transcripts and several highlighters is not, unfortunately, an analysis.
This guide helps you move from a mountain of qualitative data towards a solid analysis - understanding what you're looking for, what you're doing with it and how to explain the decisions you've made.
“I’ve done the research. Why is writing the discussion SO difficult?”
Because now you've got to make your literature, findings, theory and your own thinking talk to each other. No wonder your brain feels like soup.
This guide helps you work out what your research is really saying, build your argument and bring everything together into a discussion chapter that feels like a real contribution to knowledge.
What if it isn't just one thing?
“Every time I sort one bit of my PhD out, something ELSE stops making sense.”
Yep. That happens.
Your research question changes, so now your literature review needs another look. Your analysis develops and then the theoretical framework you were perfectly happy with six months ago is giving you the side-eye. Then you start writing your discussion and realise... ah. “This is all connected, isn't it?”
The Complete PhD System brings all four guides together so you can stop playing PhD whack-a-mole and work on the connections between your research, literature, analysis and writing.
Built for the messy reality of qualitative research
Qualitative research does not come with a big book of Correct Answers™. Annoying, I know.
So these aren't rigid templates telling you there's one “right” way to do your PhD.
Instead, you get clear explanations, useful frameworks, worked examples and practical tools to help you figure out what makes sense for your research - and, importantly, explain and defend the decisions you make.
Less “Am I doing this right?” More “Here’s what I’m doing, and here’s why.”
Not sure which guide is right for you?
Tell us a little about where you're stuck and we'll help point you towards the most relevant option.