KATE WILLIAMS manages Upgrade, the Study Advice Service at Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has worked with students from Foundation to PhD and has written a range of books and materials on study skills. With experience of project management in both writing and editing, she is also the Series Editor for Pocket Study Skills. EMILY BETHELL is a PhD Student at Roehampton University, UK.JUDITH LAWTON is the Former Deputy Head of Hounslow Language Service, UK.CLARE PARFITT is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Dance at the University of Chichester, UK.MARY RICHARDSON is Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at Roehampton University, UK.VICTORIA ROWE is Teaching Associate at the University of Sheffield, UK.

• IntroductionPART I: YOUR PHD IDEA WHERE NEXT? PART II: STARTING OUTPART III: TOWARDS YOUR LITERATURE REVIEWPART IV: TOWARDS YOUR PROPOSALPART V: WRITING YOUR PROPOSALPART VI: THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME.

'I would be happy to be able to offer this as the 'first port of call guide', perhaps to be given to students during induction.' - Lucinda Becker, University of Reading, UK 'I think that a strength of this book will be to help readers get away from the very rigid, daunting and old-fashioned idea that many people still have about the traditional PhD format.' - Jeanne Godfrey, University of Westminster, UK 'This little book should have "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters on its front. It is a very approachable guide to what is (from the outside) a pretty inscrutable topic... It leads the reader, an apprentice researcher in some ways, through the basics of doctoral study, from choosing a University and getting to know your supervisor right through to research plans, writing and publication. I wish it had been around in the 1980s when I browsed and floundered through my first ideas for research - and I expect my supervisors would have been grateful, too!' - Amazon review