Ten simple rules for PhD-ing at our best

The PhD is a journey, and it can be useful to get some tips and tricks to help along the way. The ‘Ten Simple Rules’ are one of those things! The first time I came across one of these ‘Ten simple rules’ editorial articles was when I attended the Project and Time Management course offered by WGS (which I highly recommend, by the way). The course facilitator shared an article with us: Ten Simple Rules for Finishing Your PhD (1). It was a fast read, with some useful ideas and general advice written by someone who had done a PhD. Then, a while later, when reading about mental health and work life balance, I came across another short article called Ten simple rules to improve academic work-life balance (2). I started thinking, is there a theme here? One would think as a PhD candidate, I would go on a search, but the truth is it quickly went on the back of my mind. So, it was only later, during the Scientific Publishing course, that once again I came across another ten simple rules: Ten Simple Rules for Writing Research Papers (3), and Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers (4).

Finally, I decided this must be an actual series! I went on a hunt and found the ‘Ten simple rules’ collection in PLOS Computational Biology editorials (5). It is a collection of several different editorial articles, each with ten simple rules as the name clearly suggests about several different academia & research topics. The categories range from Career Development and Choices, Practicing More Disciplined and Organized Science, Scientific communication, and Self-study/Learning habits, among others.

Besides the articles mentioned previously, I am sharing a few more of these short, bite-sized articles that could be useful, and a point of reference to go back and remember:

• Ten simple rules for scientists: Improving your writing productivity (6)
• Ten simple rules for structuring papers (7)
• Ten simple rules for responsible referencing (8)
• Ten Simple Rules for a Good Poster Presentation (9)

During a PhD and generally in academia & research, there is always a lot to read all the time, but a break for some short and lighter read might be just what you need!

References:

1. Marino J, Stefan MI, Blackford S. Ten Simple Rules for Finishing Your PhD. PLoS Comput Biol. 2014 Dec 1;10(12).

2. Bartlett MJ, Arslan FN, Bankston A, Sarabipour S. Ten simple rules to improve academic work- life balance. Vol. 17, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2021.

3. Zhang W. Ten Simple Rules for Writing Research Papers. Vol. 10, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2014.

4. Noble WS. Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers. Vol. 13, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2017.

5. PLOS Collections. Ten Simple Rules [Internet]. 2020 [cited 2023 Dec 7]. Available from: https://collections.plos.org/collection/ten-simple-rules/

6. Peterson TC, Kleppner SR, Botham CM. Ten simple rules for scientists: Improving your writing productivity. Vol. 14, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2018.

7. Mensh B, Kording K. Ten simple rules for structuring papers. Vol. 13, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2017.

8. Penders B. Ten simple rules for responsible referencing. Vol. 14, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2018.

9. Erren TC, Bourne PE. Ten simple rules for a good poster presentation. Vol. 3, PLoS Computational Biology. Public Library of Science; 2007. p. 0777–8.