More and more students and professionals now intend to study for Ph. D. In the absence of awareness about essential steps many of them lose time or get frustrated. Following reading may be helpful:
1. Ph. D. is about furtherance of knowledge – something new is to be added to the existing body of knowledge. The addition is to be unambiguous. Therefore, it is to be quantifiable.

2. It requires preparation of an extensive status report on the topic of interest to find out what are the gaps in the existing knowledge.

3. The identified gaps in the knowledge are to be explored to narrow down to one topic with a view to develop it for lager usefulness to the society including students, professionals, industry, investors etc. Candidate’s interest, background, availability of resources to him/her and professional network should be considered for selection of topic.

4. Since it for the good of the society, identification of the probable user(s) of the research or one who will be ready to pay for it becomes important. If there is no user for the research or nobody is interested in it – the research need not be undertaken and the researcher need to look for another topic or modify it.

5. Once the user of the research is known, the next step is to spell out, ‘in what form the research output’ is to be delivered – a text book, a computer program, nomograms etc.

6. Ph. D study requires ‘regularity’ and ‘devotion’ along with a ‘sense of urgency’.

Following the suggested steps in letter and spirit makes the Ph. D study simple. Ph. D study is a training for ‘logical thinking’ – it carves out a new person from within and affects the researcher in all walks of life.