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Research Communication

Successful PhD candidates do more than produce high-quality research: they also learn how to communicate their work effectively to others. Writing and publishing papers, presenting at academic events and preparing high-quality papers and reports are essential parts of doctoral training that help develop important professional skills. This page provides practical advice to help you navigate these aspects of your PhD and engage with the wider research community. Although the guidance is written primarily for my PhD students at the University of York, much of it may also be useful to other doctoral researchers.

Publications and Peer Review

Peer review is widely regarded as a core practice for ensuring the quality of scientific research. While writing and submitting a paper for peer review can sometimes appear to be a distraction from interesting technical work, submitting your work for peer review is an essential part of a PhD in Computer Science.

One of the main benefits of peer review for PhD candidates is that it allows experts outside the supervisory team to evaluate the novelty, correctness, significance and presentation of your work. Reviewer feedback can improve your research, as reviewers frequently identify methodological weaknesses, missing related work (including tools), threats to validity and weaknesses in your evaluation strategy. It also helps you learn the standards that your research community expects in terms of rigour, reproducibility and writing conventions.

If you aspire to pursue an academic career, submitting your work for peer review is essential preparation as publishing is a core activity in academia. Learning how to write for a wider audience of domain experts, respond to criticism, revise your work and deal with acceptance and rejection is an essential part of becoming an independent researcher. Publishing your work also makes you visible to the research community, demonstrates your expertise and makes it easier for researchers and practitioners to discover, cite and build on your work.

If your supervisors believe that your work is strong, peer review is important for assessing whether the wider research community agrees. Conversely, if your supervisors have concerns about the direction of your work that you don't fully agree with, external peer review can provide a valuable independent perspective. Publications are also important for the examiners of your doctoral thesis, as they can give them confidence that (part of) your doctoral work has already been evaluated and scrutinised by knowledgeable experts. Choosing not to publish your work is a risky strategy, as any weaknesses in your research may go unnoticed until it is too late in your PhD to address them.

Academic Presentations

Below is some advice for preparing and delivering presentations in academic events (e.g. conferences/workshops).

  • Use slide numbers to help your audience refer to specific slides when asking questions at the end of your presentation.
  • More often than not, it is a good idea to write a complete transcript of your presentation in the "Notes" section of your Powerpoint slides. Even if you don't refer to it at all during the delivery of your presentation it can help you structure your thoughts.
  • While LaTeX/Beamer slides look much better, Powerpoint slides are easier to reuse (i.e. copy/paste) across presentations.
  • Rehearse your presentation to make sure you can deliver it in the allocated time.
  • Do not put any text in your slides that the audience won't be able to read (e.g. because it is too long or because the font is tiny). Excuses of the type "I know that the font in this diagram is too small to read but ..." are unacceptable, unless someone else prepared the slides for you.
  • Find out who is chairing the session in which you are presenting and introduce yourself if they don't reach out to you first.
  • Try the projector/online sharing platform in advance to avoid last-minute surprises (e.g. incompatible adaptors, need to restart your machine to allow the sharing app to record your screen).
  • If you need to record a presentation for online delivery, don't feel obliged to have your face showing the whole time. It's OK to show your face while introducing the first slide, and then again in the last slide when you conclude your presentation.
  • Finish your presentation with a slide that summarises your key take-home message(s). Do not conclude your presentation with a "Q&A" or a "Thank you!" slide.
  • Presentation Zen and Slide:ology are two very good books with lots of practical advice for preparing and delivering high-quality presentations.

Papers and Academic Reports

Below is some advice for preparing papers and academic reports (e.g. progression reports).

  • Use LaTeX instead of Microsoft Word, Google docs etc. Some of its advantages include:
    • Painless citations
    • It separates content from formatting
    • It's text-based so it's easier to version control in Git
  • When you need to include code (e.g. Java) in the paper, use the LaTeX listings package instead of embedding screenshots of the code.
  • When you need to refer to code elements (e.g. class names, method names) within the main body of the paper, use \emph{} to make them stand out.
  • If you version control your LaTeX paper/report in a Git repository, make sure to leave out all the generated/temporary artefacts by editing your .gitignore accordingly.
  • Double-quote strings using ``''.
Last update: June 16, 2026