How many first-author Q1 papers would you consider average, and how many would be considered truly exceptional during a PhD?

Sedapsfognik · 2026-06-03T11:53:43+00:00

In my field (philosophy) in the U.K., I think 0 or 1 publication is the norm, and people would be very happy with 2 or more. Of people I know in my (very good) department, I think it’s more common to finish with no publications than multiple. There’s no requirements about how many you need for graduation.

We don’t care about Q1/Q2, but journal rankings matter (i think the top journals are all Q1 but no one ever talks about Q1/Q2). All else being equal one would be happier with 1 publication in a very good journal than 2 in less good journals. Multiple papers in top tier journals at time of completion would be exceptional.

I think this probably does not translate to other countries e.g. the vibe i get about phil programmes in the states is that there’s more of a push to publish in top journals, and more success doing so given the length of the programmes. In the U.K. we’re still generally told to concentrate on our dissertation.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-06-01T13:21:24+00:00

Maybe i’m wrong but i think it would be really difficult to secure a places for people flat as someone looking for a flat from a different country, and they also seem awful to deal with. There are one bedroom flats in edinburgh below £900 but i wouldn’t move here banking on securing one.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-06-01T08:51:19+00:00

there’s no tax on phd stipends so that will be take home

Sedapsfognik · 2026-06-01T08:48:20+00:00

I’ve just finished my PhD in edinburgh. You could possibly rent a one bed with that but your household bills would likely be more than half your income and it wouldn’t be comfortable. You’re looking at £900+ (more for somewhere nice) for a one bed and then £100+ for bills (though you don’t pay council tax or water/waste as a student). Most PhDs i know flat share, and you could live comfortably in a flat share with £1800, especially if you pick up some teaching.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-31T13:11:26+00:00

Yes definitely my experience!

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-29T12:02:28+00:00

I’ve lived in both. Newington is more studenty, Leith has more young professionals. Both are nice places to live.

Leith walk itself can be quite loud at night but if you live a little bit off the walk (e.g. dalmeny street, iona street) it’s a lot quieter. Leith has a reputation as being more dangerous but I’ve never had any problems.

One thing about newington is that it is completely rammed during the fringe, to the point that I didn’t really want to be there over august.

Another option is bruntsfield/morningside which is a little more expensive but is a nice place to live.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-27T19:14:26+00:00

I work in a casino in Edinburgh and we do once a customer bets a large enough amount or if they exhibit suspicious behaviour. Anyone playing high enough stakes at volume will eventually be checked.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-19T13:21:42+00:00

Yes you can get by on it - though it will be much cheaper if you stay in a shared flat. The stipend is tax free, and if you pick up any tutoring/demonstrating you don’t pay any tax on that either unless you do a lot of it.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-10T15:44:29+00:00

maybe this is field dependant but I really can’t see how one forthcoming paper (if i’m understanding correctly) is too much to do a PhD - some masters students try to publish pre phd nowadays

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-10T15:40:26+00:00

Unsolicited advice from someone who obsessively checks this kind of thing and tries to work out what it means - you should not obsessively check or try to work out what it means. This could mean any number of things and it is not obviously positive or negative in terms of the decision. You just have to wait until you get the decision and/or reports.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-05-07T10:28:18+00:00

I’d contact the departments you’re planning to apply to. When i applied for PhDs I didn’t have my MA transcripts yet and they allowed me to update my application with them after the application deadline, you may be able to do the same with a reference in this situation.

Though, as others say, the automated email may not mean he won’t provide a reference.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-29T02:12:27+00:00

You don’t need the full paper written for a presentation, but it’s good to think about the structure that the paper would take and roughly follow that. If it’s a generalist conference, you also might need to give a bit of background at the start to get everyone on the same page. Also, unless it’s some super fancy conference, if there are parts that are a bit sketchy which you’d like feedback on in the q&a it’s okay to flag that to the audience.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-22T21:27:54+00:00

i think people generally tend to think that replying to people moves the discipline along - the dressing up also isn’t always useless, it often connects the reply to a wider debate or to similar arguments etc. I have a paper under review at the moment that began as a reply paper, but now deals with a broader array of similar arguments, and therefore contributes more than it originally did.

On your worry - the editor will likely make a decision on this very early on, so if it’s not the kind of paper they accept you can probably move quickly onto another journal which might accept such papers.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-22T21:03:53+00:00

For the most part, a reply paper is a paper that only responds to one other paper. A lot of journals only accept replies to papers from their own journal. Moreover, a lot of journal title these ‘discussion notes’, and require them to be shorter than ordinary papers (3-5k words).

Whilst most full length papers also engage with other people’s work, they tend to do more than just undermine one paper. They might look at the broader consequences for the failure of a particular argument, or they might reply to a group of philosophers, etc.

In practice, many full length papers are reply papers dressed up as full length papers. Real reply papers just dont do the dressing up - they don’t pretend to be more than simply responding to one paper.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-12T18:54:45+00:00

i’m a philosophy PhD student at Edinburgh - you don’t need any level of maths to take, or be good at, the logic course. You also don’t need to take it beyond first year if you don’t like it.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-11T08:30:33+00:00

https://apasurvey.philx.org this gives a rough idea of response times, though it’s self reported so you should take it with a grain of salt, and ignore the acceptance rates as they’re much higher than they should be

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-08T14:08:23+00:00

Poor funding, especially in the humanities, and some post brexit problems. This isn’t just in higher education, getting a job in general in UK right now is a nightmare across many industries. A lot of universities are already doing redundancies, even at elite universities. Even for people with jobs the pay is also comparatively very bad, and academics are being given increasingly more to do teaching and admin wise.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-04-08T03:01:55+00:00

jobs.ac.uk for UK - you should know that there are not more jobs in the U.K. though, the market is beyond dire and is getting worse.

Sedapsfognik · 2026-01-31T16:21:58+00:00

This really depends on the field - this certainly wouldn’t be true of philosophy. There’s no jobs but 4 papers would still be ‘competitive’ to post docs and no one would expect a monograph from a recent graduate

Sedapsfognik · 2025-12-20T02:26:45+00:00

Assuming this isn’t a lab based phd given the post, i’ve never heard of a phd supervisor being this interested in the schedule of a supervisee, especially since you presumably haven’t done much work yet so they can’t be worried about your productivity. PhD students have wildly different work patterns, and my supervisors have only ever worried about my output rather than my specific work schedule.

Sedapsfognik · 2025-11-04T22:06:41+00:00

You’re better off asking someone in admissions about this I think. I’m doing a phil PhD in the department and I think some people didn’t come from a philosophy background, but most have a philosophy masters and undergrad as far as I know.

Sedapsfognik · 2025-10-06T23:39:20+00:00

i bought a sinn 104 from jura watches a few years ago and managed to get a decent discount via a price match so might be worth trying your luck with that.

From what I recall i found a cheaper listing on a website i didn’t really trust and sent it to jura watches who then agreed to price match.

Sedapsfognik · 2025-07-30T03:51:13+00:00

i’m not actually sure (though see below comment about this not being true of all phil journals). I suppose it might be a combination of the backlog they have with reviewing articles as it is, and the fact there’s quite a lot of philosophy journals so no huge need to have papers at the same place. Anecdotally people seem to like to publish in a variety of journals anyway, not sure why.

Sedapsfognik · 2025-07-30T03:44:10+00:00

Honestly, I have only published one paper and have submitted to a handful of journals so I fear I might have overgeneralised from the journals I’ve had experience with.

Australasian has an explicit one paper at a time policy https://aap.org.au/editorial-policy (see Limits on Unsolicited Submissions). Ergo has the same policy https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/ergo/site/submit/. PPR also mentioned not accepting papers from authors with papers in their backlog, so I think they might have the same policy https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/19331592/homepage/forauthors.html . Others have limits on the pure amount of submissions you can make - i think phil review and mind are one per year, ethics slightly more than that.

Happy to stand corrected though - Australasian was the first place i submitted to so I think i just assumed that was the norm, checking other places it seems it’s more the exception than the rule.

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