Question: do you spend more time doing practicals in the lab or doing writing?

Bethany Dearlove answered on 22 Jun 2014:

Although I don’t work in a ‘lab’, I definitely spend more time doing experiments, and often re-doing them to check my results, than I do writing up. As an example, during my PhD I spent about two and a half years setting up experiments and collecting results, but only took three or four months writing it all up in to one big book. Often the time is taken up with waiting – for DNA sequencing to be done, or computer programs to run – so when you finally get the results, the writing up bit can be done relatively quickly. I keep a research journal whilst I’m doing experiments, with notes about what I’ve been doing and why, so often I can copy parts of that in to my ‘formal’ write up to save time too.