The ‘Researching and Writing a DPhil: Problems, Methods’ seminar runs fortnightly during term time and brings together DPhil students from right across the Faculty, whatever languages or sub-disciplines they’re working in, and whatever stage of their doctorate they’re at. It’s a friendly, supportive, and informative forum. At each session, two students briefly introduce their doctoral projects and the challenges they currently face. The whole group then discusses those challenges, which invariably turn out to be ones also faced by others at the seminar. The seminar leader, Prof Kenny, helps to bring out this common ground and to nudge the discussion towards solutions. Typical issues range from focusing the thesis topic to structuring the thesis, from working across disciplines to working across languages, from note-taking to deciding what to read, from chapter-planning to writing an Introduction, from methodology to bibliography, and so on.