Overview

First Mile is for scholars in the early stretch of their PhD

Before the literature is organized, before a research profile exists, before there's any real orientation toward how publishing works. You'll build the foundation the rest of your PhD runs on: a working literature system, a visible research profile, and clarity on how and where you'll eventually publish — so that by the time you're ready to write, you're not starting from zero.

Snapshot: choose online (13 weeks, weekly sessions) or offline (3 monthly full-day workshops). For scholars in year 1–2, or anyone restarting their research foundation.

Already past this stage and sitting on data you can't turn into consistent pages? EzhudhuGoal picks up from here.

Coverage

• Research profile setup (ORCID, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, institutional presence)
• Systematic literature search and organization across major databases
• Reference management tools and workflows
• Literature synthesis: mapping the scholarly conversation, agreements and contradictions across sources
• Identifying research gaps and building a conceptual/theoretical framework
• Publishing landscape orientation: journal tiers, indexing (Scopus, Web of Science, etc.), and how timing fits your PhD
• Reading published papers to reverse-engineer expected structure and style in your field

Who This Is For

• PhD scholars in early or middle stages
• You're in the first 1–2 years of your PhD (or restarting after a gap) and haven't yet built a system for managing your literature
• You don't have a research profile set up yet (ORCID, Google Scholar, institutional page) and know you should
• You want your literature and research foundation fully in order before you start writing seriously
• You've tried to "just get organized" on your own and it hasn't stuck without structure and accountability

Who This Is Not For

• You already have your literature organized and a full dataset, and just need to write consistently — that's EzhudhuGoa
• You have a complete draft (or close to it) and need an intensive push to finish and submit — that's EzhudhuWarRoom
• You're looking for a one-time fix rather than a foundation you'll use for years

EzhudhuGoal requires commitment. Growth comes from practice, not shortcuts.

Programme Structure

Foundation: Set up your research profile and build a systematic literature management workflow. Move from scattered PDFs and bookmarks to an organized, searchable literature base using appropriate tools.

Literature Synthesis TMove from collecting sources to making sense of them: map the scholarly conversation, identify where sources agree and disagree, locate the gap your own research will fill, and build a synthesis map.

Publishing Orientation: Understand the publishing landscape for your field, learn to evaluate journals (and spot predatory ones), and study a few target journals' published papers to know what's expected before you ever submit.

Each phase will have a core principle, core ideas to cover, core activity, and reflection exercises.

Key Features

• Small cohort with structured accountability
• Frameworks built for your discipline, not generic templates
• Guided exercises and reflection checkpoints
• Feedback on how you're synthesizing and framing your literature, not just a reading checklist
• Clear milestones to prevent drift

More importantly, they leave with a disciplined approach to scholarly writing.

Outomes

By the end of First Mile, you'll have:

• A live, complete research profile
• An organized, searchable literature management system
• A synthesis map / conceptual framework for your literature
• Clarity on 2–3 target journals for your field

Format & Delivery