The most important thing to do before you begin is to develop a plan of coursework and research that you will complete over the first 12 months. Break this plan down into detailed weekly and monthly tasks. For example, it may include classes, trips to conferences and areas of research you will focus on. You can either write this plan in dot points or put it in a calendar, with dates clearly marked for different activities.
Hypermedia applications are used to collate data in graphs, charts and reports. They can be used by doctoral researchers to find how different sources can be linked and to manage a better work flow. These programs, available online, help you to analyze data and to find the relationships between questions and their answers. Essentially they are tools which help both organize and analyze complex data from many sources, and thus are excellent for research students.
Researching on the Internet is, of course, an excellent way to find sources, but often searches are too broad and pinpointing information is difficult.
Fortunately, specialized search engines are available for scholars on the Internet. "Google Scholar" is one such resource. It allows you to search scholarly literature, publications and journals. It is completely free and covers a large number of research areas.
Another such program is ISI Web of knowledge. This has been specifically designed for doctoral and thesis research and is designed to help organize and manage sources as well as find them.
Doctoral researchers often work together with fellow students, research assistants or supervisors. To share papers and resources, there are many online programs which are free to use. One such program is called Drop Box. Drop box allows you to put folders, documents, pictures and programs into online folders which are linked to your friends' computers. They can then access these documents online or inside their own computers. It's a wonderful way to save time and to easily share information.