# 5.3 Covering letter and application form

Your initial covering letter (or covering email) can be quite short but should contain a succinct but informative summary of your proposed research project. Take some time to write this, to include the key points that will interest a prospective supervisor.

For your initial application to a prospective supervisor, you will probably not include an application form but at a later point, you will probably need to fill out several forms e.g. for registration and for funding applications. This can be a time-consuming process and you need to pay careful attention to make sure that the forms are consistent with each other, and with your CV and the research proposal. You may include more or less detail on different forms but check that you have made the same claims about your aims, research question, proposed methods etc.

OpenLearn - Applying to study for a PhD in psychology
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