What is a Phd?
Posted by Julia Hobson on April 9, 2009
Julia,
You may remember I came to see you in the first week of semester rather freaking out about the whole PhD process. You gave me many great tips and suggested a few books to try. I looked through one (Surviving Your Thesis I think it was) and have the 2008 edition of The Craft of Research to go through. I’ve realised what I’m struggling with — floundering completely really — is that I don’t have any real concept of what a PhD actually is in any real detail. I know it’s original research and I know the first thing is to prepare the research proposal etc., but other than that I don’t understand what I should do or how to do it — what are the major steps, what methods or approaches I should/could use, and so on.
So I was hoping you could recommend something that would help me get to a more solid foundation, especially for a thesis largely based on literature analysis and theory? I think I’ve done all the relevant GREAT seminars, and they’ve definitely helped, but perhaps there’s some other I’m not aware of? Or a book of course.
Anything you can suggest would be hugely appreciated, thanks!
April 9th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Hi Justin
What a good question that is!
A Phd is many things to many people and that is why it can be difficult to get a handle on
First, it is a piece of paper that the university gives you to certify that you are a competent and capable independent researcher who has a high level of professional knowledge and competency in a chosen area and who can express and communicate this to other people.
Second, it is an opportunity for the candidate to spend quality time exploring learning and discovering in an area that they are passionate about.
Third it is an opportunity to build a set of useful transferable skills in technology and communication and research design to use in the next phase of a career.
To gain the first objective ( the piece of paper) it is always useful to look at other phd’s in your discipline area and see what they look like, how are they constructed, what is covered, what sort of methodology and research design was employed, how was this presented in the document etc. This gives the process of learning (of both disciplinary knowledge and transferable skills that you are engaged in) a more concrete and specific context , that is the production of a document.
Hope this helps
Regards
Julia
PS do you mind if I post the question and my answer onto the website for postgrads so others who are also wondering can see?