I I
Three of the key ways of not getting a PhD that we discussed in Chapter 4 involved either the student or the supervisor (or both) not understanding the nature of a PhD degree. This demonstration that you are a full profes- sional requires the exercise of the craft of doing research, as discussed in Chapter 5, in such a way as to satisfy the examiners (i.e. your senior professional peers) that you are in full command of your academic field.
This you do by ‘making a contribution to knowledge’. This sounds both very impressive and extremely vague, and is therefore worrying to stu- dents. In this chapter we shall examine what form of a PhD thesis will satisfy these requirements.
I Understanding the PhD form
Once again we must start by explaining that, as with the nature of a PhD, it is not possible to spell out administratively or bureaucratically what is required – that is not the nature of the process. The university regulations for a doctorate, for example, have to apply in all subject fields from Arabic to zoology. So they are inevitably formal and are not able to catch the particular requirements in your field at this time. Indeed the aim of the training process is precisely to put you in a position where you can evaluate what is required, in addition to being capable of carrying it out.
There is, however, a certain form to doctoral theses – clearly at a high level of abstraction, since it has to be independent of the content and apply to all fields of knowledge. We may think of the analogy of the sonata form in music. This is a structure of musical writing, but it tells you
nothing about the content. Haydn wrote in sonata form, but so did Lennon and McCartney. The range of content covered is therefore enor- mous but the sonata form does not cover all music. Neither Debussy nor Britten used this form. In jazz Scott Joplin used sonata form but Bix Beiderbecke did not. The same is the case with the PhD. It has a particular form and since not all research conforms to it, you have to be aware of what the elements of its form are.
There are four elements to PhD form that we have to consider: back- ground theory; focal theory; data theory; and contribution. These ana- lytical constructs run throughout the thesis and do not have to correspond directly with the chapter headings used. They have to be covered in the thesis as a whole, however, as they are the headings under which its worth is evaluated.
I Background theory
This is the field of study within which you are working and which you must know well, that is to full professional standard. So you must be aware of the present state of the art: what developments, controversies, break- throughs are currently exciting or engaging the leading practitioners and thus pushing forward thinking in the subject.
The standard way of demonstrating this is through a literature review. Remember that you are not doing a literature review for its own sake; you are doing it in order to demonstrate that you have a fully professional grasp of the background theory to your subject. ‘Professional’ means, as we saw in Chapter 3, that you have something to say about your field that your fellow professionals would want to listen to. So organizing the material in an interesting and useful way, evaluating the contributions of others (and justifying the criticisms, of course), identifying trends in research activity, defining areas of theoretical and empirical weakness, are all key activities by which you would demonstrate that you had a professional command of the background theory.
It is important to emphasize that a mere encyclopaedic listing in which all the titles were presented with only a description of each work and no reasoned organization and evaluation would not be adequate. It would not demonstrate the professional judgement that is required of a PhD. It would be the equivalent of your taking a driving test and driving at no more than 20 mph throughout. Even if you made no mistakes during the test, you would fail because you had not demonstrated sufficient con- fidence and competence to be in charge of a vehicle. As a PhD, you must similarly be confidently and competently in charge of your understanding of background theory, and you have to demonstrate this through the literature review.
For this part of your task you can, in many disciplines, get a good idea of the style and standard of the approach that is required by reading the literature surveys that comprise the ‘annual reviews’ in your subject or equivalent volumes of summaries of current research. The Annual Reviews
of biochemistry, sociology, etc., contain such reviews of the background theory of parts of the discipline contributed by leading scholars in the field. You can discover therefore how they evaluate, shape and focus their topics in ways which encourage further fruitful research. It is that level of command to which you should aspire.
I Focal theory
The second element in the form of the PhD is the ‘focal theory’. It is here that you spell out in great detail precisely what you are researching and why. You establish the nature of your problem and set about analysing it. The generation of hypotheses, if appropriate, the examination of others’ arguments, and the use of your own data and analysis to push forward the academic discussion are the key tasks here.
It is in the carrying out of your work on the focal theory (as we saw in Chapter 4) that it is vital to have a thesis in the narrow sense. This gives a clear ‘story line’ and enables you to relate what you are doing to the focal theory in an organized way. Your thesis and the need to support it with your data and arguments perform important work for you as the criteria for what it is relevant to include in your study. You should therefore be very careful to ensure that the argument is not blurred with extraneous or makeweight material that is not contributing to the maintenance of your thesis position. The thesis of the focal theory should always be in focus!
I Data theory
The third element of the PhD form is the data theory. In the most general terms this gives the justification for the relevance and validity of the material that you are going to use to support your thesis. A key question in the evaluation of your work must be: why should we (your fellow academ- ics in the field) have to listen to you? You must clearly have a convincing answer.
Just what the content of your data theory is will vary enormously from discipline to discipline, but the form will always be concerned with the appropriateness and reliability of your data sources. In the sciences it will entail the establishment of a supportable theory and justification of a par- ticular experimental approach, as well as a demonstration that your apparatus is sensitive enough to detect the effect and is reliably calibrated.
In historical studies you will need to show that in the light of your topic and your analytical approach to it, your documents are adequate and properly interpreted. In the social sciences, in addition to justifying your methods of data collection, you might need to engage in an epistemo- logical discussion about which interpretative framework (e.g. positivist, postmodernist) it is appropriate for you to use to maintain your position.
Identifying just what an adequate discussion of the data theory for your particular thesis involves is one of the professional tasks that you have to undertake. You do this in discussion with your supervisor, by reviewing the latest papers in your field and by examining successful PhD submissions.
I Contribution
The spelling out of your contribution is the final element in the PhD form. It is concerned with your evaluation of the importance of your thesis to the development of the discipline. It is here that you underline the signifi- cance of your analysis, point out the limitations in your material, suggest what new work is now appropriate, and so on. In the most general terms it is a discussion as to why and in what way the background theory and the focal theory that you started with are now different as a result of your research work. Thus your successors (who include, of course, yourself) now face a different situation when determining what their research work should be since they now have to take account of your work.
It might seem strange that you are asked to evaluate your own work, pointing out its limitations, putting it into perspective, and so on. Aren’t you likely to think your study is the best thing since sliced bread, or at least take a very biased view of it? Well, clearly not, and this is another demon- stration of the point that we made in Chapter 3 on the meaning of a doctorate. You are not doing some research for its own sake; you are doing it in order to demonstrate that you are a fully professional researcher, with a good grasp of what is happening in your field and capable of evaluating the impact of new contributions to it – your own as well as others’. That is what you get the doctorate for.
In practical terms, this component of the thesis is usually the last chap- ter or so, and it is very important not to underestimate this task. We have already pointed out in Chapter 4 that it takes much longer than you anticipate to write. Indeed, in our experience its inadequacy is the most common single reason for requiring students to resubmit their theses after first presentation.
There is one particular trap to avoid. If you entitle your last chapter ‘Summary and conclusions’, and you have no very clear idea of what ‘Conclusions’ would mean except that it goes at the end, then you will
inevitably spend most of your time on the summary. You will know the details of your work very well by this time, and the ‘summary’ could easily stretch into large amounts of repetition. Then, when you have written most of a chapter, just a short ending does not seem so bad. DSP has examined theses where, after an overlong summary, only on the final page was a conclusion attempted – in one case only in the final paragraph was this ventured. Of course this is inadequate, and such submissions are referred back for the necessary further work to be done.
It is important then to be clear that the summary and the conclusions are separate tasks, and that more effort needs to go into the conclusions than the summary. Then you must have a concept of what purpose the conclusion performs: namely, to demonstrate how the background theory and the focal theory are now different as a result of the study.
I Detailed structure and choice of chapter headings
You may hear people telling you about the ‘ideal’ length of a thesis. Pay no attention. A thesis should be no longer than it needs to be in order to report what you have done, why you did it and what you have concluded from the results of your work. Don’t be impressed by theses that run to two volumes: it is often (correctly) said that a lot is written in order to obscure the fact that little has been achieved. In fact you might adopt the maxim that if you can say it briefly you should do so; but not if this means using lots of long words and complex sentence structures.
As we saw above, a thesis must contain the four elements of the PhD form. Just how they are presented can vary. A possible example, commonly used, would be:
ⵧ introduction (including aims);
ⵧ literature survey (background theory as a review of the relevant literature);
ⵧ method (data theory including a description of what has been done);
ⵧ results (focal theory including what was found);
ⵧ discussion (development of focal theory and suggestions for future work);
ⵧ conclusions (summary and contribution).
These general sections can be further subdivided into relevant chapters, depending on your discipline and topic. In addition to the main sections your thesis will require, at the beginning, an abstract that summarizes the work in order to make the job of the examiners easier. There should also be a clear statement of the problem under exploration. Once they know what to expect, the examiners have a frame of reference for reading the thesis. At the end you should have a detailed list of references and any appendices
such as graphs, tables, data collection sheets, etc., that do not fit easily into the body of the thesis.
Your university will have detailed information on how the finished art- icle should look, including precise width of margins and wording of the title page. There will also be rules concerning the binding of the thesis and number of copies to be produced. Be sure that you are in possession of all this information so that you do not have a last-minute panic because you failed to adhere to some minor but crucial instruction.
Once you have all these formalities under your control you can begin to have fun with the thesis. Thinking of pertinent but snappy titles for your chapters and subsections is a pleasant diversion from churning out thou- sands of words which conform to the expectations of supervisors and examiners. Even the title of the thesis itself can be a source of entertain- ment for a while. Don’t go for the dry-as-dust and long-winded descriptive title. Yes, of course the title must bear a relationship to the contents, but that’s no reason for it to make what is inside the thesis sound boring. Try to whet the appetite of the reader, arouse the curiosity of the examiner.
One supervisor repeatedly told his students that he expected to be sup- plied with a thesis that would make bedtime reading, challenging his usual book. He expected to be so engrossed in it that he would be unable to put it down and would read it right through until 2 a.m. or later in order not to spoil the flow. This might sound like an impossible task, but that is no reason not to aim for it. What it means is that you have to use everyday English instead of jargon wherever possible, without losing the precision of definition that is essential. You should also keep to sentences that do not include complicated constructions, such as ever-increasing numbers of embedded clauses. Aim to impress with clarity as well as original and sound research. Remember that even well-established experts are human beings, and nobody enjoys turgid prose.
I The concept of originality
The aim of this section is to help you to get used to the idea that it is easy to be original. As you read further and realize the different definitions of originality that are acceptable, you should begin to feel more comfortable about your ability to be sufficiently original to satisfy your examiners.
The PhD is awarded for ‘an original contribution to knowledge’ In the statements that most universities have to guide examiners on the grading of theses, there is usually some reference to ‘unaided work’, ‘significant contribution’ and ‘originality’. As Francis (1976) has pointed out, however, you may be original in any one of a number of possible ways.
Francis, a professor of hydraulics working in the area of civil and mechanical engineering, observed eight ways in which students may be
considered to have shown originality. We agree with only the six listed below:
1 setting down a major piece of new information in writing for the first time;
2 continuing a previously original piece of work; 3 carrying out original work designed by the supervisor;
4 providing a single original technique, observation, or result in an otherwise unoriginal but competent piece of research;
5 having many original ideas, methods and interpretations all performed by others under the direction of the postgraduate;
6 showing originality in testing somebody else’s idea.
He concludes that the examiner’s interpretation of this ambiguity is an important component in the decision whether or not to award the PhD degree.
In later research, interviews with students, supervisors and examiners yielded nine further definitions of how a PhD can be original (Phillips 1993). These are:
1 carrying out empirical work that hasn’t been done before; 2 making a synthesis that hasn’t been made before;
3 using already known material but with a new interpretation;
4 trying out something in Britain that has previously only been done abroad;
5 taking a particular technique and applying it in a new area; 6 bringing new evidence to bear on an old issue;
7 being cross-disciplinary and using different methodologies;
8 looking at areas that people in the discipline haven’t looked at before; 9 adding to knowledge in a way that hasn’t been done before.
A total of 15 different definitions of originality has thus been obtained from those involved. This should be reassuring. It is much easier to be original in at least one of 15 possible ways than it is to be singularly original.
The main problem is that there is little or no discussion between stu- dents and their supervisors of what constitutes originality in the PhD. Although students and staff use the same word to describe a range of different concepts, they do not discuss with each other the definitions to which they are working. Further, academics think that it is not too difficult to be original because it is not necessary to have a whole new way of looking at the discipline or the topic. It is sufficient for the student to contribute only an incremental step in understanding. Unfortunately, supervisors do not usually tell their research students this.
For their part, postgraduates’ thoughts on originality change as they progress through their period of registration. In the beginning research
students tend to say things like, ‘I’m worried about that – I don’t know how creative I am.’ Students in their third year are more likely to say, ‘Now