The PhD is many students’ first experience of long-term independent academic work. In this way it is substantially different from a taught university course such an undergraduate degree. This orientation can be stressful! In this blog post, I provide three questions I found useful to define and focus my PhD research on a subject that matters to me. These are particularly relevant to newer students and while it’s not possible to have all the answers from the start – the research and its place in the world develop over time – these questions can help focus you on how to target your work. Not yet a PhD student? This post will provide questions to consider as you come up with potential plans for your project.
What would you like to see change because of your research?
This question has benefited me in two ways. First, it has helped me to focus on the main purpose of my research, which is to better understand what can influence harms in online discussions so I can support educating people about those harms and reducing them. Your motivation may lead your research to have an external focus and seek a certain change in society, though in any case you will also contribute knowledge to your discipline within academia, which is itself a form of change. Perhaps you are motivated to shine a spotlight on a certain under-valued author or theoretical idea, which could contribute valuably to the subject of your research and your academic discipline. Your motivation helps provide a perspective and thread that can run through your dissertation, affirm its value and encourage you. Second, this question has helped me articulate my research. At times, when asked about my research I would talk about its methodology – what I was doing and how I was doing it – rather than why I am doing it. Focusing on the change I’d like to see has helped me engage people who may (justifiably!) not be interested in the minutiae of my methodology. So think – what would you like to see change as a result of your research within academia and/or wider society? That could provide a starting point for a valued research pathway.
What will your research add to the conversation?
This question required me to position my research in the context of other researchers’ work that relates to mine. That enabled me to specify what I am adding to their conversation. Without some familiarity with what others have done – initially through my Master’s degree and later through a formal review of literature for my PhD – I could not have answered this question. Since the PhD adds to academic conversation, I needed to know who was saying what. A perhaps lesser-used but useful place to start is the British Library EThOS service, which enables you to read recent (and old) full text PhD dissertations from many UK universities. You can sort by publication date and search by subject, which helps you see where people who recently completed PhDs in your area have positioned their work.
How will you know when your research is finished?
In the UK, a PhD may take six years part time and entail a 100,000 word dissertation, writing up research that may also entail (for example) interview transcripts, datasets, artwork and/or computer code. This may feel expansive, but the confines of time and word count require students to define boundaries to their research tightly. This is positive, since it bounds the PhD project to answer, for example, specific questions about certain datasets, theories or groups, rather than feeling open ended. Defining these boundaries through your exploration of what others have done and what is within your scope to do, enables you to know when the research for your PhD is finished.
In the next blog, I’ll share questions that can help PhD students step toward having an impact with their research. Every PhD project has an audience!
Tim Kinnear 