Research overview explanation (2)
One of the big decisions in the early stages of a PhD is consideration what discipline the thesis is in. For some students, this might be straightforward or obvious, but for many students doing anything that is remotely cross-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and/or trans-disciplinary research, this is a major issue. Discipline here doesn’t necessarily mean a macro-level discipline like sociology or geography (although it could), what is implied here is the subdiscipline (or discourse) in which the student will claim proficiency at the end of the thesis. Identifying the body of scholarship that they belong to is important for two reasons. Firstly, it has a large bearing on who the examiners should be. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it assists in locating the student in a field and defining the literature that they need to connect with. It creates an identity for the student, and perhaps indicates what professional associations they should join and what journals they should browse. Note that sometimes decisions about the discipline might change over the course of a PhD as a student takes a different direction than was intended at the beginning.
In addition to the (sub)discipline, the Research Overview also asks about relevant discourses. Especially in interdisciplinary projects, this refers to all the areas of literature that are relevant to the topic and that should be included in the literature review. This is a list that typically changes over the course of the discussions. It starts by deconstructing the topic and title, but it can also utilize the information in the student’s passion and positioning statements. It also comes from deconstructing the research questions. Because in some cases there can be many topics that get listed, I encourage a division into those that are regarded as being primary discourses and those of only secondary importance. In the beginning, this should be an open, unconstrained brainstorming process, but over time it should be narrowed down or focused in order to be more manageable.
Universities have different rules about examiner selection and whether or not students have a formal role or not in that process. It is a good idea to be clear about your university’s rules on this matter. Irrespective of the rules, however, it is a good idea for both supervisor and student to think about examiners early on. In the very beginning, the statement here should be of the type of examiner (in terms of disciplinary location), but over time in may become a more specific statement. Knowing what discipline the thesis is in, and what the primary discourses are, is a good way of thinking about who the examiners might be. Examiners can also be chosen on the basis of: (i) who will be able to relate to it conceptually – ie they should be sympathetic (at least not hostile) towards your theoretical approach and/or methodology; (ii) who needs to read your work because of their role; (iii) who you want to read your work in order that you might influence them; and finally (iv) who you want as your champion. Of course, it is always a good idea to ensure that any potential examiner is well cited in the thesis, but don’t overdo it either!
Because very few people actually read theses, if you are to achieve your mission (objectives) it is usually the case that you want to produce some publications and/or other outputs. Thinking about the audiences for these outputs helps to develop a publication plan, but it also helps in ensuring consistency of the overall thesis overview.
It is one thing to have a topic or even a title, but they often don’t mean a lot on their own. Very early in the thesis process, some sort of description, summary, synopsis or précis is required and eventually an abstract of the thesis is needed. Writing a good abstract is difficult, especially early on. At the same time however, a description of the research is needed for many reasons. As a process of developing the thesis, there are several components that make up a good abstract:
- something about the problem context that makes the project worthwhile;
- having an idea about what you are likely to find (and eventually did find), ie some hypotheses and/or perhaps some recommendations;
- outlining the methodology to be used;
- stating the theoretical framework to be used;
- and, of course, stating the research question.
All of these things need to be spelled out in the thesis and therefore are included in the Thesis Overview and Outline Template.