PhD in Applied Linguistics by Thesis and Coursework

Students’ Guidebook

2017 - 2018

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SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 3

SECTION 2: THE PROGRAMME ...................................................................................................... 4

HISTORY ........................................................................................................................................ 4 STRUCTURE OF PROGRAMME .............................................................................................................. 4 STATUS AND PERIOD OF REGISTRATION ........................................................................................................... 4 RESIDENTIALS ............................................................................................................................................. 6 SUPERVISION .............................................................................................................................................. 6

SECTION 3 – YOUR STUDIES .......................................................................................................... 6

COURSEWORK ................................................................................................................................. 6 THESIS AND COURSEWORK COURSES .............................................................................................................. 7 FASS (FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES) COURSES ................................................................................. 7 MA COURSES ............................................................................................................................................. 8 ASSESSMENT .............................................................................................................................................. 8 AUDITING COURSES ..................................................................................................................................... 8 SUBMITTING COURSEWORK .......................................................................................................................... 8 DUE DATES................................................................................................................................................. 9 EXTENSIONS AND LATE SUBMISSIONS .............................................................................................................. 9 CONFIRMATION OF MARKS ........................................................................................................................... 9 ACCREDITATION FOR PRIOR LEARNING ............................................................................................................ 9 THESIS ......................................................................................................................................... 10 KEY MILESTONES ....................................................................................................................................... 10 ADDITIONAL DEGREES ..................................................................................................................... 12 MASTERS OF RESEARCH (MRES) .................................................................................................................. 12 MASTERS OF PHILOSOPHY (MPHIL) .............................................................................................................. 13

SECTION 4 – ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT ............................................................... 13

SUPPORT FOR YOUR STUDIES ............................................................................................................ 13 SUPERVISION ............................................................................................................................................ 13 RESIDENTIALS ........................................................................................................................................... 15 RESEARCH GROUPS .................................................................................................................................... 15 SOFTWARE, SERVICES AND EQUIPMENT......................................................................................................... 16 SUPPORT FOR YOU ......................................................................................................................... 16 CONSULTING AND COUNSELLING SERVICES .................................................................................................... 16 A FRIENDLY EAR ........................................................................................................................................ 16

APPENDIX A - STARTING TO WRITE YOUR THESIS ........................................................................ 17

APPRENDIX B - DOCTORAL-LEVEL THINKING AND CRITICAL WRITING .......................................... 21

APPENDIX C - THINGS NOT TO DO IN ACADEMIC WRITING .......................................................... 23

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SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the PhD in Applied Linguistics by Thesis and Coursework programme! You have joined a dynamic, intellectually diverse group of scholars that includes global leaders in corpus linguistics, literacies, pragmatics, second language learning and teaching, discourse studies (particularly critical discourse studies) and language testing. Our PhD students quite literally span the globe as our more than 150 students conduct their studies here and throughout their home countries. There’s a constant stream of scholars visiting our campus who will deepen your appreciation for current issues in our field and broaden your perspective on topics currently engaging our profession. There are research groups for you to join, informal conversations and debates to hold with your peers, conferences and workshops throughout Britain for you to attend…and your courses which will stimulate you further. There’s more than you can possibly take part in, an embarrassment of riches, a world of ideas. This is a PhD at Lancaster University.

Your first year is the time to explore. Whether you’re full-time or part-time, you want to wonder, to play with ideas and to stretch your thinking. It’s a time to go beyond what you think you know and to find out what’s out there. At the same time, we’ll be getting to know you and be finding out how we can support you in achieving your academic and professional goals. We’ll also be learning what you will be contributing to our community, because all of you come with experiences and ideas from which we can learn.

Your peers play an important role in your post-graduate experience. You’ll find that students in the Thesis and Coursework programme have a number of similarities. They appreciate that there’s a wide range of methodological approaches to data collection and analysis, and they want to know more about these options before finalizing their research design. They have practical work experience, enough to know that no one has all the answers and that there’s always more to learn. They’re often adding academic studies to the juggle of their personal and professional lives, which means they’re focused and organized. Sometimes you’ll find them intimidating, sometimes you’ll BE intimidating…it’s all part of the experience.

Your first year, then, is a time in which you’ll be becoming a member of multiple communities - intellectual communities, the departmental community and communities of peers. Orientation week is the first step in this process. We want you to feel welcome.

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SECTION 2: THE PROGRAMME

People pursue doctorate degrees for many different reasons. To a greater or lesser extent, all PhD students are interested in developing their capacities to engage with theory, read and critique empirical research, and design and carry out independent research studies. Some people are primarily motivated by career prospects, others by the opportunity to learn. Some come to the programme with a wealth of practical experience that informs their understandings and research choices. Others will be pursuing more theoretical studies. Regardless of your background, gaining a PhD requires you to make an original contribution to knowledge. That means you must:

• Develop a deep appreciation for the seminal works and current studies that provide the theoretical framework for your study.

• Craft research questions that address questions or extend understandings in your field. • Understand the methodological issues that must be addressed in designing research studies

and the epistemological underpinnings of the available methods. • Add to theory, address the practical implications of your research and/or expand

understandings of methodological issues in your field.

History The ‘PhD in Applied Linguistics by Thesis and Coursework’ programme was designed and created by Dr. Jane Sunderland and was an outgrowth of her work in Romania after the political and social changes of 1989. The first cohort began their studies in January 2001 and included students from Britain, the USA, Canada, Japan and Italy. The programme has continued to grow and thrive, and at any time there are now between 70 and 80 students working on their PhD in this programme. (There are also another 80 to 90 students pursuing their PhD by Thesis Only.) Students who start their degrees in October 2017 and January 2018 form the programme’s 18th cohort.

Structure of Programme The Thesis and Coursework programme is designed for you to simultaneously complete your coursework and develop your thesis. When appropriate, you are encouraged to identify opportunities to use your classes to advance your thesis’ development. The table on Page 5 provides a brief overview of the programme’s key elements and deadlines.

Status and Period of Registration

When you begin your studies at Lancaster University, you are classified as a provisional PhD student. Your status changes to PhD student after you are successfully confirmed (see “Key Milestones”, p.10).

Lancaster University requires all PhD students to maintain their registration with the university for a minimum period of enrolment: three years for full-time students, five years for part-time students in the T&C programme. If you continue to study beyond your minimum period, you may eventually qualify for ‘writing up fees (see page 6).

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Table 1 Overview of stages Programme Overview

* The year-to-year course breakdowns are suggestions only and students may decide on a different schedule in conjunction with their supervisor. However, we do not generally recommend that students take more than two courses per term.

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Writing up fees are substantially lower fees charged toward the end of your programme. While you are on writing up fees, it is assumed that your thesis is almost finished, that you are working on final edits, and that you require little to no supervision. Full-time students who have completed their minimum period of study move to writing up fees one year after successful confirmation; part-time students move to writing up fees after completing their minimum period of study and submitting a first full draft of their thesis to their supervisor, but not sooner than one year after successful confirmation.

Occasionally, students change from full-time to part-time status or vice versa, with no significant administrative problems. However, except in rare circumstances, you must change your status in your first year of study. Your minimum and maximum periods of study are calculated using your status at the end of your first year.

Residentials

Over the course of your programme, you will attend four residentials. These residentials, described in more detail in the next section, are a vital component of your programme. In addition to courses and workshops, they provide opportunities to establish your place within academic communities at Lancaster University and beyond. You are required to attend all four residentials in full.

Supervision

Applicants to the Thesis and Coursework programme are accepted by the department AND by a supervisor. That is, your supervisor(s) reviewed your application and decided that you’re someone with whom they want to work. No one will be more interested in your success than they are.

In all probability, your supervisor will be your one constant relationship over the course of your programme and you’ll want to invest time in learning their expectations of PhD students in general and you in particular. Occasionally students change supervisors, sometimes because their thesis topic and/or methodology has shifted and sometimes because a supervisor has retired or otherwise left Lancaster’s employment. Whenever possible, students are actively consulted about such changes although this is not always possible.

On rare occasions, students decide to change their topic so radically that it no longer fits within their supervisor’s area of expertise. In such situations, the student assumes all risk for the quality of the thesis: no student is entitled to a new supervisor because they want to change their topic.

Lancaster University has very clear expectations of supervisors AND students as it relates to maintaining regular and on-going communication. There is a link to the Code of Conduct from Group 17’s Moodle site.

SECTION 3 – YOUR STUDIES

The Thesis and Coursework programme requires you to complete 120 credits of coursework and to successfully defend your PhD Thesis. The degree is awarded solely on the basis of the thesis.

Coursework Students complete 120 credits of coursework, 60 credits in Applied Linguistics and 60 credits in Research Methods. Your initial coursework plan should be completed and approved by your supervisor and submitted to Elaine Heron by the end of your first week in the programme. (Please

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see your Welcome Pack for the necessary forms.) Most students complete their coursework over two years; however, some full-time students complete it over a shorter period.

Thesis and Coursework Courses Courses offered in the Thesis and Coursework (T&C) Programme are scheduled over a two year period; that is, courses offered in the first year of your programme are different than courses offered in the second year of your programme. Classes start in January and finish in July. The first units are conducted face-to-face and held during the January residential. Then classes continue online, with the exact number of classes or ‘units’ conducted by distance varying by course. (Note: There are 9 units in a 20-credit course.) The classes conclude with another set of face-to-face classes during the July residential.

The T&C Research Methods courses alternate each year. The courses offered in 2018 are Quantitative Methods for Applied Linguistics (20 credits), Interview Methods and Questionnaire Design (10 credits) and Collecting, Analyzing and Transcribing Spoken Data (10 credits). In 2019, we will offer Qualitative Data and Analysis for Applied Linguistics (20 credits), Reading Research Papers (10 credits) and Critical Approaches to Social Data in Applied Linguistics (10 credits).

The T&C Applied Linguistics courses differ each year; however, they are not offered on a rotating basis. Instead, students in the first year of their programme are offered a selection of possible courses (usually 5) that could be offered in their second year. Each student votes for three courses, and the three courses with the most votes are offered in the following year. (Note: In the event of a tie, greater weight is given to the votes of students who are studying ‘away.’) Thus, the courses offered in 2017 were selected by Group 16 and they are Corpus Linguistics, Digital Literacies and Sociolinguistics. Voting for 2019 courses will take place in Spring 2018.

FASS (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences) Courses FASS courses are organized at the faculty rather than department level and include a number of post-graduate courses that may be of interest to you. These include credit and non-credit courses, face-to-face and digitally-mediated courses, and subject matter and research methods courses. There are FASS courses on qualitative and quantitative methods, although they are not tailored to topics in applied linguistics. It is also possible to take post-graduate courses in other departments IF

Figure 1 Overview of Course Requirements

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you are able to obtain that department’s permission. Check the FASS website for post-graduate students for more information about these courses.

MA Courses T&C students may also choose from among any of the face-to-face and/or distance Masters courses. Registration in distance courses is conditional on available space and approval of the appropriate Director of Studies.

Assessment Coursework for students in the T&C programme is assessed differently than for Masters students. Unless you have chosen to pursue an MRes (see p.11), your papers are assessed on a Pass/Fail basis. In addition, you will receive extensive formative assessment as well as an indication as to whether your work is at, approaching or below PhD level. The emphasis is on developing your capacities as an academic researcher, including but not limited to the quality of your writing, and you are expected to use your feedback to improve your subsequent coursework as well as your thesis. For this reason, it is important that your coursework is representative of your capacities and capabilities as an academic. All coursework must receive a passing grade for you to continue as a T&C student.

At the same time, we recognize that your understandings of academic research and writing will be developing throughout your programme. Some students come from academic cultures that are very different from the culture they encounter at Lancaster. Therefore, in accordance with university policy, you may revise and resubmit a failed piece of coursework for up to 50% of your required course credits (60 credits). Again, the focus is on your development as an academic researcher and only your final grade is recorded in your student file.

Auditing Courses

T&C students are welcomed and encouraged to audit courses. If you audit a course, you are expected to attend every class and to complete the readings and activities that are expected of students taking the course for credit; however, you do not write a final paper. Many T&C students audit courses. Being practical, you are unlikely to be able to audit more than one course per term – occasionally students try but very quickly they find they cannot manage the workload – but auditing provides a valuable opportunity for broadening your intellectual horizons.

The T&C programme is unusual in that you do not decide which course(s) you are taking for credit in advance. Thus, you might attend three courses during the Michaelmas (Fall) term and decide in November that you’ll only take one course for credit even though you initially planned to write papers for two. We are flexible because we are focused on your academic development and because we want to encourage you to explore ideas, concepts and theories before deciding too quickly on your research design.

Submitting Coursework

All coursework is submitted on Moodle. Each piece of coursework or paper MUST be accompanied by a T&C cover sheet, which is available on the Moodle site for Group 15. DO NOT use the cover sheet for Masters courses. Coursework will not be forwarded to the tutor for marking until the correct cover sheet has been properly completed and submitted. See Appendix X for grading criteria.

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Due Dates

For T&C courses, students submit one piece of coursework on or before September 30 and the remaining coursework on November 30. In other words, for the courses you start in January and finish in July, you decide which course paper you will submit in September and which you will submit in November.

For FASS and Masters courses, the due date for that coursework is established by that programme.

Extensions and Late Submissions

Different cultures treat punctuality and lateness quite differently. Lancaster University is very strict about submitting coursework on time and policies on late submission need to be taken very seriously. Extensions may be granted for serious medical or family emergencies; extensions will not be granted because of changing work circumstances or because of the demands of a current/new workplace. Requests for extensions must be sent to Elaine Heron; all decisions regarding extensions are made by the Director of Studies for that programme. Requests for extensions for medical reasons must be accompanied by documentation from a doctor and the documentation must include their contact information.

If you do not submit a paper by the established deadline, we will assume you have audited the course. This very strict requirement balances the flexibility you have in deciding which courses to take for credit.

Confirmation of Marks To ensure all students are treated equitably, English universities follow a process for reviewing coursework and marks. Each university is different; Lancaster University programmes follow one of four available options. Regardless of which option is chosen, no grades are final until the list of course outcomes has been reviewed and approved by an external examiner and/or the individual paper has been read by the external examiner and the mark approved. External examiners are selected and approved by the university administration and are academics from another university.

There are several other points you should know about how your papers are marked:

• Fifty credits of your coursework will be read by your supervisor as well as by the course tutor, and your supervisor will provide additional feedback on these papers. When you complete your course plan with your supervisor, please decide which papers your supervisor would like to read and indicate your choices on your course plan.

• The external examiner reads a sample of all coursework. This is part of the process of ensuring fairness and equity in our marking.

• Any coursework which received a “Fail” is read by your supervisor and the external examiner. In other words, every failing paper is read by three people. We are very cautious about assigning a failing grade and you can be confident that we take the decision very seriously.

Accreditation for Prior Learning

If you have a record of outstanding academic achievement in your Masters studies and if a course in your Masters programme was comparable to a course in the T&C programme, you may apply for accreditation of prior learning for one course. If your prior course is accredited, then your Applied

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Linguistics requirement is reduced by 20 credits and your total credits of coursework required during your T&C programme is reduced to 100. Decisions on accreditation are made on a case-by-case basis.

Word Length Regulations for Coursework

Coursework should strictly comply with the specified word limit (2500 or 5000).

Thesis Your work on your thesis begins the moment you begin your programme. The thinking-reading-thinking-writing-thinking-reading-and-writing-some-more that is vital to completing your thesis won’t always have obvious outcomes, but is part of how ideas develop and grow.

Key Milestones

There are three key milestones prior to submitting your thesis in advance of your viva: pre-confirmation panel, confirmation panel and post-confirmation panel. The table on the following page summarizes key details about each of these panels.

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Your pre- and post-confirmation panels are conversations with critical friends, a staff member who isn’t afraid to ask you tough questions but whose only interest is supporting you in your academic endeavours. Your panel member is a fresh set of eyes and ears, and someone whose vantage point may help them spot gaps that are less obvious to you and your supervisor. These panels are also an opportunity to speak confidentially with another staff member about the support you’re receiving in your programme.

Your confirmation panel is a significant formal assessment that takes place after you have successfully completed your coursework. It’s a formal review of your progress on your PhD. How much progress are you expected to have made? If you’re a full-time student, you are expected to be able to complete your PhD one year after your confirmation panel. Most students are successfully confirmed after their first confirmation panel, although sometimes a student will be asked to make minor changes or revision. In this case, the official confirmation date is the date that the amended document is approved by the confirmation panel member. Sometimes a first panel is not successful and a decision is deferred. All PhD students are allowed a second confirmation panel, which is scheduled approximately 3 months later. A student who is not successfully confirmed at this point does not proceed with their PhD studies.

Additional information about panels is available on the department webpage “Additional Resources for Current Students” (http://ling.lancs.ac.uk/study/phd/resources.htm).

Word Length Regulations for Thesis

Your thesis should strictly comply with the specified word limit (70,000 for a PhD in Applied Linguistics by thesis and coursework). When submitting, you are required to make a declaration of the word length of the thesis and confirm that it does not exceed the permitted maximum. Please make sure that you consult the Postgraduate Research Assessment regulations well before finalising your thesis. These can be found at this website: https://gap.lancs.ac.uk/ASQ/QAE/MARP/Documents/PGR-Assess-Regs.pdf; pay particular attention to the sections on pages 25, 26, 27, which set out the expectations on word length, style, layout and presentation.

In some cases, you might want to appeal the word limit (for example, is where data involves translation, and both original and translated data is required in the thesis). If there is a case to be made for allowing you greater word length, your supervisor has to make a request to Sharon Huttly, the Pro Vice Chancellor.

Additional Degrees There are two additional degrees that are open to you, a Masters of Research and a Masters of Philosophy.

Masters of Research (MRes)

An MRes is a Masters level degree which can be achieved in addition to a PhD. The MRes is appropriate for a student with an outstanding record of academic achievement and is sometimes useful for students whose home country values multiple rather than the highest degree achieved. Students pursuing an MRes have their coursework marked differently and must produce an additional major paper, the equivalent of a traditional Masters thesis. Key details are:

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• The decision to pursue an MRes is made when you submit your first piece of coursework. • The coursework of a student pursuing an MRes is marked on a percentage basis. • Penalties for late submission are handled in accordance with university policies for MA

students. • A student pursuing an MRes may not take for credit a course which they have previously

audited. • T&C students must achieve marks that meet the academic entry requirements for the T&C

programme or they will not be confirmed as a PhD student. In practice, this generally equates with an overall average of 60% on coursework and a mark of no less than 60% for the major paper.

• Students pursuing an MRes write a major paper of 12,500 words on a topic that has been approved by their supervisor.

o A full-time student typically writes this paper at the end of their first year, a part-time student at the end of their second, but it must be completed before the confirmation panel.

o The paper must include original research. This may take the form of a pilot study for the research that will form the PhD.

o Sections of the MRes may be used in a student’s confirmation document; however, a confirmation document serves a different

• An MRes is marked by the student’s supervisor and second-marked by staff member chosen by the supervisor.

Note: The MRes is only open to students who have been accepted to the T&C programme.

Masters of Philosophy (MPhil)

A Masters of Philosophy is an alternative degree to the PhD. It is available to students who begin their PhD programme but because of changes in personal circumstances and/or failure to pass their confirmation panel are unable to continue with their studies. As with an MRes, the Masters of Philosophy requires successful completion of coursework and a major paper. Your supervisor and/or Director of Studies (Jen Philp) are open to discussing an MPhil with you at any point.

SECTION 4 – ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT

The department, faculty and university are deeply interested in your success and provide a range of supports for your on-going development. The following is a brief summary of some of these, but it is worthwhile exploring more of what the university has to offer.

Support for your Studies

Supervision

The most important support you have is the coaching and guidance you receive from your supervisor. The university expects that you will spend an hour a month (PT) or fortnight (FT) with your supervisor(s), discussing your progress, exploring ideas and strategizing your next steps. Away students typically use Skype or another internet platform for these meetings. When you’re collecting data or writing, you may find yourself wanting to cancel or postpone these meetings. Don’t – or at

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least not more than once or twice. Your supervisor can provide better support when they understand how your thinking is evolving and they can’t do that without regular contact.

The general principles that guide communication with your supervisor are:

• Take responsibility for maintaining contact. You should not expect your supervisor to chase you.

• Submit work at the agreed time. If you are late for some reason, let your supervisor know before the deadline and explain the reason. If possible set a realistic new deadline.

• If major disruptions to your study occur tell your supervisor as soon as possible.

We know from experience that at some stage you are likely to feel reluctant to communicate with your supervisor, and will be tempted to ‘hide’. This could be because you have just made less progress than you would like, or because some crisis in your private or professional life is making it difficult to work on your research. If this happens please continue to keep in touch regularly with your supervisor. If we do not know what is happening we cannot help you.

If you are unable to make good progress there are a number of ways that we may be able to help, for example

• Put you in touch with the University’s counselling service • Suggest ways you can get help with academic writing • Arrange an intercalation for a specified period. This means you stop paying fees and the

clock stops on your studies. You can resume where you left off at the end of the period. Intercalations are not granted lightly by the University, but they can be given for a variety of reasons, e.g. for maternity or paternity, for medical reasons, for periods of intense work in your job, or for catastrophic events such as natural disasters or wars affecting you or your family. You must present a case (and usually documentation) showing why you need to intercalate. During intercalation, students are not entitled to use the library, computer or other university facilities, or to receive supervision or tuition.

• If you do not keep in touch with your supervisor, after a while we will start to assume that there is an academic problem. Examples of behaviour which cause us to think that you are having problems with reaching the required standard are:

• Long silences – failing to contact your supervisor spontaneously, allowing long periods to pass without ‘checking in’

• Not replying to emails – we realise that emails can go astray, but when supervisors write several times and do not receive a reply, we will draw the conclusion that you are receiving the emails and not answering them

• Missing deadlines – when a deadline is agreed for you to deliver some work, and you do not do so, and when you fail to meet further deadlines as well

These kinds of behaviour, especially when two or more occur together, put a strain on the supervisor-student relationship and after a while, we will come to think that there is an academic performance issue, i.e. that you are unable or unwilling to produce the required work. When this stage is reached you will

1. Receive a message from your supervisor pointing out that you have not been keeping in contact/have been missing deadlines to an unacceptable extent

2. Receive a message from the Director of Studies asking you to make immediate contact

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3. Receive a further message warning you that if you do not make an acceptable response immediately, the Department will request the Student Registry to take steps to end your registration

4. Receive a message from the Registry proposing to de-register you as a student.

Please do not let things reach this stage. There is a simple rule:

Keep in regular contact!

Residentials

Throughout your residentials, you will participate in sessions on academic writing, panel preparation and other topics which have a direct relevance to your current stage in your PhD programme. You will also have regular opportunities to make short presentations on your work and to learn about your peers’ studies. These sessions provide an important foundation for writing your thesis and disseminating your research.

Research Groups

The department has several research groups (e.g. Literacies, Language Testing, Gender and Language), which meet weekly or fortnightly. In addition to reading and discussing recent published work, visiting scholars, research students and staff often present their work and discuss their ideas. These research groups tend to run during Lancaster University term times, however if you can come to Lancaster at times other than the residentials we hope you will join one or more of these groups. The department also has a Postgraduate Research Students Conference each July (during the Residential) for which students in year 2 are expected to submit an abstract. You are also encouraged to attend national and international conferences and eventually present your own work there. The Faculty offers a small travel award to students who are presenting at conferences.

PURE

Pure is the University’s new research information system that will enable you to record information about yourself and your research.

If you are a registered PhD student, whether based on campus or a distance learner, you can use Pure to record information about your research and, if you wish, create a web profile which can be used to promote your research. This profile will appear on the university research portal as well as your departmental ‘People’ page, under research students.

You can log into Pure at: http://pure.lancs.ac.uk using your usual network account details.

There are some links to Pure user guides below:

• Information about Pure for Students

• Edit your student profile

• Submit a thesis electronically

• FAQ's

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Software, Services and Equipment

Students who are studying or visiting Lancaster have access to computer and research labs, cameras and recorders for data collection, photocopy services and data analysis software. Before you finalize your research design, make sure you know what’s available for your studies.

Support for You

Consulting and Counselling Services

FASS and Lancaster provide a range of consulting and counselling services. There are people who will provide you with assistance in selecting and using statistical methods. FASS has a counsellor who provides on-going writing (not proofreading!) support. The library will help you organize your literature search; people in counselling services will help you find ways of achieving balance in your studies. Your supervisor and/or Director of Studies can help you locate the services you need.

A Friendly Ear

Administrators, tutors, your supervisor and your Director of Studies want to help whenever they can. Never be afraid to ask.

When Things Aren’t Working

Our postgraduate programmes are organized to support you in successfully completing your studies. In addition to the courses, workshops and training events offered to postgraduate taught (Masters) and postgraduate research (PhD) students, you have the ongoing support of your advisor/supervisor and your programme’s Director of Studies (DoS). Your relationship with your advisor/supervisor is particularly important, as the coaching and advice you receive from them is crucial to furthering your academic development. This is one reason we put such emphasis on communication.

However, sometimes and for whatever reason, communication breaks down and/or a student isn’t sure how to raise a troubling issue with their supervisor. If that should happen to you, your DoS is another important source of support. They can:

• help you with the department’s and university’s policies and procedures;

• identify counselling and/or other university supports if you need to talk with someone other than your supervisor about personal issues; and/or

• support you in deciding how to raise a sensitive issue with your supervisor.

Sometimes they can simply be a sympathetic ear when you need to talk. The important point is that if challenges do arise, you have somewhere to turn.

In very rare circumstances, a postgraduate student may not be comfortable talking with their DoS. In such circumstances, then you may want to talk with the department’s Director of Postgraduate Studies or the Department Head. Or you may choose to follow the university’s “Complaints and Appeals Procedure” and launch a formal complaint about how your situation has been handled. Regardless of how you choose to proceed, the objective is to ensure you have the supports to which you’re entitled as a postgraduate student at Lancaster University.

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APPENDIX A - STARTING TO WRITE YOUR THESIS

As indicated in the Manual of Academic Regulations and Procedures (MARP), see https://gap.lancs.ac.uk/ASQ/QAE/MARP/Pages/default.aspx, the results of your research “must then be embodied in a thesis which makes an original contribution to knowledge and the completed thesis must contain material of a standard appropriate for scholarly publication”. Easier said than done, of course.

We’ve included below some of what you would have heard and discussed had you taken the Faculty of Social Sciences Research Training Programme module ‘Starting a Dissertation’, taught by Greg Myers some time ago.

(Adapted from Greg Myers, ‘Starting a Dissertation’ module; for ‘I’ read Greg)

‘A Question of Identity’

The basic problem as I see it is that PhD students are between two well-defined conditions, that of student and that of lecturer. Universities are set up to take care of either of these two roles, but the thesis writer has both, especially if he or she is already a lecturer or other professional, or if he or she spends a lot to time teaching.

Is a PhD thesis so different from an undergraduate essay? Apparently, because almost anyone doing a PhD is very good indeed at essay writing, and almost everyone has a hard time adapting to the different expectations of a dissertation. Is a thesis so different from published academic writing? Apparently, since academics can usually tell – and condemn – the style. Despite the now archaic demand that the work be publishable, theses nearly always have to be substantially re-written to be published in the current academic market. They are probably both narrower in topic and longer than anything one writes later in one’s career. And they seem to be irremediably defensive.

Most treatments of research try to present the PhD as an orderly transition from one state to the other. One begins as a student, heavily supervised, and gradually becomes independent, sets one’s own deadlines, finds one’s own readers, evaluates one’s own work, participates more in the wider discipline. Phillips and Pugh (in How to Get a PhD) try to explain the PhD by saying it is a certificate of professional competence to do research in a specific discipline, and the candidate must display the proper mastery. This combines the idea of display, as a student, with the idea of a professional goal, and it helps explain why theses are so very different from other forms of academic writing.

But this transition model, in which the PhD student becomes a bona fide researcher in gradual stages, doesn’t explain why the writing is so hard. It tries to make the PhD experience simpler than it is, by making a single coherent identity for the student. Handbooks, like Phillips and Pugh’s, seem to assume that the students are almost universally mistaken in their understanding of what a PhD is, and that the supervisors are also confused. The answer, for them, is to make the process more explicit, to offer a PhD programme that would teach the various things that PhD students need to know, dividing up the transition into schedules stages.

A more productive model might be to see PhD students – and their supervisors – as holding several conflicting identities at once. With that model, we could draw on various social accounts of being in between, of crossing boundaries, of being mixed. If they are liminal in this way, we might expect that PhD students would make both undergraduate students and lecturers very uncomfortable, and that there would be rituals and rules for regulating the challenge they pose to the teacher/student

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dichotomy. We could use phrases like ‘rite of passage’, or ‘taboo’. For many students, particularly those doing a PhD part-time, it is even more complicated than this, because they must maintain another identity at the same time, at their jobs or with their families.

You may find that problems of writing a PhD are not just with writing, in itself. Because a PhD takes so long, it is tied up with divorces, illnesses, deaths in the family, kids being born or growing up, moving house, coups, elections back home, cyclical depressions, migraines, flights, visa, car repairs, jobs, new computers. OK, life goes on for us all, whether we are writing a thesis or not. But undergraduate essays (judging by the notes I get asking for extensions) seem to be written in the brief periods between the personal crises. The writing of lecturers can be put on the back burner, for a while, when other parts of life take priority. Somehow with a PhD the writing has to go on, despite it all, for three years or more, with all that must happen in that time.

Practical Advice

Planning

Most people seem to spend about six months flailing around trying to make a focused topic out of the research area they have proposed. My way of planning is to make one-page long rough outlines – somehow keeping it to one page helps. Other people like sketching out a sort of diagram, connecting boxes with arrows. Some arrange their index cards with topics on them in various piles on the floor or the kitchen table. Others might find it easier to try to explain what they are doing to someone else, and then write it down if it makes sense. If you are stuck, try writing a letter to someone, real or imaginary, and explaining what you are doing.

Remember that a problem or a topic or an interest is not a basis for a thesis. You have to have something specific to say about it, usually testing or extending something already established. Phillips and Pugh make the practical suggestion that you should plan your claim so that you can write something interesting whether it holds up or whether it is shot down. There has to be a fallback position, something you can make of whatever you come up with.

You will almost certainly be narrowing your topic over the module of the thesis, preferably early on. But remember narrowing doesn’t just mean a smaller geographical or historical scope, or smaller number of subjects. It means finding a specific way of linking some data and a claim – a more definite argument, not necessarily a more limited domain.

Getting it on Paper

Schedules in applications for grants often have a section at the end called ‘writing up’. I guess some people must save this for the last year, but I can’t imagine how. Nearly every supervisor I’ve talked to says writing should start right away, as soon as you’ve located the Department and the library. But people put it off, until they get such and such data, or read such and such article, or get such and such book from inter-library loan, or get access to somewhere. Don’t. Remember the stuff you write at this stage isn’t likely to go into the thesis. It may be notes on reading (try getting yourself to write, say, a page on each article or chapter you read). It may be a scrap of argument, a couple of pages you imagine for a chapter 6 or the beginning of chapter 3. Or it may be a very messy forty-page draft of a whole chapter, done in two days, with bits left out to fill in later. But do write all the time, at least once a week. This will prevent your having to face a blank page later. And don’t worry about wasting time chasing stray ideas that never make their way into the project. This is essential work for most people.

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The students that I supervise usually have something written for every meeting, even if it is just a page or two of notes on reading, or an analysis of one text. Don’t worry about revealing to the supervisor how confused you are – you’ve got time to change any initial bad impressions. Some students also come with a written list of questions for me; I didn’t suggest that, but it seems a good idea, because the end of the session is often rushed. Vague talk, without any writing, usually doesn’t get anywhere.

What comes first? As far as I know, parts of theses, like scenes of movies, are never created in the order in which they are finally presented. Some people like to start with the introductory review of the literature, though I consider that pretty intimidating. Some start with the methods, if they are in a field in which methods are pretty standard, and therefore easy to predict. Some like to dive into the best parts of the data, and write up a description or try out an analysis. Some do a pilot study that is the whole thesis in miniature.

There are a lot of approaches, but it may be there are two basic types: those who like to start small and accumulate well polished and neat bits until they have a whole picture, and those who like to sketch out the whole picture in broad messy strokes and then work on the bits. Whichever strategy you choose, it is important to remember that a great deal will change before you have finished: whole chapters and topics will disappear, and some bit you thought could be covered in a page will swell to a paragraph, and you could wind up attacking the claim you originally tentatively proposed. The big difference between this and any other writing you have done is that you have to allow for such changes. If you stick rigidly to your plan you may finish on time but you may not learn enough.

Revising: Parts and Wholes

Theses, whatever else they are, are always large and lumpy. They are lumpy because they are inevitably written in sections, over a period of time, while one is learning. So at the last stages there is always a problem of making them hold together, and making the later stuff fit with the earlier stuff. This is not just presentation; it is real intellectual work. It is good to remember that in the end, the thesis as a whole may fit as a brief reference in some other argument. Publications based on it are more likely to be used if there is one clear point. Or, if you do not publish the thesis as a whole, you will want to be able to pick out sections that make sense on their own.

It is not just a matter of presentation, but it is also partly a matter of presentation. You have to justify to the reader the reading of each section. And there needs to be some sense of proportion, so that unimportant areas do not get too much weight. (Readers sitting with 300 hard-to-skim pages in their laps find unimportant parts annoying.)

Revision is not usually taught to undergraduates, and many students get by pretty well with essays written late on the night before they are due (or after they are due). Good students may still think of revising as something like correcting (which is also necessary, but is quite different). A thesis is too big to be done in one go; it must change shape as it evolves. It may be helpful to pay attention to the physical process of revising. How do you mark up the text? How do you move things around? What role does the word processor play? How do you step back and see the whole? Is it satisfying to revise? When do you know to stop?

Picking up the Pieces after Time Away from the Thesis

Many research students now are busy teaching or doing other work. That means weeks often go by before time opens up again for writing. Some tactical suggestions for picking up a draft again:

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• Read one (no more than one) new article. • Try outlining the last draft, and moving the parts around. • Mark spaces for inserts, and on another page, fill in the gaps in the previous draft. • Without looking at it, write a new introduction, or a 4 or 5 page version of the whole

chapter. Then go over the rest to see if it can fit with this. • Volunteer for a research seminar.

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APPRENDIX B - DOCTORAL-LEVEL THINKING AND CRITICAL WRITING

To critique existing work, you need to intellectually engage with it (positively and/or negatively):

• What are its strengths and its shortcoming (conceptualisation, methodology)? • What does it not do? What does it not take account of (e.g. recent evidence)? • What is striking about it? • Are the research questions clear? • Is something overstated or understated? Over-rated or under-rated? • How does it compare with other work (findings, methodology, conceptualisation)? • Is the study built on an unreasonable (or unrationalised) assumption? • Is some relevant work ignored? • Are some claims illogical? (e.g. that if A and B co-occur, one causes the other) Check the

argumentation carefully. • Are there other inconsistencies or gaps in the argument? • If your critique includes negative observations, use an actual, direct quotation (see below)

rather than a paraphrase; make sure you have understood what they mean. • Look at the language of mitigation (e.g. may mean, might mean, some/all) • Summarise a writer’s view (accurately) before you evaluate it • Consider ‘competing hypotheses’, e.g. the writer may offer an explanation for something,

but might there be possible others • Consider dates of references: are they out of date now (i.e. have things moved on)? • How are particular concepts understood (indeed, are they defined)? Are there other ways

of understanding them? What are the controversies surround a given concept? (i.e. don’t just accept it)

• Is the amount of data sufficient to warrant the claims? Is the data ‘representative’ (of what)? Are ‘differences’ statistically significant?

• Is the type of data appropriate to warrant the claims? (e.g. we can’t really find out how people speak from how they say they speak (why not?); we can’t even really find out how they think they speak from how they say they think they speak (why not?))

• Evaluation (e.g. of an instrument): is it good in some ways and bad in other? What can it do? What can it not do?

• Pilot studies: what exactly was piloted? What was not? • Is the procedure ethical, in all respects?

N.B. Do not be overawed (or completely accepting) if the work is by a very famous person; they can still be partial (e.g. proponents of CDA and CA think A is more important than B, since this is the basis of their respective approaches). However, they have the benefit of experience – so tread carefully.

In general (reviewing literature, and beyond):

• Show that you understand the literature and can see how different ideas and theories relate to one another. Instead of writing a patchwork summary (even if it is good summary) of past research, synthesise what you read and build it up into a ‘story’ of your own

• Show independent thinking, don’t only review and quote literature

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• Show that you can ‘challenge the traditional’ • Show that you can adequately apply theories/methods to new objects of investigation • Show curiosity about new problems, and ask questions about them • Make your own distinctions (e.g. within concepts), and be prepared to critique distinctions

made by others

Using direct quotations (especially long ‘block’ quotations):

• Introduce quote/Quote the quote/Comment on quote • Edit the quote to make it relevant (e.g. omit words/phrases, using dots to show omissions) • In your comment, comment on what is salient about the quote

In general

• Be as precise and to the point (i.e. avoid vagueness) as much as possible; remember Shaw’s dictum: “I’m sorry to be writing you such a long letter. I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

Being critical of your own academic writing

• Revisit your previous assumptions (to show learning) • Comment on your partial/superficial claims made previously • In particular, be critical of your practices in a pilot study • Comment on your linguistic choices (e.g. use of ‘respondents’ or ‘participants’?) • Could it be deeper? More analytical? • Might there be more than one (or two, or three) possible explanations for a given

phenomenon that you have identified? • Methodologically, what did you not do, that you could (sensibly) have done? Why not?

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APPENDIX C - THINGS NOT TO DO IN ACADEMIC WRITING

(unless you actually want to annoy your supervisor and examiners)

Macro issues

What NOT to do…

• Organise your argument badly: what you need to do is build up an argument (this is especially relevant to the Literature Review); signposting is important

• Omit rationales for major decisions/choices (e.g. RQs, data selection, theoretical framework) • Ignore other relevant work in the topic area (which means wide reading and discussing with

others) • Include potted background histories (e.g. of a country and its language situation) which try

to encapsulate everything in a page or so but in so doing are simplistic, inaccurate and throw the idea of critical analysis to the winds!

• Provide insufficient detail in your methodology (replication of the study should be possible)

Writing

What NOT to do…

• Say the same thing repeatedly, even if in slightly different words; and don’t write a boring conclusion which just repeats in summary form what has been said in the rest of the thesis

• Omit important signposting and meta-writing (‘why this, here?’); links between paragraphs, and between sentences, should be clear (cohesion may be implicit or explicit)

• Omit to explain table and graphs (especially what is salient); these also need captions • ‘quote and run’: a quote should be introduced, used, then commented on as appropriate,

especially if there are key concepts in the quote (otherwise it looks as if you don’t understand what you’re quoting: you need to take control of your quotations!)

• Use unnecessarily wordy prose and/or prose which is unclear, over-abstract, more complex than it needs to be or just plain obtuse. Over-abstract almost always betrays lack of precise thought or understanding

• Include key terms without defining them (for the thesis), and discussing them • Use non-standard abbreviations excessively (makes it difficult to read if you can’t remember

what they all mean!) • Use the word ‘significant’ when a significance test has not been applied (you can just about

get away with using this word in purely qualitative writing, e.g. ‘socially significant’, but NOT in anything that involves numbers

Presentation

What NOT to do…

• Miss out references (not only from the Bibliography, but also from the text, in those places where a reference is clearly needed)

• Misspell author names • Leave in typographical errors • Hand in first drafts of things, that, if you had read over your work, you could have revised

and made more understandable and presentable

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• Make the same grammatical error again after your supervisor has pointed it out • Present poorly – missing page numbers, failure to distinguish clearly different levels of

heading, failure to indicate paragraphing in a user-friendly way (e.g. no extra space in indent used, just a line break

And six more (mainly from Greg Myers; and yes, there is a joke in here):

• Big value claims • Repetition • Unnecessary obligatory references to Bakhtin, Foucault, Fairclough, Habermas, Wenger and

the external examiner (unnecessary in that they aren’t really developed and used, and may look like uncritical ‘mindless parroting)

• Background on the country, university, or historical event that doesn’t relate to the argument

• Diagrams that explain nothing • Repetition