The PhD ProcessThe Practice of Social Research

Nicholas Gane

Designed to address some key practical issues in social research, regardless of your disciplinary background

These include: thinking about the relation between theory and method in your PhD; how to combine different research methods and paradigms; how to situate your own contribution; questions of research ethics; public engagement and ‘impact’; and what eventually you will be aiming for when you submit your PhD and defend it in a viva

First of all…this module

Week 2: Theories and Methods (NG) Week 3: Combining Methods and Research Paradigms

(EJ) Week 4: DTC Conference – NO SESSIONS Week 5: Research Ethics: Principle, Practice and

Procedure (EJ) Week 6: Quality and Technology in Social Research (EJ) Week 7: The Craft of Academic Writing (NG) Week 8: Situating Your Contribution (NG) Week 9: Public Engagement and Non-academic Impact

(EJ) Week 10: Your PhD Viva and Beyond (NG)

The structure of the module

There are 3 seminars that accompany this lectures: 1 from 11-12 and 2 from 12-1pm

The class lists and room numbers are on the DTC website. I have printed lists here – you can check them after this lecture

Teaching staff: the 11-12 class and one from 12-1 will be taught either by Eric Jensen or myself (depending on who is taking the lecture), and the other one in SO.09 at 12 will be taught by John Narayan.

Please do the key readings for each week and participate in group activities and discussions

Seminars

The first step in undertaking doctoral research is to develop a clear set of research questions (to some extent these are always a work in progress)

This might seem obvious but these questions are the basis of everything you do through your PhD – everything must relate back to them (they can change, but not too often)

This is easy to forget as it is tempting to become overly concerned with detail

Remember to keep asking yourself what is at stake in your work – try explaining this in simple terms to yourself and to others

The PhD

One of the hardest things is often to get started on the PhD: often there is a mixture of excitement and anxiety

Aside from thinking about your research questions, you will be expected to reflect on where/how your research fits in terms of wider scholarship (writing an initial literature review can be a useful exercise)

It is also likely that you will have to think carefully about what methods or research techniques you will use through the course of your project – and this reflection will become part of the thesis

Other key considerations

While there are often common expectations for what a PhD is, there is no single format for a doctoral thesis

There may, for example, be different expectations of the balance between theoretical and empirical work in different disciplines

Some PhDs are purely theoretical in basis and are methodological in a philosophical rather than empirical sense – others involve primary fieldwork, or are more historical and draw on archival sources, and so on

Think about what you want your PhD to be It can be a very creative space…

But…

One of the key features of a PhD is that it must make an original contribution to knowledge

We will return to this later in the week on situating your contribution

Don’t be daunted by this – see this as an opportunity rather than a burden

Originality can take many different forms: for example, the identification of a gap in the existing literature, the extension or refinement of knowledge, an innovation or response to an existing position

Originality

It is important that you do not try to work on your PhD in isolation

Your supervisor and peer groups (one purpose of this module) are vital points of contact through which you will develop and refine ideas

Be proactive: ask questions, read widely, go to conferences, seminars – talk about your research!

Get to know who the key figures are and go to see them speak and engage with their work – again be proactive

Developing your ideas

A PhD project goes through various stages and these are often not linear

Doing research is not always plain sailing Learn how to deal with setbacks and detours

– doing a PhD often involves dealing with unforeseen events and challenges

Try to anticipate what these might be in advance – again think ahead

Be realistic about what you can achieve within the limits of a doctoral thesis: be ambitious and practical

Stages of your PhD

Talk to your supervisor(s) about how to structure your time through the PhD

For example, when should you do your fieldwork? How extensive should this be – for example how many interviews? How detailed should your engagement be with your data?

Your supervisor is your key point of contact – you need to meet with them regularly and forge a good working relationship

This relationship will change over the next 3 years as you become the expert…

Plan ahead

It is very important to be organized – establish a system for dealing with questions that arise through your PhD – plus large amounts of reading or field notes, bibliographical references and so on

Keep a good record of what you read Use a bibliographic database such as Endnote Your examiners will be look very closely at your

references, so you need to take this serious Keep files and read actively (in connection to

your research questions)…

Organization

‘Your notes may turn out…to be of two sorts: in reading certain very important books you try to grasp the structure of the writer’s argument, and take notes accordingly; but more frequently, and after a few years of independent work, rather than read the entire book, you will often read parts of many books from the point of view of some particular theme or topic in which you are interested and concerning which you have plans in your file. Therefore, you will take notes which do not fairly represent the books you read. You are using this particular idea, this particular fact, for the realization of your own projects’ (Sociological Imagination, p.220)

C.W. Mills

The PhD is your project – don’t read things for the sake of it – read texts in relation to your interests and concerns

Equally with theory and method – don’t go through the motions here. Try to think about them creatively by connecting them to problems and questions – this is the very task of social research

Be assertive in your writing but also be flexible: don’t be too tied to a particular position from the outset – be open-minded and receptive to ideas

And think about who the likely audience of your work is going to be…

Some final thoughts