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How to get (almost) everything you ever wanted in one (not very) easy step


By Richard Kennard
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September 26, 2012 —  (Page 2 of 4)

Objective: Your thesis must have an objective. That may sound obvious, but it can be surprisingly hard after years of research to succinctly define what your objective was. Doing so is critical. It presents a far more compelling thesis if your objective is clearly defined at the start and, more importantly, regularly reinforced throughout.

You need to ensure your thesis weaves a coherent narrative. Its introduction should state its objective, and its conclusion should conclude that objective. Your objective should be reflected in the title of your thesis. It should be referred to frequently throughout its pages as justification as to why you are researching each section. Each section should end by stating what the next section will accomplish. Each section should begin by summarizing what has been accomplished so far. Do everything you can to prevent the reader from becoming lost.

At the end of your Ph.D., your thesis must be examined. Examining a thesis is a brutal job. Your examiner is being asked to judge a piece of work written by somebody (i.e. you!) who has spent far more time studying a particular area than they have. They are unlikely to view your work favorably if they cannot understand it. And it helps enormously toward their understanding if your thesis is clear and consistent in its purpose.

Once you have clearly defined your objective, the next step is to orient it within the wider context of your chosen field. This is accomplished through a literature review.

Literature Review: An important goal of a Ph.D. is to make some “novel contribution to knowledge.” This implies an understanding of what the current knowledge is. Your thesis must spend considerable time reviewing the existing literature. It must research existing strengths and weaknesses, and identify shortcomings in the current body of work. It must define the “gap in knowledge” that it intends to fill.

As a software developer, reviewing peer-reviewed literature can seem like an alien activity. Many developers do not look sufficiently before they leap, and they end up repeating what’s already out there. Such a cavalier attitude will not be tolerated for your thesis. At the end of your Ph.D., in addition to your thesis being examined, you'll be required to undergo a Thesis Defense. You must publicly present your research and be interrogated by your examiners and audience. Their job is to identify weaknesses in your work. It would be devastating if they pointed out your objective had already been achieved years earlier. You cannot make a claim to novelty if such knowledge already existed. To avoid this risk, your literature review must be exhaustive.

I found Google Scholar to be an excellent tool for searching peer-reviewed literature. It's available for free, so you can start your literature review even before applying for your Ph.D. Some of the articles Google Scholar links to are also available for free. Downloading them will give you a taste for academic writing, which tends to be verbose: Every point must be expanded in detail, every argument supported by evidence and citations. Reading such articles will give you a good feel for the style of discourse.

Unfortunately, most articles Google Scholar links to require payment to download. For these, you should wait until you've enrolled in your course. Most university libraries pay annual subscriptions to literature databases and can absorb such payments for you.

You can also get a feeling for the existing body of work by searching open-source software on repositories such as SourceForge and GitHub. However, I was surprised how few research groups ran their projects as open source. It's rare to find one that publishes its source code, even rarer to find one with a proper technical, social and political infrastructure. According to Jono Bacon’s book “The Art of Community,” that means it’s an organization that packages its project up into a distribution; performs regular releases; produces tutorials and examples; has a message forum; has a defect tracker; accepts contributions; engages with its community; and so on. This seems a missed opportunity, because it's fertile ground for gathering feedback and observations.

Once you've completed your literature review, and are satisfied your objective is worthwhile, proper research can begin. But what constitutes “proper research”? The first step is to choose your epistemology and methodology.

Epistemology: Epistemology isn't a word you hear very often outside of academic circles. It's Greek for “theory of knowledge.” It's a philosophical idea related to what we know and on what basis. The short of it is, everything you say in your thesis rests on certain base assumptions. Not everybody will agree with those assumptions. That's perfectly defensible as long as you spell out what they are. But the problem is, some may be buried so deep in your subconscious that you overlook them.

To quote a leader in this field, Michael Crotty: “At every point in our research—in our observing, our interpreting, our reporting—we inject a host of assumptions... Such assumptions shape for us the meaning of research questions, the purposiveness of research methodologies, and the interpretability of research findings. Without unpacking these assumptions and clarifying them, no one (including ourselves!) can really divine what our research has been.” In his book, “The Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and perspective in the research process,” he puts it even more forcibly: “Without [clarifying our assumptions], research is not research.”


Related Search Term(s): open source, Ph.D.

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