Authoring a PhD

partially painted by previous authors, which is their opportu-
nity. This is a dangerous state of mind to be in at the start of a
doctorate. It is often associated with people picking overly deriv-
ative topics important at some previous levels of education, or
taking on very conventionally framed subjects from the existing
literature which are too large or difficult to resolve in a PhD.
Above all, an ‘unproblematized’ thesis topic normally provides
students with no worthwhile intellectual focus or protection at
the examination stage. It leaves open too many questions along
the lines of: what is this thesis for?
You define the question: you deliver the answer. The propo-
sition is symmetric, with equal scope for you to intervene on
both parts. The quickest way to get a great fit between the ques-
tion asked and the answer delivered in a thesis is to try and
work out what you will be able to say, or hope to be able to say.
Then
frame your research question so as to fit closely around it.
You must find legitimate ways to leave out bits of the research
literature’s questions or concerns that you are not going to be
able to answer or will not feel comfortable tackling. That means
you must think about the practicalities of research and your
capabilities and resources from the word go, ‘guesstimating’
results and outcomes at the same time as you formulate a topic.
2 4
◆
A U T H O R I N G A P H D

---

In a sense this exercise is like turning to the answer pages at the
back of a maths textbook before you work out how to derive the
right result. It is no use formulating a great topic that depends
on your achieving a theoretical breakthrough that has eluded
previous scholars, or turns completely on your empirical analy-
sis producing results of a particularly clear or convenient kind.
It is fine to be hopeful and to think about a best possible case:
what would you be able to say if everything went just as you
hope that it will? But you also need to build in some insurance
outcomes, things you can do or say if high-risk elements of
your plan do not turn out as hoped. For instance, if you initially
believe that you can achieve a theory advance, there is still 
a risk that it will prove more elusive than you anticipate. In this
case, can you fall back on something more reliable and pre-
dictable, such as the exegesis of and commentary on an impor-
tant author’s thought in the same area? Or if you hope to
establish a strong relationship between variables A and B in an
empirical analysis, what will be gained from finding that this
linkage does not exist or is only marginally present? These 
considerations mean that you must structure your question
robustly, with a measure of redundancy in your research plan,
so as to cover what you will do in your thesis even if some ele-
ments of the plan do not turn out as intended. Above all, you
need to shape the thesis question to showcase your findings, to
bring out their interest and importance and to give a sense of
completeness to the whole.
These things are not easily accomplished. They are not tasks
to be finished in a single effort at the outset of your thesis and
with a high level of determinacy. Instead they mostly have to
be discovered a bit at a time, and then worked up in successive
attempts. Shaping your question to fit around your answer
involves repeated iterations where you define a plan and for-
mulate some ambitions. Then you do some lengthy research
and painfully produce some text expressing your understand-
ing of the results. After that you consider how far the thesis
plan requires alteration (perhaps including wholesale redesign)
as your ideas and level of information have changed. Your
early ideas on what your thesis will look like, in your first 
six months or first year, will be like those of a sculptor choos-
ing a block of stone and marking the crudest ‘rough form’ 
E N V I S I O N I N G T H E T H E S I S A S A W H O L E
◆
2 5

---

concept on it, before embarking on the long job of chiselling
out a finished piece.
Doing original work
All good things which exist are the fruits of
originality.