Authoring a PhD

Figure 3.3
The opening out model

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There are many advantages in the opening out model.
Readers come into contact with your original work much
sooner than in the focus down approach. They typically get far
more analysis of your results and a better appreciation of how
your results mesh with the immediately relevant previous
research. Readers also encounter your views on other people’s
work after (and not before) you have established your creden-
tials as a serious researcher. As a result your criticisms and sug-
gestions should come across as much more grounded and
authoritative than in the focus down model.
For authors the opening out model also has many substantial
advantages. If you can cut short the usual long lead-in and
acclimatization period at the beginning of your thesis, and get
on with the key research tasks as early as possible, then you will
have more time to thoroughly understand your findings later
on. Analysing and writing up research results, moving from
very detailed, often disorganized materials or complex out-
comes to properly structured and well-presented findings, takes
a surprising amount of time and intellectual effort. It cannot
easily be rushed. The opening out model gives you a better
chance to develop new interpretations and to let the implica-
tions of your results sink in.
Yet the opening out model is very little used in the social 
sciences or humanities. Many doctoral students confronted 
by it for the first time find it too demanding, too radically at
odds with what their supervisors or advisers have told them 
is expected or the norm. In practice none of these objections
actually rules out this approach. You should always choose a
designed final structure for your thesis, rather than allowing
the sequence of chapters to be set too much by the order in
which you undertook tasks across your research period.
The compromise model
The third possible approach to sequencing is a compromise
between the two models above, shown in Figure 3.4. This
approach has been successfully applied in the humanities and
social sciences. First you need to follow the advice above on keep-
ing lead-in materials to a maximum of two chapters. That means
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you should keep your original literature review down to just 
a single chapter, ideally one that is framed quite closely around
your central research question from the start. Do not raise a lot
of broader issues that you will never discuss again or where you
have little or no value-added contribution to make. Instead try
to focus on materials that readers ‘need to know’ to appreci-
ate your research contribution, and no more. Next try to keep 
any set-up or background or methods materials down to just
one further chapter, again following a strict judgement about
what readers ‘need to know’ and avoiding long descriptive
digressions. You should consider carefully whether you need 
to include a separate chapter on methodology in the main
sequence of your argument at all. It is often best to write a spe-
cial ‘Research Methods Appendix’ to come 
after
the main set of
chapters. It can be written as a reference material annex, which
allows you to include very detailed information for examiners
and fellow researchers, but without disrupting the development
of your main argument.
Taking these steps should ensure that readers come into con-
tact with your original research materials within (say) 50 or 60
pages of the start of your thesis. They are given an appropriate
amount of time to ‘warm up’ on your themes and questions,
and they get a very synoptic treatment of any background or
set-up material that they really need to master. But readers no
longer have to page through wads of filler material before
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Analysis
Discussion