HOW TO: Work With Research Supervisors

HOW TO: Work With Research Supervisors
This page offers suggestions, advice and tips to help doctoral (PhD / DPhil) students enjoy a productive and effective relationship with their supervisors. The page includes: How the nature of supervision should develop over the period of the research programme and the importance and nature of meetings with supervisors
What to expect from a research degree supervisor
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New students tend to expect supervisors to tell them what to do. Indeed, this may be justified for very short research projects or where the work is tied into a group project and bounded by the efficient use of expensive and heavily utilised equipment. Where this is not so, students may wait for their supervisors to tell them what to do because they think that demonstrating dependence in this way also demonstrates respect. Fortunately, good supervisors realize that they have to wean many students gradually into independence; so they may provide a well-defined task, as something on which supervisor and student can both build – perhaps a pilot project of some sort. If this is what your supervisor does, it may give you a sense of security, but things are unlikely to carry on that way. Many people would argue that they ought not to carry on that way.
Sections in the chapter on interacting effectively with supervisors
The importance of student-supervisor relationships
The composition of supervisory teams
Points to watch for with team supervision
Roles and responsibilities of supervisors and students
The developing nature of supervision
Arranging meetings with a supervisor
Making the most of meetings with supervisors
Keeping records of meetings with supervisors
Asking a supervisor for feedback and advice
Responding to feedback and criticism from a supervisor
Handling dissatisfaction with supervision
At the other extreme, some supervisors toss out a multitude of ideas at the first meeting, which can be overwhelming. If this happens to you, just realize that the ideas are merely possibilities for you to consider, not tasks that you necessarily have to do. Your best course of action is probably to make a note of them and then take them away to think about, to decide which ones comprise essential groundwork and which ones are merely alternative possibilities. There is no single best way to research a topic, although there are numerous bad and non-viable ways. It is you and you alone who have to be intimately involved with what you are doing over a considerable period. So, for all but the shortest of projects, it is essential that you design it so that it appeals to you as well as being acceptable to your supervisor.
As your work progresses, supervisions should become two-way dialogues. Your supervisor will expect you to develop your own ideas – which may have to be bounded for various reasons – but will want to discuss them with you, to give advice and to warn in good time against possible dangers. It is not a sound interpretation of ‘independent work’ for students to continue along their own way, on the mistaken assumption that they do not need supervisions.
Since research means going beyond published work and developing something new, your relationship with your supervisor must accommodate the natural and inevitable fact that you will eventually come to know more about your work than your supervisor. You will need to become comfortable with this and with engaging him or her in academic debate as between equals.
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Arranging meetings with a supervisor
It is important to distinguish between formal supervisions and informal meetings. There will be specific policies about the timing and duration of the former, probably around a minimum of eight meetings per year. The dates may be roughly laid out for an entire programme of research and require specific documents to be completed and signed at each meeting.
Informal meetings can also form part of the supervisory process, more so in some subject areas than in others. Supervisors may be torn in two directions as far as scheduling these is concerned, and it is helpful to understand why. On the one hand supervisors want to do what they can to be supportive, but on the other they do not want to interfere on the grounds that independent students ought to take the initiative when they need to discuss work which should, after all, be their own. This latter view is reinforced by the formal dictate of most institutions that it is the responsibility of the student to take the initiative in raising problems or difficulties, however elementary they may seem, and to agree a schedule of meetings with the supervisor.
The practical way forward is for you to take steps early on to find out how scheduling supervisions is likely to work best for the unique partnership between you and your supervisor. It is polite to wait a while, to give your supervisor time to raise the matter.


HOW TO: Develop a research proposal for a research degree
Whether or not students are required to prepare a formal research proposal depends to a large extent on their field of study. The extracts on this page outline the essential elements of any research proposal and make some initial suggestions on how to progress to a full and viable proposal.
The contents of a research proposal
Each institution will probably have its own terminology for its formal requirements for a research proposal. In general terms, though, students will be expected to show that the proposed work:
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· is worth researching
· lends itself to being researched
· is sufficiently challenging for the level of award concerned
· can be completed within the appropriate time
· can be adequately resourced
· is not likely to be subjected to any serious constraints
· is capable of being done by the student
Sections in the chapter on the research proposal
The requirement to write one’s own research proposal
How the research proposal helps everyone concerned
The limitations of a research proposal
Essential elements of a research proposal
Fleshing out the research proposal
Putting boundaries on the research proposal
The writing style of the research proposal
Issues of time when preparing a research proposal
Adapting the proposal to apply for a small grant or other funds
These criteria may seem deceptively simple, but each one can subsume a multitude of others and, depending on the nature of the proposal, there is likely to be cross linking between them. The detail and emphasis for your particular research proposal must depend on your topic, the department, school or faculty in which you are registered (particularly if your work is multidisciplinary) and the rigour required by your institution, which will be the final arbiter. So use the points to set yourself thinking. You will soon see how some depend on others, and then suitable headings and cross-references will probably present themselves naturally. It is very unlikely indeed that the headings that you end up with will directly reflect the above bullet points.
You may find that a technique known as a ‘mind-map’ is helpful in developing the ideas about what to include in the proposal. On the other hand, you may not. Mind maps do seem to generate strong feelings, one way or the other. If, having read what follows, you prefer to find your own alternative ways of developing content, there is no reason why you shouldn’t do so. Advice on how to use mind maps is widely available, and is also described in the book.
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Fleshing out the research proposal
... A sound research proposal requires much more than the above orientation. Obviously supervisors will help, but they are busy people, who will expect you to do your own groundwork.
To show that the work is worth researching, you will need to set it into a context of other work that has and has not been done in the general area. This requires a literature survey. Issues of methodology and terminology should guide your thinking. Ethical considerations, depending on your particular research topic, may vary in importance from minimal to very considerable indeed. All these are elaborated on in the book.
Regarding length and detail, you will need to look at the requirements of your institution, as listed in the student handbook or the website. For the norms of your field of study, look at some research proposals which have previously been accepted.


HOW TO: get into a productive routine
It is all too easy to work hard, in terms of putting in time and effort, while achieving next to nothing. One very useful way of overcoming this problem and making sure that your work is always on-target is to stop and check that you are always in one of the roles outlined below. Through appreciating which one you are in, or should be in, at any particular time, work will become much more productive.
Roles in which research students need to operate
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Sections in the chapter on getting into a productive routine
The importance of a productive routine
Maintaining a sense of direction: roles in which researchers need to operate
Keeping records of on-going work
Finding out where your time goes
Using time efficiently when supervisions and seminars are cancelled
Matching the task to the time slot
Handling interruptions
Coping with information overload
Managing time at home with partners and family
Managing time at the computer and on the Internet
Attending training
Using research seminars
Networking and serendipity
Keeping ‘office hours’ versus using the ‘psychological moment’
Keeping ‘office hours’ versus keeping going for hours at a time
Matching your approach to your preferred learning style
Using music to manage yourself
Directing your research to suit your personal needs and preferences
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle
Being realistic with yourself
There are four main roles in which research students need to operate, and they are presented below roughly in the order in which research students need to occupy them. There will, however, inevitably be a certain amount of to-ing and fro-ing between them and cycling around them.
An explorer to discover a gap in knowledge around which to form the research problem or problems (or questions etc.). (Students may of course be using a different terminology, e.g. ‘research questions’, ‘hypothesis’, ‘focus’, ‘topic’. However, no-one should be gathering data for the sake of it, so research students should always be able to couch what they are doing in terms of a problem to solve, even if different terminology appears in the thesis.) For those students who know their research problems from the outset, the time spent in this role can be very short, although not non-existent because the problem still needs some refinement. Other students can spent a considerable time in the role. Most of the time this is likely to involve reading round the subject, but research can be such a variable undertaking, that students may to drop into the role at any stage.
A detective and/or inventor to find solution(s) to the research problem(s) (or questions etc.). The role is that of a detective where the problem is about something unknown and an inventor where the problem is to develop or produce something.
A visionary or creative thinker to develop an original twist or perspective on the work and a fall-back strategy if things don’t go according to plan. Also, if necessary, to find a way of ring-fencing nebulous or discrete investigations into a self-contained piece of work appropriate for the award concerned.
A barrister to make a case in the thesis for the solutions to the research problem, problems or questions (rephrased if necessary in terms of terminology appropriate for the work and field of study.)
Research students may, of course, occupy other roles at times, such as firefighter, manager, negotiator, editor, journalist, etc., but these reflect the sorts of task which everyone, research student or not, has to handle on occasions, and do not generate any sense of overall direction in the research.
... Also of course it is essential to take time off for relaxation and creativity as considered in Chapter 20.


HOW TO: Write progress reports for research
Progress reports are a requirement from all students on research programmes, but how best to construct and use them is often misunderstood. This page offers suggestions, advice, tips and general help, in particular on the developing the content of a progress report and the use of literature.
Developing the content of a progress report
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... The content of a report must depend on its purpose. For most fields of study, the content of early reports probably ought to be such as to review progress to date and to identify a plan of action for the next phase of the work. Reviewing progress is not merely a matter of cataloguing what tasks one has done, although this will come into it. Rather, it should make a case that what one has done has been thoughtful, directed and competent.
Students should probably include the following in the report, presented where possible as a substantiated argument rather than as a straight description:
How one has defined or developed the research question(s), topic(s) or theme(s) etc., with which the report is concerned – possibly with reference to the original research proposal.
How one is developing the research methodology, stressing how it is appropriate.
How one expects to ensure that appropriate data will be collected which is convincing for its purpose.
How the literature is being used.
How any constraints are being handled.
How subjectivity, where relevant, is being handled.
Progress to date.
Problems or potential problems to be flagged up.
General reflections. These should be relevant, not just padding, and the nature of what is required is likely to vary considerably from one discipline to another.
A plan for the next phase of the work.
Interim reports should build on previous ones and, where appropriate, refer to them. Thus there should be no need for repetition of previously reported material that remains unchanged.
With a formal report such as that to a funding agency, certain headings or sections may be obligatory. They can seem bureaucratic or irrelevant, and if so, they may be there to provide the institution or funding agency with data for other purposes. So it is probably a good idea to start the report by drafting brief notes along the lines indicated by the above bullet points first, and then, in negotiation with supervisors, to edit these together to fit under the required headings. If the headings seem particularly bureaucratic or irrelevant, the help of supervisors will be essential for handling them.

Citing literature in a report or thesis chapter
Sections in the chapter on progress reports for research
The importance of reports during the research programme
Developing the content of a report
Structuring the report
Using basic word processing features to aid structuring
Constructing the introductory paragraph as an orientation to the report
Constructing the final paragraph for effective closure of the report
Citing literature
Adding figures and tables
Adding appendices
Developing an academic writing style
Making the writing process more effective and efficient
Capitalizing on all the features of word processing software
Using reports to get feedback and advice
Towards writing the thesis


HOW TO: avoid unintentional plagiarism in research
This page introduces intellectual ownership and plagiarism. Students from some cultures may reproduce the work of others verbatim in the belief that they are honouring them or merely reproducing the 'best' way of expressing something. Whatever the motives, this is regarded as plagiarism and the page gives some pointers on how to avoid it.
Recognising intellectual property and plagiarism
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Everyone has what is known as ‘intellectual copyright’ or ‘intellectual property rights’ on what they write. No formal patent is necessary. Plagiarism is taking the written work of others and passing it off as one’s own – although the meaning is increasingly becoming blurred to include passing off the ideas of others as one’s own. It is not plagiarism to quote short passages, provided that one points out where the quotation comes from and uses it for illustration or criticism. It is plagiarism to copy a chunk of material and present it without indicating its source as if it is one’s own. Plagiarism is a form of fraud and malpractice.
Sections in the chapter on handling ethical issues
The place of ethics in research
Towards an ethical research proposal
Getting the research proposal approved for ethical considerations
The ethics of ownership in research: conflicts of interest
The ethics of ownership of the work of others: plagiarism
Avoiding 'unintentional' plagiarism
What to do if you meet malpractice and fraud
Subject specific ethical guidelines
The Internet, particularly on-line academic journals, may seem to provide considerable scope for taking the written work of others and passing it off as one’s own. Cases are even reported of students with short research projects buying complete theses or dissertations on the Internet. This is something they could never get away with on a full research programme like a PhD, as there are too many checks along the way, which would immediately alert supervisors. In particular supervisors can often spot plagiarized chunks of text because the different authorship of the various sections is so obvious from the different writing styles. To add to the armoury against plagiarism, there are on-line tools which take only minutes to analyze and compare text. Supervisors can run the software themselves, but common practice is to ask students to do it as part of their personal development, and to produce the downloaded report as evidence.
Blatant plagiarism is being taken very seriously indeed. Do it at your peril. Not only would you be risking the most severe of penalties, you would also be destroying the educational value of your programme of work.

Avoiding 'unintentional' plagiarism
Although plagiarism is simply wrong, students from some backgrounds do it in good faith – to indicate that they have studied what the ‘experts’ have written and to honour those experts. Understandable as this may be, it cannot be allowed to continue. It is unlikely to remain unnoticed for long, and no-one would ever accept that a student of more than a few months into a research programme is anything but fully aware that plagiarism is unacceptable. The penalties can be very severe indeed, and can be applied retrospectively, even after students have graduated.
The way to avoid this sort of plagiarism is simple. Every time you use someone else’s work, simply say so and cite the source. If you feel uncomfortable about this or find that your work is consisting of too many quotations or citations from elsewhere, you are probably not subjecting the material to your own independent thought. Your personal critical analysis is what is important. So try to present the work of others in terms of what they 'consider' / 'describe' / 'suggest' / 'argue for' / 'explain' / 'conclude' … etc and then add how much confidence you feel that their work generates and why.
Another plagiarism-avoidance technique is to rewrite what someone else has written, but concentrating on leaving out what is peripheral to one’s own argument (while not misrepresenting); and then stressing where it is in agreement, where it is in disagreement and where it is particularly fascinating from your point of view. By the time you have done this, you may feel quite comfortable that what you have written genuinely is your own and that all you need to do is to cite the source material.


HOW TO: Plan, monitor and record your skills development - Personal Development Planning
Employers expect holders of research degrees such as the PhD to have transferable skills which are not only directly associated with the topic of the doctoral programme but also of a more general nature, appropriate for a wider range of work and for working effectively with others. This page offers suggestions, advice, tips and general help, based on how to recognise a skilled individual; how to recognise one's own skills; and personal development planning (PDP).
How to recognise a skilled individual
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Being skilled carries with it a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. Broadly speaking, a skill is the ability to do something well within minimal time and with minimal effort. A skilled typist, for example, can type a report quickly and accurately, probably without even looking at the keyboard, whereas an unskilled person would have to keep looking for keys and would probably press the wrong ones by mistake. The typing would be awkward, would require excessive concentration and would take an excessive time. It might still get done eventually, but the final product would almost certainly have an amateur look about it. Typing is an example of a skill which is largely manual, but skills can also be interpersonal and intellectual. For example a skilled speaker can comparatively effortlessly hold an audience spellbound; an unskilled speaker might have a go, but the task would consume a great deal of preparation time and emotional energy and would probably not be received particularly well by the audience anyway.
The straight division of 'skilled' and 'unskilled' is of course an over-simplification, as there are varying degrees of skills-proficiency. However, knowing what is involved in a skill is never the same as being skilled.

Recognising your own skills
Sections in the chapter on skills development and personal development planning (PDP)
The importance of skills
The characteristics of a skill
The process of becoming skilled
The transferability of skills
Ways of thinking about the skills developed in postgraduate research
Recognizing the skills that you will develop in your own research
A do-it-yourself training needs analysis/skills audit
The joint statement on skills by the Research Councils
Collecting and using evidence to demonstrate skills proficiency
Locating suitable training
‘Personal Development Planning’ (PDP)
The place of PDP in formal assessment processes
In order to extend and develop your skill-set it is important to recognize the skills which you already have. To some extent, all students develop skills as a natural part of progressing through their studies and receiving guidance and feedback from their supervisors. However, unless students are specifically alerted to the fact, few seem to appreciate the richness what they acquire this way. Once alerted, the skills can be built on and readily developed further.
The following extract suggests a framework for the sorts of skills that are most likely to be developed during an extended research programme. The word 'framework' is used advisedly, because all the skills could be described differently, summarised, elaborated or subdivided. It is important to make adaptations yourself in order to make the terminology more relevant to you and your field of study. All the skills are more sophisticated and have a wider scope than those which first degree graduates can normally claim.


All MPhil/PhD graduates who are adequately able and were properly supervised should be able to claim skills in the specialist research-related aspects of their MPhil/PhD topic. The extent to which these skills are 'transferable' to employment will depend on the individual concerned, nature of the MPhil/PhD work and the requirements of the employment.
In addition, there are numerous skills which are more 'transferable', which employers would understand and value, and which it is reasonable to expect from PhD and possibly MPhil graduates, over and above those transferable skills which have received so much attention at undergraduate level:
All MPhil/PhD students will, by the time they complete, have spent two, three or more years on a research programme, taking it from first inception through its many and various highs and lows. This is no mean feat and should develop the transferable skill of being able to see any prolonged task or project through to completion. It should include to varying extents which depend on the discipline and the research topic the abilities: to plan, to allocate resources of time and money, to trouble-shoot, to keep up with one's subject, to be flexible and able to change direction where necessary, and to be able to think laterally and creatively to develop alternative approaches. The skill of being able to accommodate to change is highly valued by employers who need people who can anticipate and lead change in a changing world, yet resist it where it is only for its own sake.
All MPhil/PhD students should have learned to set their work in a wider field of knowledge. The process requires extensive study of literature and should develop the transferable skills of being able to sift through large quantities of information, to take on board the points of view of others, challenge premises, question procedures and interpret meaning.
All MPhil/PhD students have to be able to present their work to the academic community, minimally through seminars, progress reports and the thesis. Seminars should develop the oral communication skills of being effective and confident in making formal presentations, in intervening in meetings, participating in group discussions, dealing with criticism and presenting cases. Report and thesis-writing should develop the transferable written communication skills needed for composing effective reports, manuals and press releases and for summarising bulky documents. These communication skills should go far beyond the level acquired during a first degree.
The road to completion of an MPhil/PhD can be a lonely one, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Yet the skills of coping with isolation are 'transferable' and can be highly valued by employers. They include: self-direction; self-discipline; self-motivation; resilience; tenacity and the abilities to prioritise and juggle a number of tasks at once.
MPhil/PhD students working on group projects, which is most common in the sciences, should be able to claim advanced team-working skills.
Further examples of transferable skills are many and various and depend on the interests of the student and the nature of the research programme. Possibilities include advanced computer literacy, facility with the Internet, the skills of being able to teach effectively, to negotiate access and resources, to network with others, to use project management techniques, and to find one's way around specialist libraries or archives.
A digest of a framework for a transferable skill-set for MPhil/PhD students [extracted with minor modifications from Cryer, P 'Transferable skills, marketability and lifelong learning: the particular case of postgraduate research students', Studies in Higher Education, 23, 2, 207-216, 1998.]

'Personal Development Planning' (PDP)
It is common practice for institutions to offer skills-development to their research students. Although the schemes differ in detail from one institution to another and possibly from one field of study to another, they all provide some sort of framework by which students can monitor, build on and reflect on their personal development. The schemes are generally known as ‘Personal Development Planning’ or PDP.
'[PDP is] a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their personal, educational and career development’ (QAA 2004, para. 27).
The words ‘structured’, ’supported’ and ’process’ are not included lightly. PDP is not a one-off activity. It is a process because it takes place over time. It is supported in that advice and training activities are on hand during the process. It is structured in that it is tied to phases of the research programme or registration and is rigorously documented. If the structure and support are not there, the procedure is not genuine PDP. So no student can sign up to PDP in its pure form without being in a group, department, or institution which supports it. That is of course no reason why students working in isolation should not adopt what they can of its precepts.
Students will probably be introduced to PDP at their induction where they will be provided with templates of some sort for documenting the process. These may be paper based, on-line or in the form of text files or log books, and they will facilitate looking backwards in a reflective mode and forwards in a planning mode as well as recording achievement. Each student is expected to take the initiative for keeping the documentation up-to-date, although some records will be kept by the professionals who are overseeing the PDP. In some cases these are the individual supervisors, and in other cases they are dedicated PDP staff. There will be regular meetings with professionals, training needs analyses and opportunities for reflection and training.
Out of the training needs analyses will emerge lists of requirements for particular training. In theory, students only have to make a good case for attending a training event (like for example a UKGRAD event) for it to be funded. Limits on financial grounds do not seem to present major obstacles because institutions receive dedicated pots of money for students who are funded by the UK Research Councils, and they try not to be divisive for their other students. In practice, too, the funds are not taken up as they might be due to the constraints of students’ time. Part-time students seem particularly loathe to take time out for training.
PDP generates various documents. Because schemes differ in detail across institutions, it is impossible to generalize about what these documents may be. The following are offered as a broad outline and for guidance only, and are not necessarily comprehensive. If you are participating in a PDP scheme and find a lack of correlation between your documents and these, it is probably because of different terminology or because some documents are contained within others.
Personal information such as name, registration and contact information
Previous qualifications and experience, where relevant
Lists, with dates of, for example, supervisions, courses or conferences attended; presentations delivered; reports written; publications; etc
Documents such as reports of supervisions; training needs analyses; action plans; work plans; laboratory notebooks or log books; reports; records of achievement; etc.
There is always scope for innovative documentation, like ,for example, e-portfolios.
The preparation of PDP documents should aid students’ reflections on their personal and professional development; prepare them for lifelong learning generally and their on-going personal and professional development in the world of work; and form a basis for eventual job applications. With respect to job applications, evidence of willingness and ability to learn and records of achievement are particularly important.


HOW TO: Succeed as an 'overseas' / 'international' student
Research students working away from their home countries often face challenges that 'home' student do not. This page considers two of these: how funding issues can affect progress and the possible challenge of having to think independently in a culture where teachers and supervisors do not expect to be treated as 'knowing it all'.
How funding can affect progress
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If your funding comes from your own country, you need to be aware that it can be cripplingly expensive for your funding body. Not only are the fees so much higher for overseas students, the exchange rate may not be favourable. Consequently funding bodies require and demand value for money. Funding for three or (in some cases) four years may seem a comfortable deal at the outset, but students will need to hit the ground running to be sure that all aspects of the work are completed before the money runs out. Only in very special circumstances and with a great deal of paperwork will funding be extended. Furthermore the people back home will expect anyone who has studied away for so long to be returning as a success. This can ‘hang over’ international research students as a source of unremitting strain and worry. If this applies to you, you would be well advised to familiarize yourself with the rest of this book as soon as possible, so that you can understand and manage what lies ahead.
Sections in the chapter on succeeding as an 'overseas' research student
The challenges of being a postgraduate research student outside your home country
Preparing yourself while still at home
Selecting a suitable institution
Funding issues and their implications
Timing the application
The challenge of working in another language
The challenge of thinking independently
Other possible challenges
In particular, do make sure that the project you undertake will not be too ambitious in terms of data collection and analyses. Aiming for 'quantity' is not necessarily the best way of achieving the quality, originality and significance appropriate for work at PhD level. You will need to think independently and take advice from supervisors while not following instructions blindly.

Showing that you can think independently
International students may face another significant challenge. It applies where they come from cultures which expect a student never to stray from giving the outward appearance that a teacher is right in all respects all of the time. These cultures value deference, humility and compliance, without displays of emotion. Students from such cultures face a major readjustment when they first arrive in a Western educational system where independent thinking is valued and where students, particularly research students, are expected to demonstrate this in ways which may seem alien and uncomfortable.
Most supervisors are sensitive to the issues and help their students to handle them, but supervisors who have never worked outside their own country may not be. This puts the onus on the international students. The issues will not go away. Remedies are matters for individual preference, often worked out with guidance from more experienced members of the same culture. Often all that is needed is a form of ‘permission’ from supervisors that academic argument and creative thinking are acceptable within the framework of the research; that this is what will please supervisors; and that it will not be regarded as lack of respect. Chapter 6 considers the move towards independence in more detail and suggests ways of taking initiatives with supervisors on this and various other matters.
A related matter is that students from these cultures tend to think that their written work should include chunks copied verbatim from the publications of experts, because this shows that they honour those experts. Whatever the intentions and rationales of the students doing the copying, it is nevertheless an attempt to pass of the work of others as one’s own. This is known as ‘plagiarism’ and the temptation to do it must be overcome. Plagiarism is considered more fully on another page of this site..
Whatever the culture at home, postgraduate research students in a Western culture are expected to work things out for themselves. At the level of postgraduate research no supervisor or teacher will tell students what to do – at least not after a relatively short induction period. General training will be given but, after that, supervisors are there to advise, warn and encourage. It will be a good idea to watch how British students interact with supervisors and take that as a rough model. It is also important to realize that, because supervisors are not all-knowing, they can, just like everyone else, be sufficiently insecure to feel threatened in certain situations.
In contrast there are students from some cultures who may give the impression that, having paid their fees to the institution, it is obliged to give them the corresponding award, regardless of anything else. Such students need to appreciate that their fees are buying opportunity, i.e. the opportunity to develop themselves, and that it is up to them how they use this opportunity. In particular no academic with any professionalism will sign certificates of attendance at training where the student has not participated.


HOW TO: Recognise and develop originality in research
For research to be of PhD standard, all institutional regulations require it be 'original', but the concept of originality is often misunderstood. This page offers suggestions, advice, tips and general help.
Ways of thinking about originality
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A useful way to appreciate the scope of originality is through an analogy, where the research programme can be likened to an exploration into a wilderness at a time in history when the world was still largely unexplored and when explorers still had considerable personal autonomy. In the analogy, the explorer may have certain visions in mind concerning what he or she hopes the expedition will achieve, but appreciates that these may not materialize and is open to alternatives. To avoid cumbersome repetition, the explorer and student will be taken as having different sexes, arbitrarily male and female respectively.
...
Originality in tools, techniques and procedures
Sections in the chapter on originality in research
The need for originality in research
Originality in tools, techniques and procedures
Originality in exploring the unknown/unexplored
Originality in exploring the unanticipated
Originality in data
Originality in transfer of mode or place of use
Originality in byproducts
Originality in the experience
Originality as ‘potentially publishable’
The variety of interpretations and configurations of originality
The balance between originality and conformity
Protecting the ownership of original work
Putting originality into perspective
... In the analogy the explorer uses all the information he can to firm up on why he wants to explore the wilderness and how he might do so within the resources at his command and within any constraints that may exist. He uses this information to plan and organize what background knowledge, procedures, tools, equipment and personnel he will need, tailored to the available resources and constraints. Some procedures may have to be specially designed, some tools and equipment may have to be specially made and some personnel may have to be specially trained or brought in.
Similarly, the student studies the literature, talks to experts and attends relevant training to get background knowledge and to develop an appropriate research methodology. The latter must include decisions about the procedures, tools and techniques, and possibly also the people to be involved. These may be fairly standard in the field of study, but if she uses them in new untested ways, this would justify a claim for originality. Or if she develops new procedures, tools and techniques for a specific purpose, this, too would justify a claim for originality. If neither is the case, her claim for originality must lie in later stages of the work, as suggested in the next few sections.
Originality in exploring the unknown/unexplored
In the analogy the expedition begins along the pre-planned route. If this is previously unexplored, the mere exploration is original work.
Similarly, if the student is conducting a major investigation on something which has never been investigated before, such as a recently discovered insect, star, poem, etc., the work will necessarily be original.
Although ‘originality’ in some types of research is built in, in many fields of study it is not, and its pre-existence should never be taken entirely for granted. So students undertaking research have to learn to live with a certain amount of uncertainty. Living with uncertainty may be difficult, but it is a fact of life for researchers, and can be ameliorated to some extent by welcoming the uncertainty as a precursor of creativity; thinking of the uncertainty as fascination with the unknown; and realizing that committed students do normally manage to complete their programmes of research and earn the award for which they are registered.
Originality in exploring the unanticipated
In the analogy the main route may already have been broadly explored. However, the explorer will, from time to time, come across unexpected and unexplored sidetracks. He may not notice them; or he may continue on the planned route anyway, in which case nothing original is involved. If, however, he does notice the sidetracks, he has to make decisions about whether to explore any of them, and if so, which ones. These decisions may be difficult, because he cannot know whether anything of interest will turn out to lie along them without at least partially exploring them, and doing so will use resources of time and equipment which will delay the expedition on its main route. Yet, one or more of the sidetracks could contain something of such great interest and importance that it would be worth abandoning the expedition as first planned and putting all the resources into exploring the sidetrack.
Similarly, in fairly mundane research, one phase of the work can open up alternative ways forward which have never previously been researched, and it is often these that can provide ‘originality’, as well as the fascination with the unknown that ought to accompany research. They can, on the other hand, equally turn out to be dead-ends which consume time and effort fruitlessly. Researchers cannot know without devoting some time to looking, and even if nothing worthwhile results, a research student can at least claim to have searched for something original.
Originality in data
In the analogy the explorer may make notes and observations along the way which cannot be processed at the time. So he packs them up for carrying back home where they can be examined properly.
Similarly, the student may find herself collecting much unprocessed data which she hopes may provide something usefully ‘original’ later when processed or analysed. This is a perfectly possible way of incorporating originality into work, but it is not at all safe. To do it successfully, students need either good hunches about how the data might be used to advantage or considerable creative abilities.
Originality in transfer of mode or place of use
The explorer may collect all manner of goodies along the way, ranging from what he hoped for when planning the expedition to the entirely unanticipated. These goodies may have an obvious uniqueness, beauty or value, like gold or precious stones. More likely, though, the goodies are commonplace where they were found, but unknown back home, like the potato which Sir Walter Raleigh brought to England from America.
Similarly, originality in research need not be new in absolute terms. It can merely be new to the situation or the discipline. Even data need not be new, in that it is both feasible and acceptable for researchers to make something original and significant with secondary data, i.e. data that they did not gather themselves. This is a route to originality that is often overlooked by research students.
Originality in byproducts
Things may go so badly wrong on the expedition that it has to be abandoned with seemingly nothing achieved. Yet, the illnesses of the team could be used to testify to the diseases that are rampant in the area. Or the torrential storms that washed away the collections of specimens could be monitored for interpretation in terms of what is already known about storms in that type of terrain. Neither of these would have been the purpose of the expedition, but they would be none the less valuable and count as original work.
Similarly, the student may be able to capitalize on things that seems to go wrong. Important equipment may not work; crucial resources may not be available; people may not agree to be interviewed; funding may be withdrawn; or there may be other serious and unforeseen obstacles. Just as in the analogy, a little creative thinking can rescue the situation, which is the primary reason for the third role in which students need to operate. There are almost always byproducts during any research, perhaps the development of a certain piece of equipment or some interesting secondary findings in the literature. These can be moved into the mainstream, focused on or developed further. When the thesis is written, the research problem, theme or focus merely needs to be reformulated to reflect the new nature of the work.
Originality in the experience
Whatever happens on the expedition, the explorer should, provided that he did not give up and return home early, have some interesting stories to tell.
Similarly students who stay the course with their research should be able to tease out something worthwhile from an academic or scholarly standpoint. The creative thinking techniques of Chapter 20 should help.
Originality as 'potentially publishable'
Departing from the analogy, another useful way to stimulate thinking about originality is through the concept of ‘potentially publishable’ in a peer-reviewed journal. This is increasingly being equated to ‘originality’ for students’ research. The work does not necessarily have to be published, only to be worthy of publication, in principle, if suitably written up at a later stage. ‘Potentially publishable’ is a useful notion, because most research, particularly at PhD level, ought to be able to generate at least one, and probably several, journal articles. The focus of any such article would provide an acceptable claim for originality. If, by the time of the examination, the work has already been accepted for publication in a peer reviewed journal, that is a considerable plus.
The variety of interpretations and configurations of originality
It is not very difficult to develop new and original twists to research, and Box 21.1[see book] gives some examples of how real students have done so. You should be able to do it too.


HOW TO: write the thesis / dissertation
Almost irrespective of what a postgraduate research student actually does, he/she is judged on the quality of the PhD or MPhil thesis/dissertation. It is therefore crucial to be able to round it off within the time available and make it of a standard that shows the work in the best possible light. This page offers suggestions, advice, tips and general help, in particular on creating a unified body of material and making the writing process more effective and efficient.
Linking chapters into a unified whole
Summarised from:

Click book for further information
Chapters of a thesis should link together to make a unified whole with one or more storylines that lead inexorably to make the case or cases for which the thesis is arguing. It is always worth wording the headings of chapters and sections so that they convey as comprehensively as possible what is in them. Then it is helpful to keep an up-to-date contents list, as you work, to be able to see a developing storyline at a glance. It is here that any lack of coherence is likely to show up first. So the technique can save hours of writing that later have to be discarded.
Sections in the chapter on preparing the thesis / dissertation
The importance of the thesis
The need to recap on the writing and referencing techniques of previous chapters
Orientating yourself for the task ahead
Developing a framework of chapters
Developing the content of a chapter
Sequencing the content within a chapter
Linking chapters into one or more storylines
Cross-referencing in the thesis
The writing process
Producing the abstract
Presenting the thesis in accordance with institutional requirements
It should be clear from a chapter’s introduction where that chapter fits into the rest of the storyline, i.e. where it carries on from previous chapters of the thesis. A good technique to accomplish this is to write a few keywords or notes under each of the following headings:
Setting the scene for the chapter, i.e. the general area(s) that the chapter considers.
The gap in knowledge or understanding which the chapter addresses – usually as identified as an issue in (an) earlier chapter(s).
How the chapter fills the gap.
A brief overview of what is in the chapter.
Then edit the notes together to form the introduction to the chapter.
The concluding section or paragraph of a chapter (except of course for the final chapter) should show how the theme of the chapter is carried on elsewhere in the storyline/thesis. The technique for doing this consists of writing a few keywords or some notes under each of the following headings:
What the chapter has done
What new questions the chapter has identified
Where these questions are dealt with.
Then edit the notes together.

Handling the writing process
Writing a thesis is generally a matter of progressively refining chapters in the light of their internal consistency and their relationship to other chapters. This cannot be done quickly, and most students underestimate the time it requires.
It is not usually productive to try to write the chapters of a thesis in sequence. Start with a chapter or several chapters that are currently fascinating you or that you have already come to grips with in your mind. Then develop them in whatever way is easiest for you, be it text on a computer, or scribble on blank sheets of paper, or as a ‘mind map’. The emphasis should be on producing a coherent structure, rather than on grammar or style. When you come to do the actual composition, it is most straightforward to do your own typing and then put it on one side for a time so that you can come back and edit it with a fresh perspective.
Ask your supervisors at what stage they would like to see the drafts. A common procedure is for students to write a chapter of a thesis, submit it to a supervisor and then rewrite to accommodate comments, but it is a mistake then to believe that the revised chapter is completely finished, never to need further modification. The ‘storyline’ of an entire thesis can never be clear from a single chapter. The full thesis is required, at least in draft. No supervisor will finally ‘approve’ a chapter in isolation. The scene-setting chapters are most likely to remain unchanged, but the analytical and interpretative ones depend too much on one another. The word ‘approve’ is in inverted commas, because it is the student’s not the supervisor’s formal responsibility to decide when a thesis (or chapter0 is ready for submission.
Updating drafts is so easy on a word processor that some students produce them copiously. So negotiate with your supervisor how many drafts he or she is prepared to comment on and in what detail. Most supervisors have to set some limits.
Your and your principal supervisor will have been very close indeed to your work for a considerable time. You, in particular, will know it inside out and back to front. So the links between its components may be entirely obvious to you both, while not being particularly clear to those who have met your work recently. It is important to minimize misunderstandings and to find out as early as possible where clarification is necessary. Giving departmental seminars will have helped, as will giving conference presentations and writing journal articles. If you have not done any of these recently, then try to find someone new to your work, who will listen to you explaining it or, ideally, will read the draft thesis and say where they have trouble following your arguments.
You must work through the final draft of the thesis in an editorial mode. Finalizing a thesis is always much more time-consuming than expected. The style must be academic; the text must be written to make a case; chapters have to be linked into a storyline; cross-references and ‘pointers’ need to be inserted to keep the reader orientated to what is where and why; there should be no typing or stylistic errors; and tables, figures and references should be complete, accurate and presented in whatever format has been agreed with the supervisor. Pay particular attention to the abstract, contents list, beginning and ends of chapters and the final chapter, as it is these which examiners tend to study first, and it is on these that they may form their impressions – and first impressions count. There may be departmental or institutional guidelines on maximum length.
Throughout the writing and editing process, be meticulous about keeping backups.
Most students choose to prepare the final versions of their theses themselves, although professional copy editors and typists can support to varying extents. If you need help, make enquiries well in advance of your deadline, because such individuals inevitably find that certain times of the year are busier than others. The departmental secretary or the students’ union should be able to make recommendations.
Although most students underestimate the time that a thesis takes, it is also worth pointing out that many students spend longer on it than necessary, either trying to bulk up the quantity or toying with unnecessary stylistic refinements.


HOW TO: Do yourself justice in the oral exam/viva
How students perform in the viva or oral examination can tip the balance of how the PhD thesis / dissertation is judged. This page offers suggestions, advice, tips and general help - on how to do oneself justice through advanced preparation and by conducting oneself appropriately when meeting examiners.
Preparing yourself for your oral/viva
Summarised from:

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A common suggestion is that students should prepare for the oral/viva through a mock examination with supervisors or others role-playing examiners. This may or may not be a positive thing as it may not be at all realistic. Only you and your supervisor can decide what is best for you.
Once you know who your examiners will be, it would be sensible to find out what you can about them, to familiarize yourself with their work and find links between it and your own. If at all possible, ask around to find out their examination style.
Since the date of the exam may be several months after completion of your work, you will have to reread your thesis some days before, so that it is at your fingertips. An oral examination is often called a thesis defence, which may help you to prepare better. Reread your thesis, as if trying to find fault. If possible, solicit the aid of a friend. Then prepare suitable defences. Defending is not the same as being defensive. If criticisms seem valid, prepare responses to show that you recognize this by saying, for example, what you would have liked to be able to do about them if there had been more resources or if you had thought about it at the right time, or what you hope that other researchers may still do about them.
Sections in the chapter on the oral examination/ viva
The form of the PhD/MPhil examinations
Submitting the thesis for the examination
The importance of the viva/oral examination/thesis defence
How orals/vivas are conducted
Preparing yourself for your oral/viva
Setting up tokens of appreciation
Dressing for the oral/viva
Conducting yourself in the oral/viva
Preparing for the result
It may be helpful to annotate your thesis, using 'Post-It' style stickers, so that you can find key areas quickly. Common early questions are likely to be ‘What did you enjoy most about your work?’ or ‘What would you do differently if you were starting out all over again?’ or ‘How did your Personal Development Planning or skills training influence your work?’. These questions may appear to be simple pleasantries to put you at your ease, but they may mask skilful probing into how well you can appraise your own work and your personal development as a researcher and scholar. Unless you prepare for them, they may throw you and affect how you conduct yourself in the rest of the examination.
Examiners may ask you to present parts of your work orally. They often do this to check that a thesis is a student’s own work and to gauge his or her understanding of it. Come prepared to talk through – and possibly also sketch out – the major ‘route maps’ through your work. This may mean repeating what is already written.
You may also like to prepare some questions for the examiners, although whether or not you use them should be a matter of judgement at the time. You will certainly want to impress with the quality of your thinking, but it would be unwise to raise issues which could seem peripheral and to which examiners might not be able to respond readily. Suitable questions might concern links which examiners might have on recent related work elsewhere or advice on how to go about publishing your work.
You will want to be in good form for the examination. Don’t think that drugs or alcohol or chewing gum will relax the tension. They will not. There is some evidence that they make performance worse, and they will probably lower the examiners’ view of you. A clean handkerchief or box of tissues is good insurance, to wipe sweaty palms and even tears, although any tension should disappear rapidly once discussion gets under way.

Conducting yourself in the oral/viva
Although it is understandable that you may be nervous at the prospect of the oral examination, most students find that they enjoy the experience of discussing their work with able and informed individuals. Remember, you are the world’s expert on your work, and your supervisor and the resources of your department should have provided you with sound support throughout your period as a research student. If you are not considered ready to be examined, you should have been told – and if you are considered ready, everything should go smoothly.
There are, however, a few guidelines on conducting yourself:
Take a pen and paper into the examination, along with your thesis.
Act with composure. Say good morning or good afternoon when you enter the room, but do not speak again until you are spoken to, or until the discussion reaches the stage of exhilarated debate. The examiners will want you to be pleasant but they will not be impressed by gregariousness.
Sit squarely on the chair, not poised on the edge. If there is anything about the room arrangement that disturbs you, ask politely for it to be changed.
Show that you are listening attentively to the examiners’ questions. They will expect you to argue, but try to do so without emotion, on the basis of evidence and keeping personalities out of it, showing that you take others’ points of view seriously, even if you do not agree with them. If you are in doubt about what examiners mean or whether you have answered a question in the way they are expecting, ask for clarification. Don’t defend every point; be prepared to concede some, but not too many.
Don’t hesitate to jot points down on paper if this helps you think.


"The Research Student's Guide to Success"




How to decide between qualitative and quantitative research methods
This page for MPhil and PhD students introduces the distinctions between qualitative and quantitative research. It aims to help MPhil and PhD students make better informed decisions about their choice of research methods and techniques and then to argue more effectively for the validity of their research outcomes.
The nature of 'truth': research paradigms and frameworks
Research should be about discovering 'truth' - but what exactly is 'truth'? It often depends on how someone is looking at things. It is therefore important as a researcher to understand how you are looking at your research and to be able to explain this to everyone else who needs to know about your research.
Common idioms which illustrate how there are (at least) two sides to most viewpoints
One person's junk is another person's treasure.One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.One person's meat is another person's poison.One person's junk is another person's antique.One person’s vice is another person's virtue.One person's security is another person's prison.One person's blessing is another person's curse.
Quite generally a way of looking at the world is known as a 'paradigm'. A 'research paradigm' is a 'school of thought' or 'a framework for thinking' about how research ought to be conducted to ascertain truth. Different writers tend use different terminologies when discussing research paradigms, because of where they are coming from. For practical purposes, though, various paradigms can normally be simplified into just two:
The 'traditional' research paradigm which is essentially quantitative
The 'interpretivist' research paradigm* which is essentially qualitative
This distinction will serve for starters but be aware that there are any number of different research paradigms in the literature and that there is not agreement among academics on how many there are or the finer distinctions between them.
*The term 'interpretivist' research paradigm is due to Denzin and Lincoln (1994), Handbook of Qualitative Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. p. 536.

Quantitative research and the traditional research paradigm
Summarised from:

Click book for further information
The traditional research paradigm relies on numerical (i.e. quantitative) data and mathematical or statistical treatment of that data. The 'truth' that is uncovered is thus grounded in mathematical logic. The traditional research paradigm lends itself to highly valid and highly reliable research. So why do researchers ever use anything else? The reason is that the traditional research paradigm can only be used where the variables that affect the work can be identified, isolated and relatively precisely measured – and possibly, but not necessarily, also manipulated. This is how research in the natural sciences normally operates. Researchers who can work in this paradigm are fortunate because high reliability and validity are held in great esteem. The proponents of the paradigm tend to take its advantages for granted, and theses grounded in it generally take the high reliability and validity as self-evident.
Living beings, however, are affected by numerous interacting variables, such as tiredness, hunger, stress, etc and these variables cannot normally be isolated from one another or measured, and it is certainly impossible, let alone normally unethical, to hold some constant while manipulating others. Nevertheless the traditional research paradigm can still lend itself to research touched by human and other animate behaviour if the data is numerical and if the sample is sufficiently large for the effects of individual vagaries effectively to cancel one another out. An example could be the performance of school leavers in national examinations across a country over a period of years. Another example could be an investigation into the yields of a hybrid crop using large fields of control and experimental plants.
Research set in this traditional research paradigm can answer questions about what is happening and the statistical chances of something happening in the future, but - and this is a big but - it cannot directly answer questions about why something is happening or may happen, nor about the existence of anything else that may be relevant, although answers to such questions may be provided by an established theory within which the research fits.

Qualitative research and the 'interpretivist' research paradigm
So the traditional research paradigm is generally not appropriate for research involving small samples of living beings. Then, the variables which stem from individual vagaries and subjectivity do not cancel one another out; neither can variables be readily identified or measured, let alone isolated and held constant while others are varied. Even with a large sample there are sometimes ethical or pragmatic reasons why variables cannot be held constant or manipulated experimentally.
So a different approach is needed and the research has to be set in the interpretivist research paradigm. What this involves is more like in-depth investigations to establish a verdict in a court of law than experiments in a laboratory. The evidence can be circumstantial and even where there are eye-witness accounts, doubt can always be cast on the veracity or reliability of the observers. A verdict must be reached on what is reasonable, i.e. the weight of evidence one way or the other and on the power of the argument. Data gathered within the interpretivist research paradigm is primarily descriptive, although it may be quantitative, as for example in sizes of living areas, coded questionnaires or documentary analysis. The emphasis is on exploration and insight rather than experiment and the mathematical treatment of data.
Research set in the interpretivist research paradigm can address questions about how and why something is happening. It can also address questions about what is happening in a wider context and what is likely to happen in the future - but it can seldom do so with statistical confidence, because the 'truth' is not grounded in mathematical logic. The 'truth' has to be a conclusion in the mind of a reader (or listener), based on the researcher's power of argument. So different recipients of the research may come to understand different 'truths', just as jurists may in a court of law. It is therefore important for those who use the interpretivist research paradigm to present their work as convincingly as possible. If you are working in this paradigm, your supervisor will advise you further.
Research students who use the interpretivist research paradigm normally have to do a considerable amount of justification. In contrast, those who use the traditional research paradigm often never even mention it.
Terminology
Alternative terms for research paradigms which are broadly similar to the traditional research paradigm are: quantitative, scientific, experimental, hard, reductionist, prescriptive, psychometric – and there are inevitably others. Alternative terms for research paradigms which are broadly similar to the interpretivist one are: qualitative, soft, non-traditional, holistic, descriptive, phenomenological, anthropological, naturalistic, illuminative – and again there are others. It must be emphasised that the similarities are in broad terms only. Many academics would argue fiercely about the significances of the differences.

Where next?
You may feel that this page leaves you, as a research student, with a sense of frustration that it does not say more. However the 'more' that individuals seem to want always turns out to be intimately associated with the requirements of their own particular field of study or programme of research. That is where the help of your supervisor is invaluable. Fortunately there is no shortage of books on research design, research methods and research techniques appropriate for particular fields of study, and you can readily find out what they are and study a selection. Then, under the guidance of others in your field of study and, in particular, your supervisor, you should be able to choose meaningfully how to progress your own research and argue for your conclusions.