This blog is in response to a reader request on PhD writing, and is a summation of a number of requests I have along this theme.

‘Gaps’

Thesis writing is a genre that has many requirements and tropes in order to be recognised as a PhD and pass examination. Regardless of your type of PhD - professional doctorate, creative-led PhD, practice-led PhD, traditional ‘big book’ thesis or PhD by publication - they all have the same benchmark for passing and that is an original contribution to knowledge. That is it.

So when I am asked the question about having ‘gaps’ in a PhD, and how one might go about dealing with those gaps, I find myself pondering what kinds of gaps we are talking about and whether they are significant enough to mean you cannot reach the threshold of an original contribution to knowledge.

First things first: the good news

The best thing about doing a PhD is that for the one and only time in your life you get to set the question and decide what the right answer to that question is. This is marvellous. The question can be reformulated at any point before submission (and in some cases the day before submission) to reflect the actual answer you provided. It is a joyous thing - remember all those times lecturers graded your papers and said hey, this is a great answer to a different question, but this is not the question you were asked? Those days are behind you. Because you choose the question and the answer, and you can swap the question for one that fits the answer you have written. Hooray!

So when I see this query, and armed with the knowledge of retrofitting the question to suit the answer, I am wondering what kinds of gaps can present themselves, that cannot be remedied by a change in question?

There are gaps, and there are gaps

How do you define a ‘gap’? Is it that you just didn’t get as many data points as you might have liked in an ideal world, or is it like an asteroid has hit and all you have left are the edges?

So, you have no data? That is a chasm of a gap, but not if you changed tack and made the PhD theoretical in nature: crisis averted. Some more reading and a different methods chapter, but not the end of the world.

Did your data collection get skewered by a global pandemic (lovely in person things were no longer possible)? Well, either you pivot your method to a method that can be conducted online (surveys, questions, interviews and so on) or pivot to a different type of inquiry that is paper based. Supervisory input here is crucial.

If you are in science, and have less experiments/ samples than planned, your supervisor should have a plan for you - accessing the lab at different times and in different ways might make collection slower, but still doable. What if you can’t get the chemicals you need? You definitely need supervisory input here. Can you redefine your study, and do different kinds of experiments?

Archival trips no longer available? Work closely with the archive and librarians to see what can be achieved remotely. If your archeological dig was cancelled that is quite a big problem, but your supervisor should have a plan, including an interruption as a nuclear option, until things can be started up again.

I certainly foresee a lot of theoretical work coming out in the next couple of years due to Covid and yes, that is marvellous work too.

The PhD students’ gap

There is I think a fundamental misconception that plagues all PhD students - and that is the nature of research as a thing. Research is messy. It is unpredictable. It doesn’t come out like we thought it would. You ask a bunch of questions and expect answer A, B or C, and they all say no, it is X, Y and Z (real example from my own PhD). Arrrrghhhhhhhh, this is not what I had foreseen.

A PhD is an act of creation, and these rarely follow straight lines. You can do all the reading and planning imaginable, and even without a global pandemic, your research will not go as you planned it to. This is the gap in your knowledge about the nature of all research: it goes its own way. It is like riding one of those rodeo horses - you hang on for dear life and hope you can hang on long enough. If your supervisor seems a bit nonplussed by your dilemma, yet you are running around screaming in horror, this is because this is how all their research goes. Every. Single. Time. And they have forgotten it is your first time. So if they are a bit ‘meh - these things happen’, it is not that they don’t care, it is just another day in research paradise for them.

Research doesn’t go wrong - if we knew the answer to the question, why would we bother asking it in a PhD? By definition an original contribution to knowledge is a voyage of discovery, it is not a linear journey from A-Z.

Will the examiners cut you slack because of COVID: bad news AND GOOD NEWS

No. You might be able to get accommodations at the ‘doing’ phase - funding and departmental / University extensions on time have been forthcoming on the whole, but once you submit, you will be held to the very same standard as everyone else. Of course, you will (as you always would have anyway) define in the introduction what the project is and is not. What it does and doesn’t do, and why you chose one method and not another. For the first time, you have the easiest justification of all time: PANDEMIC. A short section, no? And not one the examiner can realistically argue with. Choice of method and its justification is the one place a pandemic helps you if this was the reason you had to go with one method over another.

The question will remain: is it an original contribution to knowledge, or not? This requires you to confront that difficult question - what is my original contribution? If I subtract X or Y from the execution of that contribution, does it still stand up to examination?

Engage with your supervisor about this specific question

Keeping your panic to a minimum is your responsibility, and lecturers are feeling very fried right now. Don’t imagine for a minute you are their top priority and they are holding all your PhD in their mind and can immediately see this might be an issue for you. This is YOUR PhD, so you need to take the initiative in bringing up your worries to their attention so that they can engage with you. However, they can and should help you rationally and without drama reframe your project and help you to understand whether this still hits the threshold of originality (and that the claim of originality is properly substantiated). This might well mean adjusting long held plans, and doing a lot more reading in a new area that you had not foreseen at the beginning.

Keep calm. All is not lost and you can still get your PhD. Remember, redefining your question is the biggest flexibility you have.