Authorial voice
Another aspect that feedback might point to as you progress through your PhD is the absence of the PhD voice. Your voice in your writing.
Developing your voice as a PhD student takes a little time, but you need to get into the habit of bringing your insights into your writing. That is why, when note taking, I suggested a structure of [FACTS], [AUTHORS ARGUMENT], [MY ANALYSIS]. Your voice is located in the [My ANALYSIS] section of these notes. So this is part of your original contribution but it is also more than that.
This voice will become stronger the deeper you get into the PhD and the more you read and start to find holes in the arguments already out there. No piece of published work is perfect, they all have flaws for a variety of reasons. That is why we can critique them. Once you have generated your own data / theory, your PhD voice will become even stronger, based on the findings or insights you have created.
Your voice is not your activism or your gut reaction or assertion without evidence. Your voice will be respectful of other scholars contributions and situate your own work in the patchwork quilt of work already out there, and will be based on robust evidence, methods and theoretical insights.
Developing the confidence to bring your voice out in your writing is something that supervisors should help you with, or at least, they will point out its absence. If all you are doing is synthesising the work of others, you are not at the PhD level, and your voice will be lacking. But it is more than contribution, it is a distinct way of approaching the material and interpreting it that is all yours.
Today I will…
Make a note to ask my supervisor whether my ‘voice’ is present in the chapter that I submitted;
Write for 2 hours on my next chapter or pipeline project, working my way down my list of tasks.