The Old Library, Trinity College, Dublin

As I have put my nose to the grindstone and got right back into my research, my principal supervisor’s early advice that you read your way to a Phd has really been ringing in my ears.

With Christmas out of the way and a quiet New Year, I have been slogging away.

My goal was to have my draft Literature Review completed by the end of the first week of January. I have laboured over it for so long and had really thought I was nearly there but I just am not!

The advice of rejection for a journal article I submitted before Christmas has me going back to basics. The rejection letter said, go back and read more, do more to make the research more robust. On the one hand, I was annoyed as I felt in conjunction with my experienced co-authors that the article as submitted met, the criteria at least for a revise and resubmit, but apparently not.

On the other hand, I was thankful that the rejection letter came with advice about what needed to be worked on.

As the journal article was the culmination of my Honours Research and is the basis of my PhD research, the advice in the rejection letter has had me rethinking how robust my PhD project is. How robust is my literature review, am I approaching my research method correctly, what will my contribution be? It’s later that is the fundamental step in being awarded a PhD.

As I read one of the journal articles recommended I found myself asking whether I had really nailed a key construct in my PhD research or was I just kidding myself? Continue reading →