What is a PhD? Even though this is a pretty basic question, a lot of students and academics don’t have a clear answer—and that matters because the way you think of a PhD, what it means and what it’s for, affects how you approach it.
So, when it comes to defining a PhD, I’ll hear things like;
It’s an original contribution to the body of knowledge
This has some truth to it, but I think there’s more to it than simply being original. It also focuses on the output without telling you anything about the process.
It’s about becoming an independent researcher
I really dislike this definition because I don’t think there’s any such thing as an independent researcher. Yes, you need to be able to make your own decisions, but you also need other people. Most professional academics collaborate and consult with others, and you shouldn’t have to figure it all out on your own.
And a few times I’ve also heard people say that;
If this is true then I’ll give mine back!
And, often, I’ll hear metaphorical definitions, like;
- It’s a driving license for research
- It’s a journey
- A PhD is a marathon not a sprint
But these don’t really tell you very much. We need a definition that gives us some insight into the process and what’s required.
Many people see a PhD as a way of completing their eduction. They see it as the culmination of the education system and the ultimate achievement.
This makes sense, if we view the education system as a pyramid with a PhD at the top. It’s usually only the people who do very well at all the earlier levels who go on to do PhDs.
But there’s a problem with thinking of a PhD this way…
Throughout the education system, there’s a certain consistency to the way things are done. There’s a set syllabus, and there’s a set timetable, so everyone on a course does the same thing at the same time and everybody does the same exams at the end.
But in a PhD, there is no set syllabus and no set timetable. You have to develop and manage your own unique project. And there is no standard exam– you have a defence based on you own work.
There are other differences too. In an undergraduate degree, you’re generally dealing with well-established knowledge, and you’re given information in a carefully designed order to help you learn. But in a PhD you’re working at the blurry edge of knowledge, where you have to dive into the tangled mess of academic literature. This isn’t written or structured to help you learn, because it’s written for an expert audience, and to make it more difficult much of it will be contradictory.
In so many ways, a PhD is not only different to the previous levels of the education system, it’s the exact opposite. So even if you did exceptionally well throughout your education up to this point, the skills that got you into a PhD are not the same skills you need to finish one.
So, instead of thinking of a PhD as the top level of the education system, I think of it as the bottom level, the entry level, of the professional academic system.
The purpose of a PhD is to develop and then demonstrate the skills of a professional academic researcher.
You may have no intention of becoming a professional academic, but this is what the system is set up for.
First, it takes some of the pressure off. The PhD is not the completion of your education, nor the culmination of your life’s work. It’s just the beginning.
Second, it’s not about showing how good you are, it’s about learning. And if you understand a few basic principles then you can design your project to help you develop the skills you need, with the assumption that you’ll make a load of mistakes along the way.
This is another key difference between a PhD and much of the rest of the education system. In a conventional exam, mistakes are penalised and recorded forever in your grades. Having been trained in that system for so long, many PhD students I speak to are terrified of making mistakes.
But in the professional academic system, nobody really cares how many mistakes you make on the way to making a discovery. In fact, mistakes are usually a necessary part of the process.
PhD: an uncommon guide to research, writing & PhD life is your essential guide to the basic principles every PhD student needs to know.
Applicable to virtually any field of study, it covers everything from finding a research topic, getting to grips with the literature, planning and executing research and coping with the inevitable problems that arise, through to writing, submitting and successfully defending your thesis.
All the text on this site (and every word of every video script) is written by me, personally, because I enjoy writing. I enjoy the challenges of thinking deeply and finding the right words to express my ideas. I do not advocate for the use of AI in academic research and writing, except for very limited use cases.
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