SCAMPERing Through Your Thesis

I like acronyms as useful tools, particularly for unpicking things or prompting thoughts. Last year I shared a post on how to use the tool SCAMPER to think about how to extend the research you’ve done for your PhD. Recently it struck me that SCAMPER could be useful as a reflection and review tool.

Today’s post is a series of questions inspired by SCAMPER to get you reflecting about your research. Use these with journalling or free-writing to spark some thoughts about your thesis.

• Substitute: what did you change from something someone else had done?
• Combine: what ideas did you bring together in your thesis?
• Adapt: how have you altered the approach that you started with?
• Magnify: what areas did you decide to focus on?
• Put to other use: what pre-existing tools or ideas did you use?
• Eliminate: how did you simplify things as your work developed?
• Rearrange: as your thesis was nearing completion, what changes did you have to make?

Use these questions to think about your research and thesis. Reflecting on the three or more years of work you’ve completed is an essential part of the viva prep process.