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Tag: significant original contribution

Nathan

Ideas Need Work

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“What a good idea!”

It’s very rare that an idea is enough. It takes work to develop, to implement, to unpick, to understand and for it to have an impact.

You will have had many good ideas throughout your PhD. However they’ve made their way into your thesis, they needed effort to come to life. They needed your work to make an impact.

Whatever is in your thesis, it took work to write, work to edit, work to figure out how to express it.

Your work.

There are great ideas that exist because of the work you did. When you go to your viva there’s a lot to talk about. Remember that the reason it’s there is because you took the time and the effort to do it.

Your thesis is proof of your contribution and evidence of your capability as a researcher.

 

PS: today’s post aims at boosting confidence by reflecting on your PhD and the work you did. If you’re looking for more ways to boost your confidence and get ready for the viva then check out Viva Survivors Select 03, The Preparation Issue, which came out yesterday and is available now at this link!

Nathan

How Original!

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Or, original how?

What makes your work new? What makes it different to everything that came before?

It’s not enough to say that your thesis has something in it. It has to be a new something.

How do you explain the originality of your work? What words helps you to convey that to your reader or your audience? (and do the words change depending on who you’re talking to?)

If you’ve submitted then the words in your thesis are fixed. You can still explore how you can communicate and demonstrate what makes your research an original contribution. Make notes, rehearse with questions and of course think some more!

How is your thesis contribution original? How does that relate to what makes it significant?

Nathan

Significant To Who?

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When thinking about your significant original contribution it’s natural to think about why something matters. The results and conclusions in your thesis have value and it’s right that someone – like your examiners – would want to explore that in your viva.

It makes sense to reflect on why your work matters and how you explain that as part of your viva prep. It’s also a good idea to think about who your work matters to as well.

For example, my thesis contained algorithms I’d developed for calculating certain properties of mathematical objects. That’s my simplest explanation without invoking fancy terms and funny symbols! This work mattered because these properties were typically very time-consuming for people to calculate. My algorithms had limits but they were very quick and easy to use.

That’s the why. The who, the people who would be interested, was a little more niche.

People interested in my work might be people who needed a tool. Or people who were looking to develop their own. Or even people looking for a little inspiration. But my work wasn’t for everyone.

Explore why your work matters as you get ready but remember to think about who it matters to as well.

Nathan

A Dreaming Reflection

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I was recently reminded of the Dreamer, Realist, Critic model for creative thinking. One way a person might apply it to a situation that needs ideas is to think in three phases:

  • Dreamer: What ideas can I find for this? The sky’s the limit!
  • Realist: How can I find a practical idea? I have to be grounded.
  • Critic: Where are the flaws with my ideas? I have to be serious.

I’m simplifying for brevity, but you get the idea. Disney is said to have used these various stages of thinking to help explore projects. More generally, it’s helpful to have structure to help focus.

As with so many tools like this I think it has a natural application to viva preparation, particularly in reflecting on the thesis contribution. The three words have good connections with different ways to focus:

  • Dreamer: How can we apply this contribution? What are the different ways someone might value it?
  • Realist: How did you come to these ideas? What tools, methods and resources did you use?
  • Critic: Where might there be problems in your research? How can you account for different perspectives?

I’m simplifying for brevity here too, but again you get the idea. Take the questions, write down some thoughts and reflect on your research and what it means.

Nathan

What Did You Improve?

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There’s no one-size-fits-all way to define the value of a contribution to research. Expectations vary a lot between disciplines but perhaps one universal question could simply be “what did you improve?”

Do we know something new now? Do we know something more? What is clearer? What new questions do we know to explore?

A starting point to a response might be to reflect on the improvements in you: now more learned, more capable and more thoughtful.

 

PS: I share another helpful tool to help explore thesis contributions in the first issue of Viva Survivors Select – my curated zine drawing from the daily blog archive. As well as twenty posts from the past I share original writing, including a reflective summary process for breaking down thesis chapters. Check out the issue here.

Nathan

The Contribution Collage

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The Contribution is typically a lot of little contributions: lots of small pieces of new and good research that make a bigger picture of progress.

It would be nice if all of these pieces were uniform, regular and in pleasing proportions to fit together, but it’s probably more likely that your work creates a collage of contributions, each arranged just so to make the best Contribution possible after years of work.

  • Explore why each of these little contributions matters and you understand more of what the Contribution adds to your discipline.
  • Reflect on the Contribution and you’ll see how the smaller contributions add to the bigger picture of what you’ve achieved.

Whichever perspective you consider you’ll find interesting things to ponder as you get ready for your viva – and interesting things to talk about at your viva.

Nathan

What Does It Do?

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A four word question to help you think about your significant, original contribution.

Four words that might help you get thinking quickly. What, practically, does your work do? What do your results do for others? We can spin a web of questions and connections from those four words.

Start with the simple and work out. Reflect, write and talk.

Get ready to tell your examiners all about the value of your contribution.

Nathan

Intention Matters Too

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Whatever your research, you care about the results and conclusions of the work you’ve done. The tangible contributions you’ve made are what show your examiners (and everyone else) that you’re good and have made a difference. Right?

Yes.

But that’s only part of the story – and for some candidates that perspective can be worrying.

What if you didn’t get all the results you were looking for? What if some problems were too big, too messy or too complicated to resolve?

Your contributions matter, but the work matters too. Your intentions matter. Why did you pursue a project or area of research? What were you hoping for? How did you try to explore it or solve the problem?

It’s essential to be able to talk about your contributions at the viva, but just as important to talk about how and why you were pursuing them in the first place. Regardless of whether or not something worked, why did you go after it?

Nathan

Outside The Box

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PhD researchers have to be creative in some way: a candidate is expected to produce a significant and original contribution through their work.

What makes your work original? In what ways were you creative throughout your PhD? How did you look at things differently? How did you find solutions to problems?

What did you do that no-one has ever done before?

And having stepped out of one box through your work, what does the new box look like?

(and how might you or someone else go further?)

Nathan

Six Questions About Contributions

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Examiners need to explore your significant original contributions to research at your viva.

In preparation for your viva it’s worth reviewing your contributions to think about how you would share them. There’s no right answer or script to use: the words you find in the moment will be enough. In preparation though, reflect on any contribution with the following questions to give you something to consider and speak about:

  • Why did you explore the contribution area?
  • How did you do that?
  • What did you find as a result?
  • When did you do this work?
  • Where did you do this work?
  • Who, if anyone, helped you?

The first three questions, Why-How-What, help to explore what makes the contribution valuable. The second three questions, When-Where-Who, reveal more of the context for the work.

Start with Why-How-What. Dig deeper with When-Where-Who.

No scripts. Just thoughts and ideas to draw from at the viva.

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