Notes by Maaz Javed and Aisha Irum
On a cup of coffee with the students of PhD batch 2016 last week, Dr. Asad Zaman discussed some major points regarding the PhD dissertation which the students are going to write in the coming months. He gave directions to the students regarding thesis writing specifically about how to manage time, choose topic and supervisor, mastering a particular branch of field with patience and complete determination. The discussion was started with the quote that “journey of thousand miles begins with a single step”. He said to complete a PhD thesis it is not necessary to be intelligent but consistent enough to take on the challenges he/she faces in completing this phase of life. Furthermore, he suggested us to study his IIIE Student Guide (https://sites.google.com/site/studentguideforproposalwriting/), which gives a complete guidance on how to start writing a research proposal. The main points of the discussion are given below.
First do Istikhara
The first and the foremost thing to take in any task is to get spiritual guidance. For this one must do Istikhara which means to seek goodness from Allah before doing an important task. This will make the seeker clear about all the confusions of heart and mind.
Journey of thousand miles starts with a single step
PhD thesis is really hard job to do due to its requirement of colossal amount of work that a scholar has to do within limitations that he/she is facing regarding various deadlines. To come up with a nice piece of work the key is to be consistent in work otherwise the cost of time and everything in life will not be covered. The task should be to divide big targets into small targets and to have the aim of achieving specifically a single target on daily basis instead of making plans for very high but unachievable targets. The key to triumph any big deal is to divide the tasks in many bits and do every piece of that task on daily basis. Although it’ll seems like very negligible amount of work but its accumulation will be great achievement indeed. Every single step is as necessary to get to the target as the target by itself because without these small steps nothing is achievable. Daily setting and attaining of small targets sustainably leads to huge triumph when complied. So small steps are essential to get to destination and this is what researchers have to do their PhD research work.
Specified pint-size contribution is ample to fulfill degree requisite
PhD is a research degree which make student expert in any one specific branch of subject instead of what some people assume it to bring any breakthrough in their research. PhD research helps students in grasping all brass tacks of one particular field and to have thorough knowledge of that area. It’s not the case that PhD scholar has to come up with any enormous kind of newfangled research that has to face huge resistance by examiner but after having firm grip in one specific area only new comprehension and miniature modifications are ample to fulfill degree requirement.
Talk about what is being already discussed on the table
In line to this one shouldn’t start working on topic in which scholar or her supervisor doesn’t have command because any difficulty will lead to time and energy waste for both of them and may also lead to strain from top to toe if one get stuck somewhere and can’t find any way to unravel the problem. Plus it is enough to make adequate level of addition in literature by working in depth in one precise direction instead of going out of way of what’s happening in main stream. Making utterly new dimension is not as vital as getting to finishing point of PhD as soon as possible because all new research in firsthand field of area requires lot of time, energy and huge expertise and that’s not possible at this level. Going into exclusively new direction and coming up with breakthrough research is like bringing up with completely opposite direction of topic than what is being discussed at table by all the participants that will for sure have to face resistance and people will also feel bad about it.
Parallel search of topic and supervisor that complement each other
It’s necessary to select topic according to your interest but along with interest two other things are also crucial. One must choose topic and supervisor in parallel means that topic should be as per interest of supervisor and that supervisor must be chosen who can help in that specific topic. Both of these are really important and must be chosen wisely otherwise if student stuck at later stage due to any of these two then it is not possible to start by switching any of these two options.
Be ambitious but not overambitious
To be ambitious is good as well as necessary for research work as student get stuck at many places during research phase plus if he/she is not ambitious then it’s really difficult to come up with solutions of problems. Here ambitious means to choose a topic on which student can have command, can find out gap and do work to fill that gap within given time frame. During PhD one must not be overambitious because then one will get to choose the topic that is beyond one’s capacity to comprehend, to cover up the gap that one describes or aims to fill up and also can’t finish the research work in right frame of time. So these overambitious targets must be left for time after getting done with PhD research otherwise it’ll cost huge to scholar.
Be master of one specific branch of subject
PhD research requires from student to be master of one explicit branch of subject but doesn’t oblige for the entirely new and massively vast research. As discussed earlier student must not come up with exclusively firsthand idea that is difficult to be accepted by examiner but should go in-depth in already established field and try to do little improvement in it. For this purpose she must read at least 150 articles on one specified topic and after doing it she’ll have command on topic more than anyone and can go for little improvement in chosen area. This is what PhD requires from student but being overambitious may result in delay of degree, cause hurdles in approval of research idea, student may get succumb at point when she stuck at some point and will also lead to mental stress. So the student has to go into one specific area and read as many articles as she can, get expertise just on that, find out some gap or space for improvement in it and do it in little steps on daily basis with consistence.
Write a complete Literature Review (not Annotated Bibliography)
As already discussed above that a researcher needs to read at least 150 articles on his/her topic in order to find a gap. In order to remember what every article contains, one needs to write a short note of who has written the article and what is the content of the article. This is called annotated bibliography. But one starts writing a research proposal annotated bibliography is not the right way to complete the chapter of Literature Review. In that case one must make connections of the different studies/articles, the themes and ideas being discussed. Random list of articles which are not related to the research question must not be discussed in the research proposal.
Here it is worth noted that annotated bibliography is different from literature review as annotated bibliography has detailed summary of articles those are in align with research area but in literature review each sentence must be linked to purpose of your study. It must be noted in literature review must contain only related information, which helps in building an argument, is necessary but all other detail must not be included.
Avoid Plagiarism
The most focused point of the discussion was to avoid copying material of others in the research proposal and thesis. Mentioning/copying something without citing its source is considered plagiarism even if it is a single sentence. Even more important, the process of understanding something, absorbing it, and then re-expressing it in your own words leads to substantial improvement in understanding, while cut-and-paste is usually done when student does not understand the material.
All these points if followed will help a scholar to complete his/her PhD in no time with least amount of hardships faced. Consult the Student Guide for the thorough understanding of how to choose topic, annotated bibliography, literature review, methodology, data sources and references. Student should also develop their own Google site and upload the annotated bibliography of articles and all related material there and provide link on WordPress blog under heading of Currently Underway theses. Students are advised to prepare annotated bibliography of at least an article a day, upload it on their personal website and link it to WordPress blog.
.
AZ Students 