Fulfilling the Potential of Your Doctoral Experience. Pam Denicolo

the process and manage the key stages, knowing when and from whom to seek help, in a mature and professional way. In this way, we hope that you will experience less anxiety, despite the inevitable challenges that a research project entails, and constructively enjoy the whole process.

      For those of you who are either re-joining higher education (HE) after a break or who are not familiar at all with the UK higher education procedures, we hope that our attempts to demystify the system will prove particularly helpful. For all readers, we hope to remove some of the arcane secrecy surrounding the doctoral journey.

      How can you best make use of the book?

      Unlike those books that take you through the doctoral journey step by step, perhaps from application to the post-viva activities, we have chosen to organise our story around a series of questions related to specific processes in which all doctoral researchers must engage. The questions themselves are arranged into three parts: Engaging with the process; Success is in the detail; and Progressing with confidence. Each of these has guidance or suggestions of relevance for all stages of the doctorate. Therefore, although you could read from beginning to end to gain an overview, we intend you to address specific issues as they arise or change in priority. We have chosen this structure because many, indeed most, issues thread their way throughout a research project or degree registration, evolving as they go. For instance, writing, reflection, relationship building and assessment are a few of the activities that should be indulged in from the first days to the last of your registration and beyond. A summary of the parts is provided below so that you can pick which topic is the most salient for you at any one time.

      Part One, Engaging with the Process, starts with a discussion that makes a case for the general benefits of doing research within a credit-bearing degree such as a PhD, DLitt or Professional Doctorate. It explains the nature of the doctorate in relation to your previous studies and what qualities you can usefully bring to bear throughout the process. It also begins the process of identifying opportunities within doctoral studies that can help you, with advice on how to take advantage of them. We then focus on how you can set yourself up for success from the very beginning, avoiding ad hoc or emergency-driven responses by identifying resources, including sources of help, in advance, and by developing good habits and work routines whilst developing a flexible plan. We then shift the focus to putting that plan into operation: dealing with routine, setting goals, monitoring your own progress, managing developments as they occur. This is the process of becoming a research professional with inevitable changes to your relationship with knowledge and with significant people in your life such as your supervisors, family, friends, peers, work and home communities. This process often melds excitement with disappointment, stimulation with mundane but necessary activity, as you cultivate a self-aware stance with professional values to gain your own research professional voice. In essence, you are forming your identity as a researcher and becoming a professional researcher. Therefore, we include suggestions about maintaining your motivation and energy in the final phases.

      Part Two, Success is in the Detail, begins with that critical activity of writing, particularly the process of developing a thesis. The thesis is your argument about why the topic was selected, how it was explored, what emerged from the research, what it means and why it is important. We provide some general suggestions about how to produce a good quality thesis, one that presents a coherent, concise and clear research story in a critically engaged way. We also include some of the most frequent critical responses from examiners. Practical advice about writing and curating data, reviewing the literature and referencing, using quotations and avoiding plagiarism, is woven into the chapter to help you develop a good research story. Complementing your writing activity will be the need to access resources and make the most of the myriad of opportunities and sources of support within your institution and beyond. We discuss how to identify and access courses, events, people and other resources, some of which you will need from early in your research. Some opportunities and resources will serve immediate project needs but many will also enhance your life and your career beyond the doctorate. Indeed, we discuss how you could balance your needs, expectations and responsibilities towards your project with building a profile for the future. The relationships you develop during your doctoral programme are crucial so we explore how to build effective professional relationships with supervisors and other influential academics and mentors. This includes managing supervision meetings, dealing with criticism and developing your own standpoints, eventually taking ownership of the research as your expertise increases. We remember that this complex process is turbulent, a roller-coaster of a journey, so another aspect we address is managing your emotional responses. We encourage you to be less emotionally dependent on your supervisor, so that you not only move towards intellectual independence but you increase your level of self-awareness to become, by the end of the process, self-directing. This is helped by building a network of friends and contacts who can provide feedback and support during the doctorate, while becoming professional allies in the future.

      We then address the necessity of learning to be an assertive authority on your topic, an attribute that examiners are looking for in a viva. This leads to the prickly issue of assessment, which we address by providing an overview of what kinds of assessment to expect as a regular feature of the doctoral process and why it is a positive facet that can guide and support your progress. We suggest how to prepare for reviews, what they entail in general terms, what outcomes are possible and how you might respond effectively to them. The final assessment of the doctorate, which we outline in a separate chapter, takes different forms in different national contexts but there are many common criteria. We provide guidance on how you might prepare for that final process while addressing the criteria during the whole project process. For those who will experience a viva voce, we suggest ways to limit stress and, indeed, even enjoy the process. Finally, in this section, we discuss potential outcomes of the thesis examination and how to respond productively to any suggested amendments to improve your thesis.

      In Part Three, Progressing with Confidence, we turn to facets of the research process that are particularly future-oriented, although they are developed throughout the doctoral programme. Few researchers would wish their research efforts to produce an insignificant outcome, yet there is debate in the sector about the pressure from government and funders for all researchers to be able to articulate and demonstrate the impact of their research. We introduce you to this debate and its consequences for doctoral researchers and future careers. Further, we discuss means of identifying potential impact to help realise the potential of your research, indicating a range of ways in which benefits can accrue from wide dissemination, including, for instance, public engagement and enterprise initiatives. You will undoubtedly need to develop several new skills and build your skills-set to achieve those ends beyond learning traditional research methods. Therefore, we present a range of attributes of successful researchers and examples of the approaches and techniques different researchers use and tailor to their own characteristics. We encourage you to reflect on your own experience, natural inclinations, discipline area and ambitions so that you might adapt them for your own use. Our message here is that it is to your advantage to be proactive, seeking out opportunities rather than waiting for them to emerge.

      Throughout the book, we emphasise the personal growth that accompanies your intellectual development and furthers knowledge accumulation over the progress of your doctorate. In this third part, we discuss these as marketable attributes. We consider how you can recognise them in yourself and then promote them effectively to future employers, tailoring your CV appropriately to the target audience and learning to write and speak in registers different to that used within the doctoral research community. This leads to our concluding discussion, which focuses on transitioning beyond the doctorate to establish a new role. In the latter part of your doctorate, you can take advantage of opportunities that will help you move to new environments with different cultures and demands. Every organisation, including each school within a university and extending into commerce, industry and the public sector, has its own peculiar culture and requirements of its employees. You can prepare for this using some of the skills, of flexibility and tenacity to name only two, that you have acquired and/or developed during your doctorate and which are as important for your future career as the certificate and title itself.

      Voice and vocabulary