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Take that initial first step with our services at today and you'll be pleased with the results! update 1: if you're interested in this thesis, you'll be interested in my latest work for mozilla: the web literacy map. welcome to doug belshaw's neverendingthesis! on monday 3rd october 2011 i submitted my doctoral thesis to durham university: what is 'digital literacy'? a pragmatic investigation. George lucas just like a movie director, i don't feel that i 'finished' my work in order to submit.

Instead, there came a time when i had to draw a line under which was written 'submission date'. This wiki is a chance for me to continue working on my thesis long after it's been submitted. In the sidebar you will see links to the various chapters that make up my thesis. Depending upon when you access this wiki, the content may be very similar or completely different from the version i submitted. The version i deposited in durham university's e theses repository is available in microsoft word .doc and adobe acrobat .pdf format below: my presentations on digital literacies october 8, 2012 by james hayton one of the most common questions i get asked is how to choose a thesis topic.

You have to commit to something, but how do you know youre setting out on the right track? in this post, first ill explain what makes a good research topic, then how to choose a thesis topic and how to do the right things early to avoid problems later. Thinking about the end result, your examiners will be looking for research which is novel original set in the context of the existing research in the field, and competently executed when choosing a thesis topic, it makes sense to use these criteria to help you. Almost every invention or discovery or new theory depends on a combination of existing ideas, but put together in a new way or applied to a new problem. The first is to aim for a specific outcome nobody has achieved before, as watson and crick did when aiming to find the structure of dna. In research projects like this, there is a clear goal, but a risk that another group working on the same problem might beat you to it. The second approach is to pick a specific subject you want to study, and identify a question or problem that hasnt been addressed before in that niche. This could be a specific group of people, a species of butterfly or a new class of materials.

There could be a subject which has been widely studied, but never before using your methodology. The methodology doesnt need to be new, just new to the problem you are addressing in your research. You want to make sure nobody else has already done it you can learn from the methodologies used by other researchers you need to justify why your research matters while its possible that someone else has already done what you plan to do, its also possible that you come up with an idea so far removed from what anyone else anywhere in the world is doing that itll be impossible to publish. So you need to do some reading to find out what other people are doing in your chosen field. Do you have the skills and resources to carry out your project? and if not, will you be able to attain them? an idea is only a good one if you can carry it out competently. Now that we have some guidelines for what were looking for, how to choose a thesis topic? if you sit and wait for one idea that ticks all the boxes, you will be waiting for a very long time.

The eureka moment is a myth or at the very least, a massive oversimplification. Instead, there is a process you need to go through, which may be repeated several times. The ideas dont need to be completely unique, you could start with one idea, then consider multiple variations on a theme. However you approach it, take some time to think of as many different topics as you can. This takes away the pressure to choose the perfect topic immediately, and will open up potential avenues of exploration you may otherwise never have considered. Once you have a few ideas, you can pick the best ones and then this stage is crucial, and can save you years of pain.

Before you finalise your thesis topic, you need to test potential ideas for viability. Is the project possible? how will you go about it? what do you need? ask yourself, what is the simplest first step that would need to be taken. And figure out if it is possible doing simplified experiments or mini investigations checking that you will have sufficient access to equipment, people or information reading relevant literature asking relevant experts for example, if you have a research idea based on the assumption that you will have access to a database, then it makes sense to check before you commit to the project that you will actually have access. Or there may be another idea which seems viable, but if you arent familiar with the methodology then you need to ask for an expert opinion from someone with experience, who can tell you the practical elements you need to consider. Its best to do this as early as possible! dont worry if it doesnt work, thats the point of testing. Its ok to let go of ideas if they dont work or are impractical and much easier to do if you start with several possibilities. A piece of one idea combines with a piece of another, in a way you never would have found without going through those rejected ideas first.

No matter how good or original your idea, everything you present in your thesis will rely on getting good data. No amount of writing or analysis or insight or creativity can correct for poor quality data, so make this the ultimate criterion when choosing your topic can i get good data? if not, reject the idea, and choose another. It might take longer to find your topic, but you will save time in the long term. i know that data doesnt apply to all projects, in which case consider whether you can get good source material or information. how to choose a thesis topic? consider multiple options, do preliminary testing.

I havent written about ethics applications in this post, so if you need tips check out this excellent post over on the thesis whisperer blog the point of this post is to help you do it yourself. If anything is unclear, i am happy to answer questions, but cant provide people with guidance in the comments section of a blog post, and certainly cant just provide you with a topic! before reading these wise words advising you how to do a phd inspired by three years of the author carefully and diligently banging his head on a table you are requested to read and digest the following irony. To say that i enjoyed doing my phd would be a lie, not just an ordinary lie mind you. At times i hated my phd, so why do i have any authority to give advice on doing a phd? well, i don't claim to have any other than the fact that i completed and passed the thing, so i must have done somthing right. Disillusion any prospective phd candidates who think its going to be fun, offer solace to current phd students who might be under the impression that they're the only ones having a crap time, and generally show off my cartoons.

there's only one way of doing a phd and that's your own, that's your own, that's your own.

a phd, by its very nature, is a very individualistic venture. This is the first big surprise for people who are starting their phd having completed their undergraduate degrees there are well defined correct ways of getting a degree usually 'turn up to lectures, do course work, revise for exams, use a modicum of common sense' but such prescriptive techniques don't work for research degrees. The award of a research degree effectively says `this person knows how to do research in his/her chosen area' and `research' is a nebulous, difficult to nail down thing which relies on insight, lateral thinking, inspiration and a lot of hard work. An undergraduate degree is a lot of hard work, but doesn't put so much emphasis on inspiration.

Most if not all people cannot sit down and say 'right, today i'm going to have some inspiration'. The unpredicable nature of progress in a phd means you spend a lot of time not sticking to the deadlines you set yourself. In most departments there's always one smartarse who loudly proclaims that doing a phd is easy and he its usually a he can't see what all the fuss is about, and he's just written another three chapters this morning, and he's submitted another five journal articles. People like this are lying, showing off, from mars or over compensating for inadequacies in other areas of their lives if you know what i mean.