‘Use the weapon’ (‘Arrival’, Villeneuve 2016) What is a PhD? PhDs are defined by their original contribution to knowledge. In order to be awarded a PhD the University of Edinburgh degree regulations state: ‘47. The student must demonstrate by the presentation of a thesis and/or portfolio, and by performance at an …
There has always been a theatrical, stagey element to lecturing. That is sometimes literally apparent. We teach in lecture theatres. In the gone before I regularly lectured from a stage. Teaching is a role and a performance. Those facts are rarely made use of explicitly. Some time ago I had …
Lovely discussion with students in my not-quite criminology classes about imagery of crime using Europol’s SOCTA 2017. The report crisply and directly illustrates Europol’s assessment of major threats in the field of drug trafficking, human trafficking and cybercrime. Not surprisingly for a report subtitled ‘Crime in the Age of Technology’ …
… structured, rigorous curiosity Also guess who’s convening the Research Design course come the semester start. A challenge in teaching or being taught research design is talking directly about what research design is as a general topic. We can point to specific design types (experiment, ethnography, etc) but it is harder …
Ontology and epistemology are two dimensions of research that are easily despatched in a sentence yet which give every research a lifetime of heartache. Ontology is the theory of the nature of reality, and epistemology of the acquisition and evaluation of knowledge about it. Both are facets of understanding. It …
The kind of reading you do matters a lot to the kind of scholarship you are doing. The classic image of the scholar is someone poring carefully over a text, parsing each phrase and glossing every paragraph. A scholar isolated from the world around, unburdened by cares. I expect few …
Everyone develops their own set of software tools over time. There are lots of handy specialist software programmes out there. Look out for those that have a strong support community around them. This is what makes R such a pleasure to learn and Nvivo so frustrating. I’ve selected ones I …
Visiting the art college and the Informatics school reminds me how uncreative most academic buildings and arrangements are. Many bear a striking resemblance to Dunder Mifflin, a monastery made of MDF, or the offices of a well established but slightly shady law company specialising in lengthy divorce battles. Students are …
In the early stages of the PhD, you work to ‘reduce the problem space’. Define the problem using the smallest number of steps, variables or data points. This shows you the scope of your study. Then elaborate the problem in as many contexts as you think it applies. This shows …
Is someone likely to use it to detonate under me at a conference (‘but surely you know that Bodkins has covered your very argument in her seminal work in the journal of Ipretendtoreadit studies?’) Am I likely to meet the author and give them a bland ‘loved the article’, and …
