Academic Coaching Blog — Dissertation
What's a PhD?? Here's one answer...
Matt Might has diagrammed the PhD this way in his brilliant Illustrated Guide to the PhD. I love it because he cleverly shows that doctoral research pushes beyond the edges of what is known, to discover new knowledge outside the boundaries of the human record. This is what examiners are looking for. In fact, they can't award the PhD unless you've demonstrated that you have made an original contribution to what is already known. You have to poke at the edge of human understanding and find your own Eureka! moment. And that's hard. You're in unchartered territory. You find yourself the world's...