When it comes to writing up your thesis, a word of warning comes to mind: please do not procrastinate. Yet that is exactly what many do or are in danger of doing. Work, family and life in general all get in the way of achieving our goals.   You might have heard of the fable story about the Hare (Rabbit) feeling very confident, arrogantly ridiculed the Tortoise because of his slow-moving approach. However, when the Tortoise challenges the Rabbit to a race, guess who the winner was? The slow-moving Tortoise, instead of the pacy Rabbit. How did this happen? It […]

Hi All, Saturday, 2nd June 2018, saw the DoctorateHub present a webinar on the Literature Review. Drawing on our pre-reading we explored the types of feedback the literature review chapter receives in Viva. Not surprisingly, most indicate the lack of critical thinking as a core theme. We explored the literature review chapter based on this feedback. Starting from a critical thinking perspective is optimal to avoid comments around being descriptive over critical in the viva. Critical thinking is as John Dewy states ‘reflective thinking’. It’s a way of being mindful of self-awareness, our biases and other influences on our thinking. Being […]

The DoctorateHub Team – Wednesday, 21 June 2017, 7:19 PM I was in a viva yesterday. Obviously it not me who is defending the thesis – thank God I did mine almost 10 years ago, but it is a Nigeria long distance PhD student. I was there to represent his supervisor (a colleague of mine) who could not attend. In most UK universities the supervisor is allowed to attend the viva, although he cannot participate (speak) in it. Let’s starts from the OUTCOME: Revision with a maximum of 12 months re-submission. How did the student perform in his thesis defence […]

The DoctorateHub Team – Sunday, 18 June 2017, 8:15 PM Let us kick start this forum with some general knowledge. The Viva voce or viva for short is a Latin phrase literally meaning “with living voice” but this is often translated as “by word of mouth.” For our purpose in the doctoral work, it is the term used for the oral examination of your thesis. In the UK, the oral examination or sometimes also known as the “thesis defence”, is usually conducted by at least two examiners. An external examiner from another institution and an internal examiner from your own institution. Both are chosen […]

The literature review is seen as the heart and soul of any academic work. It is the repository of written knowledge that is either existing or identifies what could be added as yours or someone else’s contribution. For a doctoral thesis, where the essence is to generate or contribute to knowledge, it touches every aspect of the document, from the introduction chapter through to the discussion/conclusion. As such, the literature review is an important part of your thesis. The DoctorateHub will run a live webinar on the Literature Review  at 7pm UK time (6pm GMT) on Saturday, 2nd June 2018. […]

Dr Ana Faria led a webinar on Formulating Research Questions, on Saturday, 19th May. Time zones ranged from 7pm UK and 8pm South Africa time through to 2am Singapore and 4am Australian time. This global participation saw some great discussions around what constitutes a good research question, and solution v’s open-minded research. Dr Faria provides a number of practical examples to discuss and concluded with her PhD development from her original to final research question/s. Having the visual of the transition aided understanding of the process involved. We need to take our mindset away from business reporting that is solution […]

Once you have identified your research problem statement, developed a Doctoral Thesis Proposal and worked through the intended structure of your thesis, it’s time to consider the formulation of your Research Questions. Are they quantitatively, qualitatively or mixed-method focused? This will have a direct impact on the way you undertake your thesis. Research questions need to relate to the problem statement and be based around the research method selected. This allows the doctoral candidate to explore the problem through, for example, a central one-ended question and associated sub-questions for qualitative, or central question/s and hypothesis for quantitative. This aids the […]

You have identified your problem, developed your thesis proposal, gone through the approval process and considered the structure of your thesis. It is now time to put pen to paper…. The Doctorate Hub team will hold a live, interactive webinar on the Chapter Content and Order led by Jacqueline Hiddlestone-Mumford, a Doctoral candidate, on the 7th April 2018, at 7pm UK time. This is the third in a series of webinars run by 4 academics and thesis supervisors. The Chapter Content and Order webinar will compare the PhD and DBA chapters, then cover the content of the various chapters from […]

Hi All, On Wednesday, 14th March 2018, a webinar on The Structure of the Thesis was presented to yet another appreciative group of Doctoral students from across the globe.  Being in all time zones, finding a single optimal time will always require some of us to attend in the middle of the night. We were taken through answering the structural questions around purpose, audience, selling your idea, and the structure to use, which differs between a PhD and DBA. By providing a clear understanding of our work, the roadmap of our contribution, the structure should lead the reader to the answers to the […]

Dear Participant, I am mailing you since you have been registered for our webinar on ‘The Structure of the Thesis’, which will take place on March 14th, 2018 at 19 pm UK (UTC+0) time. You can access the Webinar through the following link. This Webinar will be hosted with Microsoft Skype Link, which is a browser-based plug in solution. We advise you to login 15 minutes before the start in order to set up the system. With this we also invite you to reply to this e-mail in the case that you would like to pose a question in advance […]