Tag: phd

Categories
History

[NEWS] Remembering Lord Asa Briggs 1921-2016

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Image: University of Sussex

On a sunny day in June 2004, I was sat chewing my fingers in the grounds of what was then University College Winchester, awaiting the arrival of Lord Asa Briggs, the external examiner for my PhD thesis entitled ‘The Planning, Design and Reception of British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War’ (available on Ethos). He’d got stuck in traffic around Thruxton, but on arriving an hour late, indicated we should get on with it … and contrary to all the warnings I’d had that one shouldn’t expect to know the results, immediately informed me that the thesis had passed. Along with Dr Adrian Smith (University of Southampton) we then proceeded to discuss a little Foucauldian discourse analysis, and a few other suggestions for around 25 minutes.

It took a while to sink in that I had passed my thesis without corrections (apparently only 5% of people do this). Briggs described my work as ‘one of the most readable I had ever had the privilege to examine‘, and it was recommended that it be re-worked and edited into a book, likely to be ‘highly saleable’, and the rest of the viva concentrated on this.

A range of part-time, contract, hourly-paid teaching/research jobs, global travel, two serious illnesses, two redundancies, five city moves, and twelve years later the book has not yet made the light of day, although the book proposal/sample chapters should be ready to send to a publisher by mid-August (see abstract), and I have used the work in ‘The Art of War‘ for The National Archives, for a chapter for London Transport Posters, and in an article on ‘The Renaissance of Keep Calm and Carry On‘ for The Poster. The book will contain an additional chapter focusing on the story of Keep Calm and Carry On as a product of the digital age, rather than a story of the Second World War. Lord Briggs had agreed to write the foreword for the book, but obviously this won’t happen now. The last email I had from him in August 2015, when I was asking if he would endorse for publication:

Congratulations on turning your thesis into a book!  [You don’t need an introduction from me]. Your book speaks for itself. Yours sincerely,  Asa Briggs.

A supportive and encouraging man, who remembered who I was, and was very encouraging about my work – and I see that he’s been mentioned in the book I plan to read in a couple of weeks Saving Bletchley Park by Dr Sue Black. Condolences to his family.

Obituary: The University of Sussex; The Guardian; The Open University

Categories
Academic History

Checking out @PhD2Published for #KeepCalmandGetPublished

keep-calm-and-carry-on-213x300As I’ve been working on my book proposal (16 pages so far), 10 years after my PhD was written (and probably of even more relevance now than when I wrote it, though that’s taken quite a lot of time to research), thanks to Suzie for spotting this article:

I deliberately gave myself a year from my PhD defense to decide whether or not I wanted to turn my dissertation into a book. During that year I didn’t look at my dissertation at all. Instead, I talked to people – mostly outside of my own Department –about their experiences and advice. The number one advice I got is that you should only turn your dissertation into a book if you can find the motivation to do so. If you cannot be enthusiastic about it, don’t take it on. Similarly, if you realize that large parts of your dissertation are already outdated, or make it unfeasible as a book for other reasons, you’re better off turning the best parts into articles – if you hadn’t done so already – and move on to a new project.

Read full article.

Categories
Academic

Value in a PhD?

An interesting piece on the ‘value’ and employability of a PhDphdgrad

Who would do a PhD? Who would willingly submit to spending endless hours, over three or four years, in the laboratory or library, racked by self-doubt and money worries, in preparation for a career for which vacancies were never more oversubscribed? …

But do doctoral students really feel prepared for life beyond the ivory tower? And how ready are they to embrace it? Here, we speak to five current and former doctoral students from a range of disciplines and universities about why they did their PhDs, what their experience was like and where they see their futures now.

Read full piece, with a couple of more positive responses 28/8; 11/9.

 

Categories
Academic

The value of PhD supervision…

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Interesting piece on PhD supervision:

When a PhD supervision session constitutes just another blocked-out hour in a besieged diary, it can be all too easy to forget that it could make an impression that stays with the student for the rest of their research career.

We asked five academics for their recollections of the PhD supervision they received, and the way it had informed their own approach to tutoring. Three had enjoyed excellent supervision that had deeply influenced their own practice. But two had not. One recalls exchanges with their tutor characterised by yawns and silences, while another was treated with a “cutting harshness”, valuable only as an exemplar of how not to conduct yourself.

Read full story, and accompanying editorial.

Categories
Academic

PhD: Has the quality dropped? If so, who’s “to blame”?

mfIRNyuThis is rather concerning (but not particularly surprising, as we’ve heard all those complaints about GCSE, A-Level, degree level standards dropping, etc.) re PhD doctorates. Really, by the time you sit the viva, you should know that your work is ready to pass, and that your job in the viva is to demonstrate that you actually wrote it (although others will still see it as a test) … and as I hope to take on a PhD student before too long:

Our experience does not lead us to criticise any particular system of examination or type of thesis. However, it does raise serious issues about the quality of work submitted for the PhD degree (or its equivalent) and the standards employed to judge such work.

To cut to the chase, a significant number of the theses we have examined did not deserve to pass – at least, not in the form in which they were submitted. One of us has examined six doctoral theses in the past year and believes that not one of them was worthy of the degree. Yet he had the means at his disposal to fail only two of them. Administrative conventions and examination procedures, not to mention social pressures, simply did not allow the possibility of failure.

Read full post.