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Succeeding with Your Doctorate
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Succeeding with Your Doctorate

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April 2005 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Whether you undertaking a taught doctorate, or a course of study leading to a PhD, this book offers complete, up-to-date guidance and discussion on all aspects of successful doctoral work. The five experienced authors give advice on every stage in the process of completing a doctorate, from helping you to engage in critical reflection to better understand your own research biases, to useful guidelines on preparing for, and surviving, the viva. Combining general discussion with practical advice, this book is an essential companion to your research.

Topics include:

Preparing for a doctorate

Embarking on your Research

Adapting to life as a student

Working with a supervisor

Reading critically

Conceptualising your research

Thinking about methodologies and approaches

Producing a thesis

Preparing for and taking the viva

Disseminating your research

 
PART ONE: EMBARKING ON A DOCTORATE
 
What is a Doctorate and Why do People do them?
 
How Did I Get Here?
An Auto/biographical Approach

 
 
Learning on the Doctoral Journey
 
PART TWO: CONCEPTUALISING AND FOCUSING THE STUDY
 
Framing the Research
 
Reviewing the Literature
 
PART THREE: THINKING ABOUT METHODOLOGIES
 
Doing Research
Reflecting on Methods, Methodology and Ethics

 
 
Approaching Research as Lived Experience
 
PART FOUR: WRITING THE THESIS
 
Writing and the Writing Process in a Doctorial Programme
 
Production Values in the Doctoral Thesis
 
PART FIVE: PRESENTING AND SHARING RESEARCH
 
Presenting Your Work at the Viva
 
Whatever Next?
Spreading the Word and Becoming Part of the Research Community

 

Supplements

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This is a good guide to give an overview of the key areas that people can consider when needing a text to refer to throughout the process.

Mr Julian Ayres
School of Education and Community, Wrexham Glyndwr University
June 29, 2021

This is an excellent book, but it doesn't offer us anymore than our already established book. I would recommend to our students

Mr Nick White
Nursing and Midwifery, Sheffield Hallam University
September 13, 2015

This book is a useful guide for students undertaking a doctorate.

Mrs Sharon Arkell
School of Health, Wolverhampton University
August 11, 2014

A 'must read' guide for those embarking on, or considering undertaking a doctorate.

Mr Andrew Holmes
Centre for Educational Studies, Hull University
June 2, 2014

This book is a good little companion to those studying for a PhD. It contains lots of well structured advice across the various phases of the programme. A solid guide to dip in and out of throughout the research process.

Dr Rachel Curzon
Birmingham School of the Built Environment, Birmingham City University
April 10, 2013

In my view this is a really good guide to what is expected of a student undertaking a doctorate. The cameo's are really useful and clarify expectations.

Ms Michelle Evans
Faculty of Health and Social Care, London South Bank University
July 30, 2012

This book gives clear practical advice to begining reasechers.
It is useful to consult at the outset of your studies but also gives approprite guidance as you continue with your studies.

Mrs Marion Hobbs
Education, Edge Hill University
January 12, 2012

Sample Materials & Chapters

Pdf file of chapter 1

Pdf file of chapter 8


Jerry Wellington

My current interests and publications lie mainly two areas: firstly in the study of research methodology and methods; and secondly in the area of practice and policy in post-graduate education, particularly at doctoral level. In this second area, I am currently looking at the impact of the professional doctorate on people´s lives and professional practice. I am also writing in the area of educational publishing and how this has evolved, building on some of my earlier publications in this area. More About Author

Ann-Marie Bathmaker

Research InterestsMy research is in the broad field of lifelong learning, focusing in particular on further education and vocational education and training.  I am interested in the relationship between policy and practice, and in how policy is experienced, formed and reformed at micro levels of practice. I have an underlying interest in social justice and in/equality in the context of people’s changing experience of learning, education and training, and the relationship between learning, education and people’s wider lives. I am on the editorial board of the Journal of Vocational Education and Training and I convene the British Educational... More About Author

Cheryl Hunt

Dr. Cheryl Hunt is an Honorary University Fellow in the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter. She is interested in adult and inter-professional learning and has extensive experience of working with postgraduate students, including as programme director for professional doctorates, as a research supervisor, and as a tutor on professional development courses for university lecturers. She is the Founding Editor of the Journal for the Study of Spirituality; Executive Editor of Teaching in Higher Education; a Director of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality; and a long-standing Council (now Honorary) Member of the... More About Author

Gary McCulloch

My principal interests are in the history of education, including curriculum history, the history of secondary education, the history of teachers and teaching, the history of educational policy, historical perspectives on current educational issues, historical theory and methodology relating to education, and documentary research methods More About Author

Pat Sikes

Pat Sikes is a professor of qualitative inquiry in the School of Education, University of Sheffield. She became interested in narrative auto/biographical approaches in the late 1970s and throughout her career has undertaken research which has used them to investigate topics around teachers’ lives and careers and, from 2014, the perceptions and experiences of children and young people who have a parent with a young onset dementia. Research ethics are another key concern and focus of Pat’s work. In 2018, the British Educational Research Association awarded her the John Nisbet Fellowship for an outstanding contribution to educational research... More About Author

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ISBN: 9781412901161
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