[Air-L] PhD dissertation format

[Darren Purcell]

I know of several programs in Geography that were using this model in the
1990s, because my doctoral program interviewed at last two candidates who
completed their dissertations this way.



Darren
--------------------------------------------------------
Darren Purcell

Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Adviser
Dept. of Geography and Environmental Sustainability
University of Oklahoma

SWAAG Secretary : http://www2.geog.okstate.edu/swaag/

Email: dpurcell at ou.edu
Skype: profpurcell
(405) 325-9193
http://ags.ou.edu/~dpurcell/
http://ou.academia.edu/DarrenPurcell



On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Knut Lundby <knut.lundby at media.uio.no>wrote:

> At the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, we have through several
> years been encouraged to apply this dissertation format alternative to a
> monograph.
> Our PhD-programme is described here:
> www.hf.uio.no/english/research/doctoral-degree-and-career/
>
> Knut Lundby
> Dept. of Media and Communication
> University of Oslo, Norway
>
>
>
> Den 5. juli 2011 kl. 19.20 skrev Mathieu ONeil:
>
> > Hi everyone
> >
> > I am currently writing a report on a PhD dissertation from a European
> university. The dissertation
> >       -->consists of a general introduction (50 pages), four articles
> which have
> > already been published in peer-reviewed journals, and an appendix
> > consisting of an additional article.
> > I have to admit that I am little surprised by what is for me a new kind
> of Dissertation. Whilst the benefits are clear in terms of publications –
> when candidates obtain their doctorate they already have at least four
> publications in peer-reviewed journals – it raised some questions in my mind
> regarding the nature of the work.
> >
> > First, since it is the final, published version of the peer-reviewed
> articles which is presented these articles have (presumably) been peer
> reviewed. That is to say, candidates are not presenting strictly speaking
> their own work, with input from a supervisor, but rather work which may have
> been substantially benefited from a multi-person process of revision,
> negotiation, revision, etc. Can these articles  be said to represent a
> candidate's best solo effort? I know people could ask friends and contacts
> for comments but here articles have been for want of a better word
> 'professionally' edited and proofread...
> >
> > Second, despite the introduction which attempts to pull everything
> together the papers remain heterogenous articles and may suffer both from
> repetition (the same point can appear in one or several articles as well as
> in the introduction) and from the lack of a clear overall structure. When
> you write a traditional Dissertation (say 100,000 words) you really need to
> go from A to Z, learn to build a point over time and length... Maybe it is a
> useless skill.
> >
> > This is not an isolated phenomenon, I received a published version of a
> really interesting PhD from someone a few months ago who did the same - from
> a different European country.
> >
> > Anyway, I am curious as to how prevalent this practice is, and what
> people think about it – is a PhD like this the same as a traditional one?
> Does it matter?
> >
> > cheers
> > Mathieu
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