Talk:Doctor of Philosophy.html



	This article is part of WikiProject Education, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of education and education-related topics. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to featured and 1.0 standards, or visit the WikiProject page for more details.
Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

	Philosophy portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received an importance rating on the importance scale.

	Portal This article is part of WikiProject Universities, an attempt to standardise coverage of universities and colleges. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this notice, or visit the project page, where you can join the project or contribute to the discussion.
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Archives

Archive 1 - Page creation through December 2006.

Archive 2 - January 2007 - December 2007.

Tidying up reference section

I tried to tidy the references section a little tonight, adding the publication date for the text "How to Get a Ph.D." by Phillips and Pugh, and giving this source its ISBN. I have also added a reference to an article by Dinham and Scott (2001) that appeared in the "Journal of Further and Higher Education" that is relevant to this subject. Please note that the ISSN which I gave for this journal is only for the printed form; it has a different ISSN in its online version. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:27, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I have proposed that PhD Candidate be merged into this article. Is there any objections? --Kannie | talk 03:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Definitely, although it needs some serious modification to give a better worldwide view rather than what appears to be a predominantly US one (it certainly looks like the setup in Piled Higher and Deeper). Here in the UK there's no real concept of "All But Dissertation" - the PhD is nearly always all research based and people undertaking it consider themselves "PhD students" from day one, whatever the legal fiction of their MPhil registration. There's "writing-up" I suppose but that's a very different thing and the thesis is submitted before the viva. Timrollpickering (talk) 09:20, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, although as Timrollpickering says, the article PhD Candidate isn't necessarily relevant outside the US, so perhaps the best thing to do would be to make it another subsection of the United States section -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 00:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

the article saying that one abbreviation is British English and one is American English doesn't seem correct

I am a PhD student in the UK and have always read that 'PhD' is an informal abbreviation but every candidate should know that 'Ph.D.' is the correct form for formal uses. The British/American distinction seems overly simplified if not plain wrong.82.42.207.235 (talk) 17:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not my experience (as another PhD student) at all. I've certainly never been told this and looking at several UK institutions' style guides it seems the recommended formal use is very much for "PhD":

York says "No full stops - Eg USA, UK, MA, PhD, etc, eg, 20 per cent" http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/presspr/ppr/styleguide.pdf

Edinburgh gives a list of degree abbreviations includig "PhD" http://www.cam.ed.ac.uk/documents/University-of-Edinburgh-Editorial-Style-Guide.pdf

London Met has a table of "wrong" and "right" forms with "Ph.D" listed as "wrong" and "PhD" as "right" http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/staff/corporate-identity/web/guides/editorial.cfm

Manchester recommends against periods http://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/webhandbook/content/atoz/

Oxford (not known for being a place of change and which, for that matter, doesn't call their own degree "PhD") gives it as "PhD" http://www.ox.ac.uk/staff/branding_toolkit/writing_and_style_guide/index.html#aabbreviations_acronyms

Sheffield uses "PhD" http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/01/22/19/Styleguide.pdf

Queen's says "Omit full stops from degree titles (BA, MA, MSc, PhD)" http://www.qub.ac.uk/archive/info/Queen's_Style_Guide.pdf

Style guides aren't the work of one random hack in the university; they are the formal editorial policy of the institution and reflect thought being given to these very points. Whilst they may not always be followed 100% by the institution's own staff (especially given how devolved website control often is), they are the nearest to a clear statement of use on the matter.

On the wider point, it is increasingly very much the case that full stops are not used in acronyms in British English, although I have seen a few exceptions, usually influenced by older teaching. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The rule in British English is as follows: if the work is truncated, use a full stop; if the word is shortened (but the last letter remains), do not use a full stop. Thus "Doctor" becomes "Dr" but "Professor" becomes "Prof.". Thus it should be "Ph.D." in UK English. But, of course, rules were made to be broken... KarenSutherland (talk) 11:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Training for supervisors - Remove?

The section in this this article "Training for Supervisors" seems to be a bit off topic. What does everyone think about it? Keep, shorten, remove? -Nick^talk 22:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

As the person who created this section, you may be interested to know my thoughts. You may notice, if you look at the history of these Discussion pages, I raised the need for the article to cover training for Ph.D. supervision. However, if you feel that this is not the focal point of the article covered here, perhaps a new article "Doctoral supervision" (or words to that effect) could be created. The section as it appears here could then be shortened, and be preceded by a sub-heading saying "Main article: Doctoral supervision". Alternatively, this could go in an existing article in Wikipedia on a topic to do with higher education. I really think that the section belongs in Wikipedia somewhere - the question which is now opened to discussion is "Where"? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

RemoveThe section doesn't seem to fit. How many Universities actually require mentors to be trained? Is this a universally accepted practice or only limited to a few universities? Is this thought just the opinion of a few authors? Demantos (talk) 15:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I say remove also. This is really an off topic section. A link, say in a "see also" section, to an appropriate article would not be out of place. --C S (talk) 11:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

'Grand PhD' diploma mills

Should these be included in some way? [1] which is a diploma mill [2] but some unexpected people have their 'degrees'.--Doug Weller (talk) 10:40, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Funding edit war

This message is to the anonymous editor adding the info about PhD students being slaves, etc. Please note that one of the major rules of Wikipedia is it's Neutral Point of View policy. This means that everything must be written in a neutral tone. The language you added is far from neutral and reflects a clear opinion on your part, for example:

• "The sufferings of PhD students are usually compounded as their studies can force them off the lower rungs of a promising career ladder, scuppering any hope of a copious salary

In addition, some of the things you mention are patently incorrect. For example:

• '...invariably PhD students are destined to become slaves to research programmes and methods." It is quite foolish to assert that anything happens "invariably." This is clearly an opinion (indeed and opinion shared by a number of students), and your source doesn't even come close to demonstrating that your statement is correct.

• They are a cheap source of labor and status for institutions and faculty and, after they earn their degrees, most join the reserve army of the academic underemployed. Here you assert that 1) grad students are a cheap source of labor, and 2) most Ph.D. graduates are underemployed. The expense of grad students is debatable (for teaching purposes, for example, it is usually cheaper to hire and adjunct rather than pay a graduate student's stipend). Second, you must define what you mean by "underemployed;" I'm not sure what you mean by it. Also, I think your statements are specific to certain fields, and also to graduates of certain programs. For example, I know that Ph.D. graduates in the humanities (english, history, philosophy, etc) are having a tough time finding academic jobs, especially when they are graduates of lower-ranked programs. On the other hand, graduates of more established programs in the social and natural sciences are doing a bit better. Also it is worth noting that simply making it through a PhD program does not entitle anyone to a high-end academic job.

Overall, your additions demonstrate a clear POV. I think it would be useful to include some things about jobs and funding, but the things you wrote simply won't do. I think you should rewrite them in the most objective, neutral way possible and add them to the appropriate country section, also taking into account the differences among programs, schools, and fields of study. Until then, your additions will continue to be reverted by the various editors of wikipedia (and a few automated scripts that will prevent multiple reversions). -Nick^talk 04:05, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

The article has been semi-protected for a week. Please use the talk page to discuss contentious edits. Spartaz ^Humbug! 06:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Articles in THE

I don't know if there is somebody else with more time on their hands than I have and who also reads the Times Higher Education. If there is, you may like to include something about the debate that has gone on recently in the UK about (1) the relative merits of the PhD and the professional doctorate (the general thrust of argument being the professional doctorates do not match the standards for a PhD, a claim vehemently opposed by departments offering professional doctorates), and (2) Kevin Sharpe's article in which he argues that the standard of the UK PhD is falling and no longer represents what it used to represent.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 22:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

As Kevin Sharpe indicates, the main source of controversy seems to be the relatively short time required to earn a PhD in the UK (typically, four years beyond a bachelor's degree) compared to continental Europe (five years) and the U.S (six years or more). Having said that, talking from my own experience as someone who got a PhD degree from a top 10 US university in my field, I still believe that the specialized nature of the undergraduate degrees in the UK means that, in practice, a British BA/BSc is still equivalent to an American M.S/M.A in terms of the amount of specific training one receives in his/her major field of study. Therefore, it makes sense that it should be possible to proceed to doctoral research in Britain faster than in the US, with comparatively fewer requirements in terms of coursework and/or comprehensive qualifying exams.

I do agree however with Kevin Sharpe that the decision by the Research Councils in the UK to punish late thesis submissions is counter-productive. Most PhD students who fail to submit a thesis in 3 years don't do so because they are, to use an American English term, "slacking off", but rather because the difficulty of the topic they have chosen to address and the standards demanded by their supervisors (e.g. in terms of peer-reviewed publications) make it impossible to finish in such a short period of time, even if they work full-time (as most students do).

A good thing in my opinion about the (top) U.S research universities is that, because they are much better funded than their UK counterparts, there are really no rigid deadlines to submit your dissertation (American lingo for "thesis") after you have passed the quals and had your dissertation proposal accepted by your committee. Quite the contrary, U.S advisors are quite happy to fund you for three, four, or more years as long as you keep publishing (journal and conference) papers and are doing department work like serving as a teaching assistant for example. That gives the student the freedom to go deeper in his/her research or even explore multiple different research topics, which is often not the case in the UK. Again, having said that, the quality of PhD-level research in top UK universities (e.g. Oxbridge, Imperial, LSE) is still very high and, in many cases, comparable to what is found in top US institutions.189.46.172.133 (talk) 16:09, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

If a student can't finish their PhD in four years max full time, then either a) they've had genuine extreme misfortune (lost samples, telescope stops working, satellite blows up, precious manuscripts lost in library fire, civil war delays visit to archaeological sites etc.) or b) they're lazy. There are no other excuses and it's silly to pretend otherwise. It is perfectly correct that there be fairly stringent guidelines for the amount of time one ought to take to complete a PhD, otherwise frankly a lot of people would piddle about for 4 years, and then get a job and never finish, thus ensuring that years' of research/maintenance funding is wasted. The role of a student in the US is different - research students (in my experience) often take an active role in teaching and lecturing in a department, which is rare in the UK, so frankly it makes a lot of sense to continue paying a student wage to someone who may effectively be working (more or less) as a junior lecturer. The problem with the UK system is that it's completely arbitrary. There are no exams, there's no mandatory requirement to publish, so everything comes down to the thesis, which is examined on one day by two examiners who may or may not have read it and who can be actively chosen by the student. That is ridiculous. The UK should either move towards a more US system, where (as I understand it) exams and coursework are a reasonably important part of the scenario, or a more European system where a thesis is basically a collection of published papers bookended by an introduction and conclusion, perhaps with some sort of separate but related extended essay component to ensure that there is still a chance to pursue themes that may not necessarily be publishable. It's not about funding, it's about structural problems endemic to the UK system which really should be addressed. Badgerpatrol (talk) 16:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Original research is often a tricky business and I don't think one can categorically affirm "a priori" that 3 years are sufficient or, conversely, not sufficient to produce an acceptable PhD thesis. In that sense, although it is desirable to have some sort of deadline for submission, I believe some degree of flexibility is warranted, which is not the case today in the UK because of the Research Councils' policies.

Besides, another valid point in my opinion is that, even though it is definitely possible to complete acceptable PhD work in 3 years only, it is also possible to go deeper if you have more time. I guess that was the point of the second poster when he/she mentioned the American PhD's who, on average, actually do have more publications as students than their UK or European counterparts, in part because they are not so much constrained by rigid thesis submission timetables.

Finally, on Badgerpatrol's remarks, I tend to think that, in some UK universities, PhD program(me)s are already fairly structured. A few programs at the LSE and some Cambridge departments require for example that first-year PhD students take lecture courses and written exams. Furthermore, most if not all UK universities have some sort of "transfer exam" or "preliminary performance review" at the end of the first year to decide whether a student can be formally registered for a PhD degree or not (that would be equivalent to "advancement to candidacy" in the US, albeit faster). In Cambridge and Oxford, candidacy status has to be confirmed at the end of the second year following another formal performance review and students do publish before they graduate, even if that is not strictly required. Also, most coursework taken by master's or first-year PhD students in the US is actually quite basic by European standards, i.e at a level comparable to 4th-year courses in a British MEng or MSci degree. It wouldn't make sense to force UK PhD students to take classes they have already taken in most cases as undergraduates. Toeplitz (talk) 17:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It's always possible to go deeper if one has more time, but a PhD is a qualification, i.e. something which signifies that a student can meet a certain minimum fixed standard indicative of their ability. It's not a platform for open-ended research, which is why we have post-docs and fellowships, which do allow (to a greater extent) for e.g. PhD research to be extended and built upon. (And don't forget, research council policies only strictly apply to research council students - I doubt if these are even in the majority in the UK). Very few UK programmes, to my knowledge, have an actual exam upon which the transfer from (usually) MPhil to PhD depends. Usually it is some sort of report/interview/presentation scenario. In fact, I don't think I've ever actually heard of a transfer exam, so I have to defer to you on that one (but certainly they may exist for some areas of research, and correctly so). Students generally publish at most if not all universities, certainly not just Cambridge and Oxford, but the point is that it should be mandatory - something built in to the structure of the system. If the LSE and Cambridge have already introduced properly structured PhD programmes then that is an excellent step which should be seen as a best practice to spread throughout the whole system which, like undergraduate degrees, is far, far too arbitrary (although perhaps US universities are even worse in that regard, as one comparison). There's often a significant overlap between the end 4 year undergraduate degrees and master's degrees - I doubt if most observers would consider a 4th year/master's course to be "basic". It wouldn't make sense to force PhD students to re-take courses they've already passed, but it does make sense to enforce some metric that gives an accurate and consistent indication of a given student's ability, be it coursework or exams or whatever. Currently, everything comes down to one 2 hour verbal exam at the very end where the examined can select the examiners and thus at the very least have a very good idea a priori what the questions are going to be and how they're going to be asked and at the very most get what may amount to personal acquaintances in to ask the questions. The level of input from the supervisor/s is not properly regulated and can stretch all the way from no input whatsoever to virtually re-writing the thesis. And, on top of that, since actual failure is nigh on impossible in real terms for a completed PhD student, the options are basically no corrections, minor corrections, or major corrections. Major corrections can sometimes be extremely onerous to complete, but provided one does them and re-submits it, the long term consequences are nil and it makes absolutely no odds on your CV nor does it harm your future employment prospects in any way, unless you're silly enough to actually admit it. So basically, our highest degree could conceivably be awarded on a de facto nod n wink basis by a couple of one's chums examining a thesis that perhaps is more of a co-production and regardless of what they say it's impossible to fail anyway...that surely is not a sufficiently taxing examination and not a good basis for our system. Badgerpatrol (talk) 18:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I admit that calling a 4th year/master's course "basic" is a bit of a stretch, but what I actually meant was that first-year PhD courses in the US do not really differ that much in content from what is covered in advanced papers from good Honours and master's degrees in the UK. Therefore, UK students are not at a significant disadvantage in that respect compared to their US counterparts. Second, speaking as someone who earned his PhD in the US, I can tell you that standards for doctoral education in America are not uniform either. Different universities/departments have different requirements for coursework and qualifying exams. In some programs, qualifying exams may include multiple written papers (mostly on undergraduate and first-year master's material) or, alternatively, may be an oral exam only (following a research seminar) or may be a combination of both. Although student performance is assessed on a regular basis (sometimes every semester), the quality of dissertations also vary and the dissertation committee is also picked by the student and his/her advisor. In fact, the final oral exam in the US (the so-called thesis "defense" in American spelling) is even less of a big deal than in the UK, as, unlike in Britain, it is normally an open (public) exam and failure is also usually not a realistic option. Advisors won't allow a student to defend if they think he/she will fail and, unlike in the UK, the advisor sits in the thesis committee. Moreover, PhD candidates may interact multiple times with committee members between the thesis proposal and the defense per se.

In the end, the quality of one's PhD work is ultimately judged in the US not by his/her school transcript (i.e. how many A's he/she got in the classes he/she took), but rather by the impact of the (external) publications arising from the thesis. It is also your publication record and how well-known your advisor and maybe your university are that will determine how easy it will be for you get a post-doc or a faculty position (very rare nowadays in the US fresh out of graduate school). Mutatis mutandis, I don't think things are substantially different in the UK, France or Germany; in the end, the standard is pretty much the same !

Finally, as my final word on this discussion, just as clarification for Wiki readers who might not be academics, Badgerpatrol's arguments, although essentially correct in many ways, might nevertheless suggest that earning a PhD in America, or Britain, or continental Europe is somehow an easy or trivial task. That is however not true at all. In fact, the number of people who enter graduate school in the US and fail to graduate with a PhD (because they drop out, fail their quals or simply cannot come up with research that satisfy their advisors' quality standards) is actually pretty high. Moreover, despite a lack of uniform standards, PhD-level research both in the US and Europe is on average of very high quality, sometimes including seminal results with far-reaching impact. So, I don't think we should trivialize the PhD experience. I'm not saying Badgerpatrol did that though. As a matter of fact, I actually agree with him (her?) in many of his points on the need for more structured PhD programs in the UK and elsewhere. Toeplitz (talk) 20:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure at all that external publication of results is mandatory for success in US PhD programmes. I suspect that it is very widespread (i.e. all but ubiquitous), just as it is in the UK. But if it is a defined requirement of the US system, then that is highly commendable. I also should have been clear with my comment regarding the localised nature of both systems - yes, the US system is extremely arbitrary in a number of ways due to the devolved nature of standards, curricula etc, and that is not a model for the UK to follow. I rather meant to say that we should cherry pick the best aspects of the US (and various European) systems - the defined, absolute requirement to publish (again deferring to your knowledge that this is actually mandated), the combination of exams, thesis and coursework etc., and convolve those with the best aspects of our system (the defined maximum timescale, the viva as something more than just an anointment, etc.). My point is not so much that completing a PhD is a trivial task, but rather than a) standards vary widely, not even between institutions, but between the experience of individual students within an institution, since the nature of the system is so subjective and individualised; b) as it stands, a PhD is basically a test of endurance, not ability - if you can write a book length thesis in four years, of more or less any quality whatsoever above absolute dredge, then you are going to be awarded a doctoral degree. That is not actually as hard as it may sound - four years (or sometimes longer) is a very long time. No metric exists to actually pick out the ones that are good from the ones that aren't. That can't be right. Thanks for the discussion, and I certainly agree that we are most definitely more or less barking up the same tree. Badgerpatrol (talk) 10:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Both Kevin Sharpe and the commentators responding to his article on the Times Higher Education Supplement site make good points. On one hand, I sympathize with the idea that a PhD degree should not be an open-ended research program. On the other hand, if that is the case and much of the expectations surrounding PhD-level research have now been de facto transferred to post-doctoral fellowships, then universities worldwide should acknowledge that explicitly as Dr. Sharpe suggests by formally requiring a post-doc for entry-level faculty positions . Similarly, if the standard of "significant and substantial contribution to existing knowledge" is to be enforced, then we must necessarily accept that the number of PhD's awarded each year will necessarily be small (there are only so many "significant and substantial" contributions that can be made to knowledge in each given field at any given time). Tougher standards, meaning also higher failure/dropout rates, seem to conflict however with the push by governments everywhere to increase the number of doctorates every year, when a research doctorate in fact has never been meant to be a "mass degree" like an undergraduate bachelor's or a secondary school diploma !

Perhaps the discussion on this talk page should serve to form the basis for a section on criticism of the modern PhD degree, which the Wikipedia article is lacking at the moment. What say you ? 200.168.21.198 (talk) 22:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that "significant and substantial" should be taken to refer to the volume of work and the level of insight, as opposed to the actual impact of a piece of research on the field, which perhaps you are suggesting. Expecting people to make significant breakthroughs during the course of a PhD is pretty unfair (depending entirely on luck and the nature of the project really, which is of the supervisor's devising rather than the student's). But yes, basically, a PhD should be a) fairly and consistently awarded, with the required standard being as close to uniform between students as possible; b) should be a test of both intellect and industry. Better standards don't necessarily mean tougher standards - the failure rate would still be fairly low for a number of reasons (although presumably higher than close to zero percent....). But we do need some enforced standards, otherwise the whole thing becomes, excuse the pun, a purely academic exercise of very little real value. Badgerpatrol (talk) 10:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)