first year phd literature review

How To Structure Your Literature Review

3 options to help structure your chapter.

By: Amy Rommelspacher (PhD) | Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | November 2020 (Updated May 2023)

Writing the literature review chapter can seem pretty daunting when you’re piecing together your dissertation or thesis. As  we’ve discussed before , a good literature review needs to achieve a few very important objectives – it should:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of the research topic
• Identify the gaps in the literature and show how your research links to these
• Provide the foundation for your conceptual framework (if you have one)
• Inform your own  methodology and research design

To achieve this, your literature review needs a well-thought-out structure . Get the structure of your literature review chapter wrong and you’ll struggle to achieve these objectives. Don’t worry though – in this post, we’ll look at how to structure your literature review for maximum impact (and marks!).

But wait – is this the right time?

Deciding on the structure of your literature review should come towards the end of the literature review process – after you have collected and digested the literature, but before you start writing the chapter. 

In other words, you need to first develop a rich understanding of the literature before you even attempt to map out a structure. There’s no use trying to develop a structure before you’ve fully wrapped your head around the existing research.

Equally importantly, you need to have a structure in place before you start writing , or your literature review will most likely end up a rambling, disjointed mess. 

Importantly, don’t feel that once you’ve defined a structure you can’t iterate on it. It’s perfectly natural to adjust as you engage in the writing process. As we’ve discussed before , writing is a way of developing your thinking, so it’s quite common for your thinking to change – and therefore, for your chapter structure to change – as you write. 

Need a helping hand?

Like any other chapter in your thesis or dissertation, your literature review needs to have a clear, logical structure. At a minimum, it should have three essential components – an  introduction , a  body   and a  conclusion . 

Let’s take a closer look at each of these.

1: The Introduction Section

Just like any good introduction, the introduction section of your literature review should introduce the purpose and layout (organisation) of the chapter. In other words, your introduction needs to give the reader a taste of what’s to come, and how you’re going to lay that out. Essentially, you should provide the reader with a high-level roadmap of your chapter to give them a taste of the journey that lies ahead.

Here’s an example of the layout visualised in a literature review introduction:

Your introduction should also outline your topic (including any tricky terminology or jargon) and provide an explanation of the scope of your literature review – in other words, what you  will   and  won’t   be covering (the delimitations ). This helps ringfence your review and achieve a clear focus . The clearer and narrower your focus, the deeper you can dive into the topic (which is typically where the magic lies). 

Depending on the nature of your project, you could also present your stance or point of view at this stage. In other words, after grappling with the literature you’ll have an opinion about what the trends and concerns are in the field as well as what’s lacking. The introduction section can then present these ideas so that it is clear to examiners that you’re aware of how your research connects with existing knowledge .

2: The Body Section

The body of your literature review is the centre of your work. This is where you’ll present, analyse, evaluate and synthesise the existing research. In other words, this is where you’re going to earn (or lose) the most marks. Therefore, it’s important to carefully think about how you will organise your discussion to present it in a clear way. 

The body of your literature review should do just as the description of this chapter suggests. It should “review” the literature – in other words, identify, analyse, and synthesise it. So, when thinking about structuring your literature review, you need to think about which structural approach will provide the best “review” for your specific type of research and objectives (we’ll get to this shortly).

There are (broadly speaking)  three options  for organising your literature review.

Option 1: Chronological (according to date)

Organising the literature chronologically is one of the simplest ways to structure your literature review. You start with what was published first and work your way through the literature until you reach the work published most recently. Pretty straightforward.

The benefit of this option is that it makes it easy to discuss the developments and debates in the field as they emerged over time. Organising your literature chronologically also allows you to highlight how specific articles or pieces of work might have changed the course of the field – in other words, which research has had the most impact . Therefore, this approach is very useful when your research is aimed at understanding how the topic has unfolded over time and is often used by scholars in the field of history. That said, this approach can be utilised by anyone that wants to explore change over time .

For example , if a student of politics is investigating how the understanding of democracy has evolved over time, they could use the chronological approach to provide a narrative that demonstrates how this understanding has changed through the ages.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help you structure your literature review chronologically.

• What is the earliest literature published relating to this topic?
• How has the field changed over time? Why?
• What are the most recent discoveries/theories?

In some ways, chronology plays a part whichever way you decide to structure your literature review, because you will always, to a certain extent, be analysing how the literature has developed. However, with the chronological approach, the emphasis is very firmly on how the discussion has evolved over time , as opposed to how all the literature links together (which we’ll discuss next ).

Option 2: Thematic (grouped by theme)

The thematic approach to structuring a literature review means organising your literature by theme or category – for example, by independent variables (i.e. factors that have an impact on a specific outcome).

As you’ve been collecting and synthesising literature , you’ll likely have started seeing some themes or patterns emerging. You can then use these themes or patterns as a structure for your body discussion. The thematic approach is the most common approach and is useful for structuring literature reviews in most fields.

For example, if you were researching which factors contributed towards people trusting an organisation, you might find themes such as consumers’ perceptions of an organisation’s competence, benevolence and integrity. Structuring your literature review thematically would mean structuring your literature review’s body section to discuss each of these themes, one section at a time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when structuring your literature review by themes:

• Are there any patterns that have come to light in the literature?
• What are the central themes and categories used by the researchers?
• Do I have enough evidence of these themes?

PS – you can see an example of a thematically structured literature review in our literature review sample walkthrough video here.

Option 3: Methodological

The methodological option is a way of structuring your literature review by the research methodologies used . In other words, organising your discussion based on the angle from which each piece of research was approached – for example, qualitative , quantitative or mixed  methodologies.

Structuring your literature review by methodology can be useful if you are drawing research from a variety of disciplines and are critiquing different methodologies. The point of this approach is to question  how  existing research has been conducted, as opposed to  what  the conclusions and/or findings the research were.

For example, a sociologist might centre their research around critiquing specific fieldwork practices. Their literature review will then be a summary of the fieldwork methodologies used by different studies.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when structuring your literature review according to methodology:

• Which methodologies have been utilised in this field?
• Which methodology is the most popular (and why)?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies?
• How can the existing methodologies inform my own methodology?

3: The Conclusion Section

Once you’ve completed the body section of your literature review using one of the structural approaches we discussed above, you’ll need to “wrap up” your literature review and pull all the pieces together to set the direction for the rest of your dissertation or thesis.

The conclusion is where you’ll present the key findings of your literature review. In this section, you should emphasise the research that is especially important to your research questions and highlight the gaps that exist in the literature. Based on this, you need to make it clear what you will add to the literature – in other words, justify your own research by showing how it will help fill one or more of the gaps you just identified.

Last but not least, if it’s your intention to develop a conceptual framework for your dissertation or thesis, the conclusion section is a good place to present this.

Example: Thematically Structured Review

In the video below, we unpack a literature review chapter so that you can see an example of a thematically structure review in practice.

Let’s Recap

In this article, we’ve  discussed how to structure your literature review for maximum impact. Here’s a quick recap of what  you need to keep in mind when deciding on your literature review structure:

• Just like other chapters, your literature review needs a clear introduction , body and conclusion .
• The introduction section should provide an overview of what you will discuss in your literature review.
• The body section of your literature review can be organised by chronology , theme or methodology . The right structural approach depends on what you’re trying to achieve with your research.
• The conclusion section should draw together the key findings of your literature review and link them to your research questions.

If you’re ready to get started, be sure to download our free literature review template to fast-track your chapter outline.

Psst… there’s more!

This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .

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27 Comments

Great work. This is exactly what I was looking for and helps a lot together with your previous post on literature review. One last thing is missing: a link to a great literature chapter of an journal article (maybe with comments of the different sections in this review chapter). Do you know any great literature review chapters?

I agree with you Marin… A great piece

I agree with Marin. This would be quite helpful if you annotate a nicely structured literature from previously published research articles.

Awesome article for my research.

I thank you immensely for this wonderful guide

It is indeed thought and supportive work for the futurist researcher and students

Very educative and good time to get guide. Thank you

Great work, very insightful. Thank you.

Thanks for this wonderful presentation. My question is that do I put all the variables into a single conceptual framework or each hypothesis will have it own conceptual framework?

Thank you very much, very helpful

This is very educative and precise . Thank you very much for dropping this kind of write up .

Pheeww, so damn helpful, thank you for this informative piece.

I’m doing a research project topic ; stool analysis for parasitic worm (enteric) worm, how do I structure it, thanks.

comprehensive explanation. Help us by pasting the URL of some good “literature review” for better understanding.

great piece. thanks for the awesome explanation. it is really worth sharing. I have a little question, if anyone can help me out, which of the options in the body of literature can be best fit if you are writing an architectural thesis that deals with design?

I am doing a research on nanofluids how can l structure it?

Beautifully clear.nThank you!

Lucid! Thankyou!

Brilliant work, well understood, many thanks

I like how this was so clear with simple language 😊😊 thank you so much 😊 for these information 😊

Insightful. I was struggling to come up with a sensible literature review but this has been really helpful. Thank you!

You have given thought-provoking information about the review of the literature.

Thank you. It has made my own research better and to impart your work to students I teach

I learnt a lot from this teaching. It’s a great piece.

I am doing research on EFL teacher motivation for his/her job. How Can I structure it? Is there any detailed template, additional to this?

You are so cool! I do not think I’ve read through something like this before. So nice to find somebody with some genuine thoughts on this issue. Seriously.. thank you for starting this up. This site is one thing that is required on the internet, someone with a little originality!

I’m asked to do conceptual, theoretical and empirical literature, and i just don’t know how to structure it

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• Apr 15, 2021

7 Secrets to Write a PhD Literature Review The Right Way

Updated: Sep 27, 2021

A literature review gives your readers an idea about your scholarly understanding of the previous work in your research domain. It requires you to justify your work and demonstrate the importance of your research work with respect to the current state of knowledge. It is a great opportunity for you to examine the previous work and fill any gaps in it which may help you to make it a foundation for your own research.

The role of a literature review and its importance in your thesis can also be seen from here:

Role of a Literature Review|Walden University

Writing a literature review requires gathering loads of information by reading many articles, books, and papers related to your Ph.D. topic. And once you are done with the initial stage, you have to organize the important data collected and discuss it according to your learning. Now, all of this seems quite tedious.

You may have seen many people ranting when they have to write a literature review, and it is totally fine. But, does it help in writing a review? Obviously, no. You have to make this process interesting for yourself to remain focused.

Here are some secrets which can help you to enjoy writing an amazing literature review.

1. Make a Well-Structured Outline:

A literature review is exhaustive research on the topic under investigation so that you can become an expert on that topic. Therefore, it is important for you to make a well-structured outline before you start writing otherwise you won’t understand where to end as you’ll be having a lot of information. For example, a literature review must include an introduction and conclusion section, you should avoid direct quotations and use paraphrasing instead. Your literature review should be organized according to the theme and should be divided into various headings to shift from one topic to another. You can use comparative terms to agree or disagree with the author and provide your own opinion.

Check out this literature review template to have a more clear understanding of creating a well-structured outline for your literature review: Literature Review Template|Thompson Rivers University

2. Use Synthesis Matrix:

When you are gathering information from a lot of resources, and you have to ultimately gather them in one place then using a synthesis matrix could be very helpful for this purpose. A synthesis matrix is an outline that permits a researcher to sort and arrange the various contentions introduced on an issue. Across the highest point of the chart are the spaces to record sources, and at the edge of the chart are the spaces to record the primary concerns of contention on the current theme.

You can outline your whole literature review and keep a check and balance of which things you have covered and what is left. It simplifies your work greatly and helps in writing a literature review in a very organized manner.

See more on the use of synthesis matrix at Literature Review using synthesis Matrix and Synthesizing various sources

3. Change Your Perspective:

Another important thing that you must do before you start writing a literature review is to change your writing perspective. You don’t have to take it as a burden that Why am I even doing this? Yes, we know it is quite a dull task, but why not enjoy it if you have to do it after all?

Write it for yourself. Question yourself from time to time. Like what information would you like to extract from it while you are reading this review? Would it sound interesting to your self? Would you remain focused while reading this writing style? Will you love this review as a third person? Will this be an interesting thing to read?

When you become your critique you have high chances of improvement. You start writing a review such that you would like to read it yourself, and gradually you can write one interesting literature review for your thesis.

4. Read and Write Simultaneously:

A common mistake that many people make while writing a literature review is that they do all the readings and information gathering first and leave the writing at last. What happens is that they utilize all their energy and focus in the reading phase and when it's time to start the actual writing they feel exhausted and over-worked. Moreover, when they see a blank page in front of them after reading piles of paperwork they get demotivated and feel anxious that how they will manage to write such a long review.

How to avoid this anxiety?

One simple way is to start writing parallel to reading. When you are reading an article or paper, make notes of it or short bullet points. It will help you to keep a track of both what you have read and what you need to add to your literature review. And when you finally start compiling the review you will have your guideline instead of a blank paper which makes it quite easy for you to jot it all down on a paper.

5. Make a Proper Timeline and Stick To It:

Making a proper timeline to write a literature review is crucial. You don’t want to get stuck in it and end up completing your review in a year instead of weeks. To avoid this, take a day or two off, search through the internet or other resources that what helping material you would require reading, and then make a proper timeline of completing them and making notes simultaneously.

It will help you a lot to stay on track.

Here is a sample timeline you could follow: Research Sample Timeline

6. Go Easy On Yourself:

Yes, you heard it. Don’t be so harsh on yourself. Keep days off in your schedule and relax fully on those days. You don’t have to keep reading and writing 24/7, all days a week. Our mind needs to be relaxed on and off to remain functional. If you over-burden yourself you will eventually end up doing absolutely nothing because of over-work.

If you get stuck somewhere, seek help from your supervisor, friends or other resources, Don’t let your shyness or shame keep you away from achieving your target. We are all humans, and we do need help at some point in our lives so don’t discourage yourself to do so.

7. Interpret Your Understanding Comprehensively:

When writing a review you need to portray what you have truly learned from the already published work of other scholars. What many people do is they start cramming information to write a review and end up writing only a summary of that data, They don’t learn and understand anything from it. They just take it as a formality that has to be fulfilled. That is wrong.

You need to have clear concepts and must be able to demonstrate to others what you learned from the previous work and how your work would contribute towards it. This is the true essence of writing a literature review, and it will benefit you the most for your research process.

If you are having any difficulty in writing or editing your thesis Literature Review you can visit our website to seek help and guidance by the following link:

Scholars Doctoral Editing and Consulting

Scholars Professional Editing Group LLC :

Website: https://www.thescholarsediting.com/

Email Us: [email protected]

Contact Us: (302) 295-4953

CLICK HERE TO BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION NOW: Scholars Consultation

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• What Is a PhD Literature Review?
• Doing a PhD

A literature review is a critical analysis of published academic literature, mainly peer-reviewed papers and books, on a specific topic. This isn’t just a list of published studies but is a document summarising and critically appraising the main work by researchers in the field, the key findings, limitations and gaps identified in the knowledge.

• The aim of a literature review is to critically assess the literature in your chosen field of research and be able to present an overview of the current knowledge gained from previous work.
• By the conclusion of your literature review, you as a researcher should have identified the gaps in knowledge in your field; i.e. the unanswered research questions which your PhD project will help to answer.
• Quality not quantity is the approach to use when writing a literature review for a PhD but as a general rule of thumb, most are between 6,000 and 12,000 words.

What Is the Purpose of a Literature Review?

First, to be clear on what a PhD literature review is NOT: it is not a ‘paper by paper’ summary of what others have done in your field. All you’re doing here is listing out all the papers and book chapters you’ve found with some text joining things together. This is a common mistake made by PhD students early on in their research project. This is a sign of poor academic writing and if it’s not picked up by your supervisor, it’ll definitely be by your examiners.

The biggest issue your examiners will have here is that you won’t have demonstrated an application of critical thinking when examining existing knowledge from previous research. This is an important part of the research process as a PhD student. It’s needed to show where the gaps in knowledge were, and how then you were able to identify the novelty of each research question and subsequent work.

The five main outcomes from carrying out a good literature review should be:

• An understanding of what has been published in your subject area of research,
• An appreciation of the leading research groups and authors in your field and their key contributions to the research topic,
• Knowledge of the key theories in your field,
• Knowledge of the main research areas within your field of interest,
• A clear understanding of the research gap in knowledge that will help to motivate your PhD research questions .

When assessing the academic papers or books that you’ve come across, you must think about the strengths and weaknesses of them; what was novel about their work and what were the limitations? Are different sources of relevant literature coming to similar conclusions and complementing each other, or are you seeing different outcomes on the same topic by different researchers?

When Should I Write My Literature Review?

In the structure of your PhD thesis , your literature review is effectively your first main chapter. It’s at the start of your thesis and should, therefore, be a task you perform at the start of your research. After all, you need to have reviewed the literature to work out how your research can contribute novel findings to your area of research. Sometimes, however, in particular when you apply for a PhD project with a pre-defined research title and research questions, your supervisor may already know where the gaps in knowledge are.

You may be tempted to skip the literature review and dive straight into tackling the set questions (then completing the review at the end before thesis submission) but we strongly advise against this. Whilst your supervisor will be very familiar with the area, you as a doctoral student will not be and so it is essential that you gain this understanding before getting into the research.

How Long Should the Literature Review Be?

As your literature review will be one of your main thesis chapters, it needs to be a substantial body of work. It’s not a good strategy to have a thesis writing process here based on a specific word count, but know that most reviews are typically between 6,000 and 12,000 words. The length will depend on how much relevant material has previously been published in your field.

A point to remember though is that the review needs to be easy to read and avoid being filled with unnecessary information; in your search of selected literature, consider filtering out publications that don’t appear to add anything novel to the discussion – this might be useful in fields with hundreds of papers.

How Do I Write the Literature Review?

Before you start writing your literature review, you need to be clear on the topic you are researching.

1. Evaluating and Selecting the Publications

After completing your literature search and downloading all the papers you find, you may find that you have a lot of papers to read through ! You may find that you have so many papers that it’s unreasonable to read through all of them in their entirety, so you need to find a way to understand what they’re about and decide if they’re important quickly.

A good starting point is to read the abstract of the paper to gauge if it is useful and, as you do so, consider the following questions in your mind:

• What was the overarching aim of the paper?
• What was the methodology used by the authors?
• Was this an experimental study or was this more theoretical in its approach?
• What were the results and what did the authors conclude in their paper?
• How does the data presented in this paper relate to other publications within this field?
• Does it add new knowledge, does it raise more questions or does it confirm what is already known in your field? What is the key concept that the study described?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of this study, and in particular, what are the limitations?

2. Identifying Themes

To put together the structure of your literature review you need to identify the common themes that emerge from the collective papers and books that you have read. Key things to think about are:

• Are there common methodologies different authors have used or have these changed over time?
• Do the research questions change over time or are the key question’s still unanswered?
• Is there general agreement between different research groups in the main results and outcomes, or do different authors provide differing points of view and different conclusions?
• What are the key papers in your field that have had the biggest impact on the research?
• Have different publications identified similar weaknesses or limitations or gaps in the knowledge that still need to be addressed?

Structuring and Writing Your Literature Review

There are several ways in which you can structure a literature review and this may depend on if, for example, your project is a science or non-science based PhD.

One approach may be to tell a story about how your research area has developed over time. You need to be careful here that you don’t just describe the different papers published in chronological order but that you discuss how different studies have motivated subsequent studies, how the knowledge has developed over time in your field, concluding with what is currently known, and what is currently not understood.

Alternatively, you may find from reading your papers that common themes emerge and it may be easier to develop your review around these, i.e. a thematic review. For example, if you are writing up about bridge design, you may structure the review around the themes of regulation, analysis, and sustainability.

As another approach, you might want to talk about the different research methodologies that have been used. You could then compare and contrast the results and ultimate conclusions that have been drawn from each.

As with all your chapters in your thesis, your literature review will be broken up into three key headings, with the basic structure being the introduction, the main body and conclusion. Within the main body, you will use several subheadings to separate out the topics depending on if you’re structuring it by the time period, the methods used or the common themes that have emerged.

The important thing to think about as you write your main body of text is to summarise the key takeaway messages from each research paper and how they come together to give one or more conclusions. Don’t just stop at summarising the papers though, instead continue on to give your analysis and your opinion on how these previous publications fit into the wider research field and where they have an impact. Emphasise the strengths of the studies you have evaluated also be clear on the limitations of previous work how these may have influenced the results and conclusions of the studies.

In your concluding paragraphs focus your discussion on how your critical evaluation of literature has helped you identify unanswered research questions and how you plan to address these in your PhD project. State the research problem you’re going to address and end with the overarching aim and key objectives of your work .

When writing at a graduate level, you have to take a critical approach when reading existing literature in your field to determine if and how it added value to existing knowledge. You may find that a large number of the papers on your reference list have the right academic context but are essentially saying the same thing. As a graduate student, you’ll need to take a methodological approach to work through this existing research to identify what is relevant literature and what is not.

You then need to go one step further to interpret and articulate the current state of what is known, based on existing theories, and where the research gaps are. It is these gaps in the literature that you will address in your own research project.

• Decide on a research area and an associated research question.
• Decide on the extent of your scope and start looking for literature.
• Review and evaluate the literature.
• Plan an outline for your literature review and start writing it.

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Do you really want to publish your literature review? Advice for PhD students

Why publishing your literature review as your first paper may not be a good idea

Tatiana Andreeva - Sun 20 Jun 2021 08:20 (updated Wed 30 Aug 2023 10:03)

[Guest post by CYGNA member Tatiana Andreeva ]

Almost every PhD student I met had an idea that the literature review paper would be the first academic paper they publish. They thought of it being the first paper for two reasons - naturally literature review was the first stage of their PhD journey, but also they thought it was something relatively straightforward to do. To reinforce these ideas, in some PhD programmes I know publication of the literature review is routinely put as a milestone in the PhD progression plans.

At the same time, if you talk to academics who actually tried to publish a literature review, you would most often hear that it is a very challenging thing to do. Moreover, I recently realized that we rarely teach our graduate students how to do a literature review , let alone how to publish it . A weird mismatch, isn’t it? So, dear PhD students, I’d like to put some clarity around it for you. There are two key reasons why publishing literature review as your first paper may not be a good idea.

Not all literature reviews are made equal

First, the literature review you do as a first step of your PhD journey and publishable literature review are two different beasts: they have a different purpose, focus and audience.

The literature review you do as a first step of your PhD aims to inform you as a novice about existing literature and to help you identify an interesting research question or situate it better in the existing research landscape. You are likely to read different literatures and/or focus on different aspects, as you are trying to find your own research voice and space. As your PhD progresses and you get new ideas or unexpected empirical findings, you are likely to review the literature again (and again…)

Even if you do this literature review(s) following the best standards , it is very likely that parts of it will never be published – neither as a separate article, nor even as a literature review section of an empirical paper. Not because they are bad, but because they may end up being not so relevant for the final focus of your PhD. I know it is heartbreaking to discard pieces of work, especially our own writing, but if you think of them as steppingstones rather than final products, it becomes easier.  

In contrast, the literature review that is done for publication aims to inform others - many of whom are likely to be experts in the field - about something beyond existing literature and to propose future research agenda for them (and maybe for you as well, but it is not the main goal). Therefore, it needs a clear and single focus - on a specific research problem within a specific body of literature. And, if all goes well, it should be published – at least, that is the plan.

The table below briefly summarizes these ideas:

Easy publication of literature reviews is a myth

Another reason why I think that planning to publish a literature review as a first paper in the suite of PhD publications is not a good idea is: the notion that such papers are easy to publish is a myth! I think it is actually even more difficult to publish a literature review than an empirical paper.

In an empirical paper, you always have an element of uniqueness, which is your empirical data. Indeed, nobody has collected something like this so it is unique. Sometimes when your data is interesting, it could happen that reviewers come back to you and say: " you need to improve your theory and develop a much stronger positioning of the paper, but your data itself is very interesting, so we give you a chance for R&R ".

In my experience, this would never happen with a literature review paper – because your data is not unique, it is something that has been already written and published. Everybody, if they want, can access it. So with the literature reviews is really becomes critical that from the very start you have a very clear and strong idea of what is the problem that hasn’t been solved that your literature review solves, and what would be your theoretical contribution. This is a challenging task for everyone, not only for a PhD student, so it might be too risky to start from it your publication journey.

All that said, it does not mean that you cannot - or should not - do a literature review publication. Indeed, at some point it may stem from the literature review you did for your PhD. I hope that understanding the differences between these beasts may help you to master both – and plan your PhD publication portfolio better.

Related blogposts

• Resources on doing a literature review
• Want to publish a literature review? Think of it as an empirical paper
• How to keep up-to-date with the literature, but avoid information overload?
• Is a literature review publication a low-cost project?
• Using Publish or Perish to do a literature review
• How to conduct a longitudinal literature review?
• New: Publish or Perish now also exports abstracts
• A framework for your literature review article: where to find one?

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Copyright © 2023 Tatiana Andreeva . All rights reserved. Page last modified on Wed 30 Aug 2023 10:03

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The Literature Review: A Guide for Postgraduate Students

This guide provides postgraduate students with an overview of the literature review required for most research degrees. It will advise you on the common types of literature reviews across disciplines and will outline how the purpose and structure of each may differ slightly. Various approaches to effective content organisation and writing style are offered, along with some common strategies for effective writing and avoiding some common mistakes. This guide focuses mainly on the required elements of a standalone literature review, but the suggestions and advice apply to literature reviews incorporated into other chapters.

Please see the companion article ‘ The Literature Review: A Guide for Undergraduate Students ’ for an introduction to the basic elements of a literature review. This article focuses on aspects that are particular to postgraduate literature reviews, containing detailed advice and effective strategies for writing a successful literature review. It will address the following topics:

• The purpose of a literature review
• The structure of your literature review
• Strategies for writing an effective literature review
• Mistakes to avoid

The Purpose of a Literature Review

After developing your research proposal and writing a research statement, your literature review is one of the most important early tasks you will undertake for your postgraduate research degree. Many faculties and departments require postgraduate research students to write an initial literature review as part of their research proposal, which forms part of the candidature confirmation process that occurs six months into the research degree for full-time students (12 months for part-time students).

For example, a postgraduate student in history would normally write a 10,000-word research proposal—including a literature review—in the first six months of their PhD. This would be assessed in order to confirm the ongoing candidature of the student.

The literature review is your opportunity you show your supervisor (and ultimately, your examiners) that you understand the most important debates in your field, can identify the texts and authors most relevant to your particular topic, and can examine and evaluate these debates and texts both critically and in depth. You will be expected to provide a comprehensive, detailed and relevant range of scholarly works in your literature review.

In general, a literature review has a specific and directed purpose: to focus the reader’s attention on the significance and necessity of your research. By identifying a ‘gap’ in the current scholarship, you convince your readers that your own research is vital.

As the author, you will achieve these objectives by displaying your in-depth knowledge and understanding of the relevant scholarship in your field, situating your own research within this wider body of work , while critically analysing the scholarship and highlighting your own arguments in relation to that scholarship.

A well-focused, well-developed and well-researched literature review operates as a linchpin for your thesis, provides the background to your research and demonstrates your proficiency in some requisite academic skills.

The Structure of Your Literature Review

Postgraduate degrees can be made up of a long thesis (Master’s and PhD by research) or a shorter thesis and coursework (Master’s by coursework; although some Australian universities now require PhD students to undertake coursework in the first year of their degree). Some disciplines involve creative work (such as a novel or artwork) and an exegesis (such as a creative writing research or fine arts degree). Others can comprise a series of published works in the form of a ‘thesis by publication’ (most common in the science and medical fields).

The structure of a literature review will thus vary according to the discipline and the type of thesis. Some of the most common discipline-based variations are outlined in the following paragraphs.

Humanities and Social Science Degrees

Many humanities and social science theses will include a standalone literature review chapter after the introduction and before any methodology (or theoretical approaches) chapters. In these theses, the literature review might make up around 15 to 30 per cent of the total thesis length, reflecting its purpose as a supporting chapter.

Here, the literature review chapter will have an introduction, an appropriate number of discussion paragraphs and a conclusion. As with a research essay, the introduction operates as a ‘road map’ to the chapter. The introduction should outline and clarify the argument you are making in your thesis (Australian National University 2017), as readers will then have a context for the discussion and critical analysis paragraphs that follow.

The main discussion section can be divided further with subheadings, and the material organised in several possible ways: chronologically, thematically or from the better- to the lesser-known issues and arguments. The conclusion should provide a summary of the chapter overall, and should re-state your thesis statement, linking this to the gap you have identified in the literature that confirms the necessity of your research.

For some humanities’ disciplines, such as literature or history (Premaratne 2013, 236–54), where primary sources are central, the literature review may be conducted chapter-by-chapter, with each chapter focusing on one theme and set of scholarly secondary sources relevant to the primary source material.

Science and Mathematics Degrees

For some science or mathematics research degrees, the literature review may be part of the introduction. The relevant literature here may be limited in number and scope, and if the research project is experiment-based, rather than theoretically based, a lengthy critical analysis of past research may be unnecessary (beyond establishing its weaknesses or failings and thus the necessity for the current research). The literature review section will normally appear after the paragraphs that outline the study’s research question, main findings and theoretical framework. Other science-based degrees may follow the standalone literature review chapter more common in the social sciences.

Strategies for Writing an Effective Literature Review

A research thesis—whether for a Master’s degree or Doctor of Philosophy—is a long project, and the literature review, usually written early on, will most likely be reviewed and refined over the life of the thesis. This section will detail some useful strategies to ensure you write a successful literature review that meets the expectations of your supervisor and examiners.

Using a Mind Map

Before planning or writing, it can be beneficial to undertake a brainstorm exercise to initiate ideas, especially in relation to the organisation of your literature review. A mind map is a very effective technique that can get your ideas flowing prior to a more formal planning process.

A mind map is best created in landscape orientation. Begin by writing a very brief version of your research topic in the middle of the page and then expanding this with themes and sub-themes, identified by keywords or phrases and linked by associations or oppositions. The University of Adelaide provides an excellent introduction to mind mapping.

Planning is as essential at the chapter level as it is for your thesis overall. If you have begun work on your literature review with a mind map or similar process, you can use the themes or organisational categories that emerged to begin organising your content. Plan your literature review as if it were a research essay with an introduction, main body and conclusion.

Create a detailed outline for each main paragraph or section and list the works you will discuss and analyse, along with keywords to identify important themes, arguments and relevant data. By creating a ‘planning document’ in this way, you can keep track of your ideas and refine the plan as you go.

Maintaining a Current Reference List or Annotated Bibliography

It is vital that you maintain detailed and up-to-date records of all scholarly works that you read in relation to your thesis. You will need to ensure that you remain aware of current and developing research, theoretical debates and data as your degree progresses; and review and update the literature review as you work through your own research and writing.

To do this most effectively and efficiently, you will need to record precisely the bibliographic details of each source you use. Decide on the referencing style you will be using at an early stage (this is often dictated by your department or discipline, or suggested by your supervisor). If you begin to construct your reference list as you write your thesis, ensure that you follow any formatting and stylistic requirements for your chosen referencing style from the start (nothing is more onerous than undertaking this task as you are finishing your research degree).

Insert references (also known as ‘citations’) into the text or footnote section as you write your literature review, and be aware of all instances where you need to use a reference . The literature review chapter or section may appear to be overwhelmed with references, but this is just a reflection of the source-based content and purpose.

The Drawbacks of Referencing Software

We don’t recommend the use of referencing software to help you with your references because using this software almost always leads to errors and inconsistencies. They simply can’t be trusted to produce references that will be complete and accurate, properly following your particular referencing style to the letter.

Further, relying on software to create your references for you usually means that you won’t learn how to reference correctly yourself, which is an absolutely vital skill, especially if you are hoping to continue in academia.

Writing Style

Similar to structural matters, your writing style will depend to some extent on your discipline and the expectations and advice of your supervisors. Humanities- and creative arts–based disciplines may be more open to a wider variety of authorial voices. Even if this is so, it remains preferable to establish an academic voice that is credible, engaging and clear.

Simple stylistic strategies such as using the active—instead of the passive—voice, providing variety in sentence structure and length and preferring (where appropriate) simple language over convoluted or overly obscure words can help to ensure your academic writing is both formal and highly readable.

Reviewing, Rewriting and Editing

Although an initial draft is essential (and in some departments it is a formal requirement) to establish the ground for your own research and its place within the wider body of scholarship, the literature review will evolve, develop and be modified as you continue to research, write, review and rewrite your thesis. It is likely that your literature review will not be completed until you have almost finished the thesis itself, and a final assessment and edit of this section is essential to ensure you have included the most important scholarship that is relevant and necessary to your research.

It has happened to many students that a crucial piece of literature is published just as they are about to finalise their thesis, and they must revise their literature review in light of it. Unfortunately, this cannot be avoided, lest your examiners think that you are not aware of this key piece of scholarship. You need to ensure your final literature review reflects how your research now fits into the new landscape in your field after any recent developments.

Mistakes to Avoid

Some common mistakes can result in an ineffective literature review that could then flow on to the rest of your thesis. These mistakes include:

• Trying to read and include everything you find on your topic. The literature review should be selective as well as comprehensive, examining only those sources relevant to your research topic.
• Listing the scholarship as if you are writing an annotated bibliography or a series of summaries. Your discussion of the literature should be synthesised and holistic, and should have a logical progression that is appropriate to the organisation of your content.
• Failing to integrate your examination of the literature with your own thesis topic. You need to develop your discussion of each piece of scholarship in relation to other pieces of research, contextualising your analyses and conclusions in relation to your thesis statement or research topic and focusing on how your own research relates to, complements and extends the existing scholarship.

Writing the literature review is often the first task of your research degree. It is a focused reading and research activity that situates your own research in the wider scholarship, establishing yourself as an active member of the academic community through dialogue and debate. By reading, analysing and synthesising the existing scholarship on your topic, you gain a comprehensive and in-depth understanding, ensuring a solid basis for your own arguments and contributions. If you need advice on referencing , academic writing , time management or other aspects of your degree, you may find Capstone Editing’s other resources and blog articles useful.

Australian National University. 2017. ‘Literature Reviews’. Last accessed 28 March. http://www.anu.edu.au/students/learning-development/research-writing/literature-reviews.

Premaratne, Dhilara Darshana. 2013. ‘Discipline Based Variations in the Literature Review in the PhD Thesis: A Perspective from the Discipline of History’. Education and Research Perspectives 40: 236–54.

Other guides you may be interested in

Essay writing: everything you need to know and nothing you don’t—part 1: how to begin.

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Grant Golub

June 3rd, 2020, reflections on the first year of my phd.

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

It is hard to believe the first year of my PhD programme is almost complete. It feels like just yesterday I was arriving in London to begin my degree. Adding to the surreal nature of the moment is the fact we have been under lockdown since March due to COVID-19. Since I am close to submitting my upgrade materials for my first year, I thought this would be a good time to reflect on my first year of the PhD at LSE.

As I’ve written in an earlier post, LSE is an ideal place to do a PhD because of its location in London, its world-class professors, and its proximity to countless archives and libraries . This has made it much easier to conduct research and prepare my dissertation as opposed to if I was at another university. I’ve been very privileged to have a wonderful supervisor who cares a lot about me and my work . Our conversations about my research have always been fruitful and give me new things to consider for the direction of my research. I have been very lucky to have such a hands-on supervisor.

One aspect of the PhD that I think many underestimate is how much work you actually do on your own . At LSE, like many British universities, there are one or two seminars you participate in to introduce skills you need for the PhD, but otherwise, you spend the bulk of your time individually conducting your research. During the first half of this academic year, I spent hundreds of hours reading articles and books on my topic to make sure I understood the literature. Around halfway through the year, I wrote my literature review based upon that reading, which helped me set my eventual dissertation within the broader literature on my topic.

After the holiday break, I began working on my upgrade chapter, which is an original piece of research we is required to submit as part of our upgrade dossier in June. At first, I spent a lot of time reading my primary source materials I had already collected and organised them so they were ready to go when I began writing. Around March, I started writing the chapter, which I have been continuously working on until now. At the moment, I am putting the finishing touches on it and will be submitting it in a few weeks. It will feel great to finally submit it!

T he first year of the PhD is a great time to read, think, and write before other responsibilities come into play . If you are going into your first year of a PhD next year, I would encourage you to read widely, strongly consider about where you will fit into the scholarship, and be bold in your arguments. Don’t be afraid to have a different viewpoint and make your case. After all, that is what academia is all about.

About the author

My name is Grant Golub and I'm a PhD candidate in the Department of International History at LSE. My research focuses on US foreign relations and grand strategy, diplomatic history, and Anglo-American relations.

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The PhD Experience

• Call for Contributions

What is the first year of a PhD actually like?

By Fraser Raeburn  |

It’s that time of year again, with a host of bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked young things preparing to saddle up and get started on their PhDs. None of them know what they’re in for. Not in the cynical, ‘abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here’ sense, but because the first year of a PhD is a curiously undefined, mysterious thing. Once the dust settles from the orientation activities, the welcome speeches have been made and you’ve worked out where your workspace is, what next?

There is of course no single answer. Your PhD is unique, just like everyone else’s. But in the humanities at least, there tends to be a natural rhythm to the first year. It goes something like this:

• Being politely ignored

The first steps are the hardest, and the point at which you need the most guidance. Fortunately, guidance is built into the PhD through the oversight of one or more supervisors . Less fortunately, the beginning of the academic year is the most difficult time to get the attention of any moderately senior academic. They have classes to plan and teach, have to deal with dozens of mildly clueless new undergrads and a backlog of admin work that they have carefully ignored over the summer. Meeting with you – and more to the point, meeting with their brain functions fully engaged – is not at the top of their to-do list. This is not because they don’t like you, or aren’t interested (for most academics, PhD supervision is the most interesting and rewarding part of their job), but they know that you have plenty of time and can wait a little, unlike all their other problems. Be patient. Get to know the other PhDs . It shouldn’t be more than a week or two.

The literature review is a constant in most disciplines, and a fair chunk of your time will be spent explaining how other people have previously understood/explained/been blatantly wrong about your topic. Don’t be surprised if the first thing your supervisor asks you to do is to read everything of relevance to your proposed research, digest it and write about it. This is almost universally considered to be tedious, maybe even pointless. There’s no way you can include everything that will be relevant to the final project, not to mention that there will be new publications by the time you are writing up the actual thesis, potentially rendering your early analysis obsolete. You signed up to a PhD in order to do research, and this won’t feel like it.

It’s more useful to think of the literature review as insurance, for both you and your supervisor. From your supervisor’s perspective, they probably aren’t completely up to date with your specific topic, so you handily summarising the state of the field is a useful starting point for them to engage with your future work. Moreover, it’s not that hard to come up with a research proposal – especially as it may not have been looked over by an actual expert in the topic during the application process. Engaging with current research forces you to think about how your own project will fit in, and will give your supervisor some added faith that your research is well-directed and meaningful. From their – and your – perspective, it’s much better to discover whether your proposed approach has any holes in it before you actually start the research.

• Popping cherries

There’s a few aspects of academic life that you may not have encountered yet. That’s not to say that you need to start doing everything at once – this isn’t a box-ticking exercise – but it’s a good idea to be on the look out for new things to try. You may have never attended a conference or given a paper: your first year is often a great time to find a safe space to experiment, float new ideas and try out new techniques . You may embark on your first research trip . You might also look into ways to get involved in the academic community. Making yourself a Twitter account and following your academic idols is a good first step. There will also be plenty of people looking to exploit your free time give you opportunities, offering the chance to do things like organising conferences and seminar series, getting involved in blogging projects or help running research networks . Not only do these opportunities let you develop skills and make contacts, it’s also never too early to think about what your CV will look like at the end of the PhD. Someone, at some point, will tell you exactly how hard it is to land an academic job. They’re not wrong. Get started early.

• Gearing up to be reviewed

Most PhD programmes require passing a review after your first year in order to confirm that you’re making satisfactory progress, and much of your first year will be spent working towards fulfilling these requirements. Technically, you are only a PhD ‘candidate’ after passing this review, before then you’re on probation and can’t aspire to such lofty titles. These reviews vary a great deal depending on your progression, your supervisors and your project. Usually, you will submit a portfolio of work: the aforementioned lit review, a provisional chapter draft, conference papers, plans for the future – whatever makes sense for your project. For most, this will be a relatively useful exercise in dealing with and responding to criticism. It is also useful to make sure that Stockholm Syndrome isn’t setting in between you and your supervisor, with someone outside the supervision team there to offer a fresh perspective. For some, however, the review can be problematic . If so, remember that you aren’t alone, and that the review is an opportunity to uncover issues and fix them before they prove fatal to your PhD.

Your first year may or may not look like this – if it doesn’t, it’s important to remember that there’s no one blueprint for PhD success. In fact, one of the most important habits to lose is the constant need to compare yourself to others that many of us develop in the competitive world of taught degrees. Never, ever feel inadequate because someone has done something you haven’t, finds something easier than you do or seems to have progressed further than you. If you can manage that, you’re already halfway to surviving your PhD.

Fraser has just entered the third year of his History PhD at the University of Edinburgh, a source of considerable angst. If anyone out there has a guide to your third year, please get in touch . You can find him in dark corners of the internet like  Twitter  and academia.edu . 

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A Pocket Guide to First Year Annual Review

Annual reviews are deemed important points of progression during the PhD journey.  

In addition to being a progression review, the annual review helps to support students to successfully conti nue and complete their PhD journey.  F or first – year PhD students, annual reviews may be considered one of the most important points in their year, more so  than   subsequent  annual reviews.  They   are   one of the two major points of  review  for a first – year  doctoral candidate , the first being 10-week report.  Possible outcomes  of the review  mainly include:   (1) confirmation of registration for PhD and progression to year 2 ,  (2)   repeating the review   within  3 months ,  or (3)   registration to a different  programme  like an  MScR  or  discontinuation  of registration entirely.  

With  Annual Review frenzy right around the corner  and most first – year PhD students  eagerly  waiting for their  assessments , here is a pocket guide to  ‘ survive ’  the first-year annual review.   

1. Keep the timeline of your review in mind- 

Annual reviews  typically occur  between 9 to 12 months of the   programme  starting date. Hence, it is advisable to keep in mind the timeline for the first year and plan accordingly.   

2. Follow the proper procedure of the Annual Review- 

Each subject area within the School might have slightly different procedures when it comes to conducting the annual review ; h owever,  it generally consists of finalizing the date of the review, filling out a form on EUCLID (in the Student Record section in  MyEd ), submitting a paper before the said date ,  and   giving  a short presentation on the day of the review  (although not required, but most reviews involve some form of presentation) .   

  For more details about the procedure of the Annual Review, please visit: https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/copsupervisorsresearchstudents.pdf  

3. Ensure open channels of communication with the supervisors- 

All PhD students are , at a minimum, allotted  two supervisors — both  a primary and secondary super visor or co-supervisors . The supervisory team  is  one of the most important support structures throughout   one’s  PhD   progression . It is imperative (and  cannot be stressed enough) to  maintain  honest and open communication with  one’ s supervisory team  at all times . If you are facing a ny  problem or  feeling overwhelmed, they should be the first people to know about it.   

I think you can’t help but compare yourself to other PGRs, but it is really important to remember that every supervisor and critical friend has different expectations and preferences.  Definitely talk  to your supervisory t eam and your critical friend about how to organize the review process! For some it might be more formal, but my Annual Review was very ca sual and more of a conversation with colleagues.     -Anonymous  1

4. Maintain consistency-

Now, we all know that we never end our PhD’s with the same research topic that we start with, rather, it is a whole process of evolution and deliberation of thoughts and ideas. However, in cases where we wish to make a radical change from one research interest to another, it is  advisable to consult  o n e ’ s supervisory team  before doing so  because ,  in some cases, they might not specialize in the changed/ suggested research topic  or they would want to include other supervisors on the team to better assist with the new research topic ; thus,  it ’s  always best to keep them in the loop.   

I was very surprised, and pleased, when by the time I had to present my annual review, I realized my project had slightly changed from what I initially proposed. This process was a bit scary, but my supervisors told me that it was natural and even expected to have a change in thoughts during the whole process of the PhD. The first year wasn’t an exception, as they expected refinement of the project and a more critical development of it. In my case the core topic was the same, but the intricacies of it and the methodology is what changed.   -Anonymous 2

5. Critical Friend-

As  part of the annual review process, each PhD student gets a  ‘ critical friend ’ allotted to their research . The Critical Friend will be involved with the supervision team in reviewing the annual  progress and  might offer occasional advice to the student  regarding the project during the following years. One of the most important roles of the critical friend is to provide feedback following the first-year annual review and  subsequent annual reviews.  The critical friend is someone the student can speak with if they are facing difficulties in supervision that they would like support with.   

In my particular case, having a critical friend provided a sense of stress as you are showing your project to an external person for the first time, but also, when I knew her expertise in both the topic and the methodology, I felt relieved as I knew her feedback was going to make my project more rigorous and rich.   -Anonymous 2 

6. Keep in constant touch with the PGR community- 

The PhD journey can  become quite isolated, especially when  o n e’s  colleagues   are also  consumed by their own research projects ;  however, it is important, especially   during unpre c e dented  uncertain times ,  to  consistently interact  with other PhD students to know that you are most definitely not alone! The school   has appointed ‘PGR Reps’ who are designated to address concerns of the rest of the PGR community — while they cannot actively help your concerns or change your situation, they can definitely provide a  signpost  in the right direction.   

I did a peer-presentation for my 1st year review and attended a couple. The PhD students who had been through the process gave some feedback and asked a few questions. I asked some people to read my first-year review draft, give me their comments and I also asked a couple of them to share their first-year review documents.   -Anonymous 3   One of the best advices I got from my peers and supervisors was to write small pieces of thoughts, paper summaries and rationales for decision making processes since the very beginning of my PhD as this would be material you can always refer to when you present your annual review. It will give structure to your thoughts and will bring more material to your PhD. Keeping a journal of your activities and small pieces of writing is a good practice whilst doing a PhD. – Anonymous 2

7. Be realistic in your approach-  

While it is easy to get carried away with your project — because let’s be real, it is our baby in the making — it is  essential to be realistic.  Keeping in mind both p roject feasibility  and situational circumstances  is important . It is highly important to be pragmatic about  timelines  and ,   if you tend to get overwhelmed, do not hesitate to apply for extensions and  special   circumstances .  The school provides  a lot of resources for the same.   

When I was in my first year, my supervisors asked m e  how many PhDs I  was  in tending to do. You probably can’t change the  whole  world with your project, but you can do it in a way that it changes you  – use your PhD to learn new skills and to challenge yourself ! I had to learn that a well-designed project about a small topic area is better than a big superficial project.    -Anonymous  1

8. Maintain a healthy work-life balance-  

All work and no play  makes  Jack a dull boy! Getting a PhD is a long  journey; hence, it is highly important to maintain a life outside your PhD and research.  Indulging in other activities and hobbies will not only  relax you but also help instill some transferable skills which can prove to be important both for personal and professional development. So, it is imperative for you to have a life outside the office, something which doesn’t involv e your research and help you unwind.   

Very often you hear stories (I know I did) that most of the first annual review ends up being your first chapter, but this puts a lot of pressure to produce something that is ‘PhD Thesis’ quality.  The reality is that PhDs are dynamic, literature is dynamic, so there is no way you can just copy paste your 1st annual review in your first chapter 3 years later, and that’s ok. Don’t see your annual review as a PhD chapter. See it as a work in progress!   -Anonymous   4

Remember, the above list is  quite  explorative ,  and there is no ‘One Size Fits All’ formula. The University   has an  Advice Place   ( https://www.eusa.ed.ac.uk/support_and_advice/the_advice_place/ ) to  help students address   both  academic and non-academic concerns. While e veryone has  different  plans of action or support  which might work for them , this small list of simple  ‘ do’s and don’t s ’  might come in handy for those who are going to appear for their annual review in the coming months.  Although the first year review may seem quite daunting and stressful, it acts as an important reality check for the students to plan out the subsequent years; getting feedback from both the supervisory team and the critical friend,  proves quite useful for the rest of the years to come.   

To   learn  more about the Annual Review Process, please click on the link below  (EASE Login Required) : https://www.learn.ed.ac.uk/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_17186_1&content_id=_617596_1    

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Many thanx for sharing this!

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• Schools & departments

Writing your PhD: Reviewing the Literature

This course is intended for PhD students in their second year.

Course Content and Unit Aims

Criteria for success, purpose, and citation skills

• To explore the criteria for a successful literature review, as proposed by the literature and by University of Edinburgh academics.
• To discuss the purposes of a literature review.
• To raise awareness of citation practices, including direct quotation, paraphrase, summary, and the avoidance of plagiarism.
• To provide practice in paraphrasing and summarising sources.

Organisation and Structure

• To explore different potential patterns for organising a literature review.
• To examine (and practise writing) introductions, transitions and conclusions within a literature review chapter.
• To raise awareness of ways of identifying a research gap.

Expressing Your Voice and Writing Critically

• To explore how sources can be used to support your own position.
• To focus on language features which can be used to guide your reader through your text while making your argument clear.
• To discuss ways of expressing a stance towards previous studies, and explore appropriate relevant language features.
• To examine the use of personal pronouns in a literature review.

Synthesising Sources

• To explore the language and structure of an effective definition.
• To practise synthesising definitions, where more than one exists in the literature.
• To explore ways of organising a literature review thematically rather than by author/study.
• To identify appropriate language used to make the organisation of your literature review explicit.
• To give you practice in synthesising sources.
• You will have the opportunity for a one-to-one on-line tutorial with your teacher, to discuss any remaining questions you may have.

Course Days/times

• In-person – Thursdays 14:00 - 16:00 
• Online – Fridays 11:00 - 12:00 

The in-person course will be held at both Holyrood Campus and King's Buildings.

Teaching Methods and Learning Outcomes

The course involves: discussion of aspects of reviewing literature; analysing sample extracts from University of Edinburgh doctoral theses; expanding your repertoire of useful academic English expressions; drafting short pieces of writing.  

Your tutor will meet you for a class once per week, either on-line or in-person, depending which option you have chosen. If you choose the on-line version of the course, you will listen to a brief introductory lecture and work through a series of tasks before the class. You can expect to spend around 3 hours per week altogether to fully benefit from this course .

After the class, you will write a short assignment, which you should send to your tutor, who will respond with feedback on your writing, focusing on overall clarity, style, the use of sources, organisation, and linguistic appropriacy.   

In the final week (week 5) of the course, you will have the opportunity for a one-to-one online tutorial with your tutor to discuss any remaining questions you may have. 

By the end of the course students should have a better understanding of:

• ways of structuring a literature review
• appropriate language for reviewing literature
• the skills involved in summarising and paraphrasing
• the skills involved in synthesising sources
• ways of expressing critical evaluation
• ways of expressing authorial voice

Eligibility

PhD students in their second year, or who have passed their First Year Board, and students doing MSc by research in their second semester. Final year students are also eligible, if they have not had the opportunity of taking this course earlier.

This article was published on 2023-11-23

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All candidates for the PhD Degree are admitted on a probationary basis. A student's status with the Student Registry is that he or she will be registered for the CPGS in Computer Science . At the end of the first academic year, a formal assessment of progress is made. In the Department of Computer Science and Technology, this takes the form of a single document of no more than 10,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, bibliography and appendices.

The document is principally a PhD Proposal . That is, a document that demonstrates a clear path from the candidate's current position to a complete PhD thesis at the end of the third year. The document has two purposes: (i) to help the candidate to reflect on and plan their research project and (ii) to allow the Computer Laboratory to assess the student's progress and planned research.

In the document, the candidate should do the following:

• Identify a potential problem or topic to address for the PhD.
• identifying the seminal prior research in the topic area
• the most closely related prior work, and
• their strengths and weaknesses.

The goal is to show the limitations (or lack) of previous work. One method that could be employed to do this is to provide both a taxonomy of prior work and a gap analysis table: a table whose rows are the closest related work, the columns are the desired attributes of the solution, and each table entry is a Yes or a No. This would then clearly show that no prior work meets all the desired attributes.

This section of the document might be expected to form the basis of part of the candidate's final PhD thesis.

Candidates should have already done some preliminary research. This may be early attempts at proofs, a detailed analysis of existing methods, a critique of existing systems, assembly and testing of investigative apparatus, conduct of a pilot experiment, etc. This section of the document may form the basis of a chapter of the final PhD thesis. It is common for the candidate to have produced an academic paper (even if this is a minor paper for a workshop, for example), where they are the main author. The paper does not need to have been published, but the assessors should be able to see that it is of potentially publishable quality. Such a paper can be submitted as an appendix to the document; in this case the material in the paper should not be reproduced in the document, but should be summarised briefly in a self-contained way.

This should indicate, at a high level, the research that might be undertaken in the second and third years of the PhD. It needs to show that there is a viable route to a thesis in two years' time. In particular, it must state the specific research question or questions that are being addressed. If there are more than one question being addressed, it needs to be made clear how they are interconnected and how answering them would result in a coherent thesis story. They need to also be accompanied with a brief discussion of why they are important and interesting questions that are worthy of a Cambridge PhD, and why they are new (the gap analysis table could be used for this). Next, the candidate needs to describe the proposed method of attacking the questions, for example, by listing the major steps to completion through the next two years.

Some candidates find it useful to structure this as a cohesive one-page summary of the proposed thesis, with a tentative title, a paragraph setting the context, and three or four paragraphs describing chunks of the proposed research, each of which could be the basis for an academic paper and each of which could be expected to be a chapter of the final thesis. The chapters should make a cohesive overarching narrative of the thesis, rather than be stand-alone pieces of work.

A paragraph identifying criteria for success is recommended where the candidate explains how they will convince the research community that their approach is successful.

Potential risks are recommended to be identified: what could derail this methodology (technically) and if this happens what is plan B?

• Timeplan: provide a detailed timetable, with explicit milestones for each term in the next two years against which the candidate will measure their progress. This would ideally include technical tasks that are planned to be accomplished during each time chunk.

It is essential that the supervisor(s) agrees that the document may be submitted. The document will be read by two other members of staff (assessors), who will interview the student about the content of the document in a viva. It should therefore give sufficient information that the assessors can satisfy themselves that all is well. It is expected that the interview will take place before the end of the first year.

Submission deadlines (electronic)

• For students admitted in Michaelmas Term, by June 30, 23:59
• For students admitted in Lent Term, October 30, 23:59
• For students admitted in Easter Term, by January 30, 23:59

All submissions should be made electronically via the filer.

Electronic version (in PDF format) should be provided via the PhD report and thesis upload page . This deposits uploaded files on the departmental filer at /auto/anfs/www-uploads/phd = \\filer.cl.cam.ac.uk\webserver\www-uploads\phd.

Students intending to take up research placements during the vacations which begin on, before, or shortly after the submission deadlines must submit their report one month before departure to enable the examination process to be completed before the internship begins . No other extensions will be permitted unless otherwise authorized by the Secretary of the Degree Committee.

Oral examination

The student will be invited to discuss the documents with two assessors appointed by the student's principal supervisor. Neither of the assessors should be the student's principal supervisor though one may be the student's second advisor. Occasionally, the principal supervisor may be invited to clarify elements of the PhD Proposal and to attend the viva as an observer.

Where the initial PhD Proposal document is unsatisfactory, the assessors must ask for a revised submission and arrange a further discussion. Where the PhD Proposal is acceptable, it may still help the student to record suggested modifications in a final version of the Proposal. A copy of the revised document must be submitted to the Secretary of the Degree Committee.

The PhD Proposal document is internal to the Laboratory. However, since it is the basis for formal progress reports including registration for the PhD Degree and those made to funding bodies, assessors should endeavour to arrange a meeting where the documents should be assessed and discussed by the end of the student's first year at the latest. The Secretary of the Degree Committee should be informed of the result by the assessors and by the supervisor on the Postgraduate Feedback and Reporting System as soon as possible thereafter.

The report will be considered by the Degree Committee which will make its recommendations on the registration of the student to the Board of Graduate Studies.

In those cases where the student's progress is wholly inadequate, the supervisor should give them a written warning by 15 September (or the appropriate corresponding date - 15 December or 15 March) that they are in danger of termination, with copy to the Secretary of the Degree Committee.

The word limit is a maximum; it is not a target. Successful PhD Proposal documents can be significantly shorter than the limit. Writing within the word limit is important. It is part of the discipline of producing reports. When submitting reports (and the final PhD thesis), students will be required to sign a Statement of Word Length to confirm that the work does not exceed the limit of length prescribed (above) for the CPGS examination.

Originality

Attention is drawn to the University's guidance concerning plagiarism. The University states that "Plagiarism is defined as submitting as one's own work that which derives in part or in its entirety from the work of others without due acknowledgement. It is both poor scholarship and a breach of academic integrity." The Faculty's guidance concerning plagiarism and good academic practice can be found at https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/exams/plagiarism.html .

Reports may be soft-bound in comb-binding or stapled.

Secretary of the Degree Committee September 2013, updated September 2021, updated March 2022

Department of Computer Science and Technology University of Cambridge William Gates Building 15 JJ Thomson Avenue Cambridge CB3 0FD

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Drowning in a sea of authors – How to be critical in a PhD literature review.

Feb 10, 2019

One of the problems I see often when I proofread PhDs is people being too descriptive and not being critical enough. This is most often the case in the literature review.

Critical thinking is one of the hardest skills to master in the entire PhD. Yet, it’s frustrating that many supervisors and doctoral training programs assume that PhD students are already capable critical thinkers.

To be critical in your PhD literature review doesn’t just mean describing what others have written. Instead, it means evaluating and analysing what it is that is being said.

Easy, right?

In this post we explain how to master the art of being critical in your literature review. If you haven’t already, check out our post on how to conduct a literature review.

We’ve also made an infographic. Simply click on the image below to download it.

So many questions…

When we say ‘you must be critical’, we mean that you must critically evaluate whatever it is you are discussing. Your job when critically evaluating is to think analytically, rather than descriptively.

However, being critical doesn’t mean criticising. Instead it means evaluating.

We saw in our post on how to write a literature review and in the PhD Writing Template that the literature review serves three purposes.

• To provide sufficient background information so that your own research problem can be contextualised
• To discuss how, how well, or even if, others have solved similar problems
• To outline the methods used by others when discussing similar problems

It is the first and second purposes that require critical thinking skills, because you want to be evaluating each work you read and act as an investigator.

A quick and easy way to do so is to ask five standard questions of each thing you read:

1. Who? 2. Where? 3. What? 4. When? 5. Why?

Asking these questions means we don’t just take what is written at face value. Instead, we evaluate, interpret, explain, analyse and comment on the text. These questions are a starting point for you to do that.

You’ll need to expand on these questions in order to go into more depth. You can do this by asking (you’ll find these questions in your PhD Writing Template ):

• Who wrote this and why?
• What are the authors trying to say?
• On what basis are they forming their judgements and arguments?
• Are they convincing?
• What theories or perspectives have been used? What alternative ones may have been used instead?
• What perspective are they coming from? What research tradition? What methods do they use? Are they appropriate?
• How does this work relate to others in the field?
• What are others arguing about the same topic?
• How does it relate to your research question or problem?

Ultimately, you’re asking: so what?

Don’t drown in a sea of authors

Let’s take an example of what not to do. Consider the following paragraph, from my very own PhD, on a theory of environmental politics known as ecological modernisation (that’s what the EM stands for):

We can see that I’ve become lost in the literature. All I’m really doing is listing various different studies. I’ve failed to think analytically and instead I’m just thinking descriptively.

I’m drowning in authors, navigating complex ideas and theories with little care for critically thinking about each of them. Instead I am piling up layers of ‘this person said this’ in order to showcase the field.

I – the academic – do not appear in this text at all. I offer no insight into my own critical reflection on any of the concepts, authors or ideas that I have listed. I have become invisible. I have not used the literature to put forward my own argument about the state of the discipline or to make the case for my own study.

There are two things to take from this:

• You need to speak with authority. Avoid falling into the trap of ‘he said, she said’, simply listing scholars and becoming invisible in the process.
• Avoid being overwhelmed by the literature.

How could I have improved my own literature review, using what I know now after years of working as an academic, proofreader and a literature review writer?

Consider the following excerpt from a literature review a colleague and I wrote as part of a journal article we had published . Notice how we aren’t invisible in a sea of authors and a sea of ‘he said, she said’.

Instead, we offer our own voice and put forward our own analysis of the literature. The sentence, ’this article argues, however, that all institutional formations are characterised by a combination or formal rules…’ is just one example of this.

Read, read, read, then write, write, write

Counterintuitively, when you are reading something for the first time, you should do so uncritically. Get a sense of what the writer is trying to do and whether the problem that they are tackling is in itself interesting.

We’ve written a guide about how to find content for your literature review. Check it out here .

You want to understand at this stage the ‘how’ and the ‘what’.

Once you have read the chapter, article, or book, and once you have a good sense of what it is about, you can then ask the when, why and how.

You can begin to unpack whether the conclusions are valid, whether the methods are appropriate, whether alternative theories or concepts could have been applied, and so on.

It is also at this stage that you can judge the validity of the paper as a whole. You need to ask yourself:

• Is it an incremental increase in the knowledge in your field, or is it game-changing?
• Is it a classic, or does it just add a little to what we knew before?

The answer to these questions can impact the significance the article or book plays in your literature review when you come to write.

As you write, you are forced to tackle what might seem like a wide range of literature. You are forced to relate different articles and books to one another and to explain the who, where, what, when and why.

But, you need a filter; much of what you read won’t be relevant to the study you are trying to develop or may be of poor quality.

It is these five questions above that act as your filter and which serve as your guide, against which you relate one piece of literature with another.

Master your lit review & theory framework.

Learn what goes where (and why), and how it all fit together with this free, interactive guide to the PhD literature review and theory framework.

Conclusion: Don’t be mean

So, thinking critically involves thinking like a detective in order to understand what others have written, why, and how it relates to that which came before and to your thesis. It involves not taking things at face value and questioning everything.

But, it’s not your job to be mean to other scholars. It’s your job to understand how well something was written and how relevant it is to your purposes. If you just list articles in a descriptive way, you won’t be doing this. You need instead to be critical, to ask questions, to probe the words.

Doing so will give you a voice and avoid you getting lost in sources.

Hello, Doctor…

Sounds good, doesn’t it?  Be able to call yourself Doctor sooner with our five-star rated How to Write A PhD email-course. Learn everything your supervisor should have taught you about planning and completing a PhD.

Now half price. Join hundreds of other students and become a better thesis writer, or your money back. 

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32 comments.

Thanks this was useful!

Great! Glad you found it useful.

I am yet to write a Ph.D. literature review in English Literature on Kazuo Ishiguro. This article boosted me up to the importance of Critical and analytical thinking rather than descriptive thinking. I am also a blogger of Ph.D. https://phdstudytips.com But this information I have not written anywhere on my blog. Thanks for all efforts Dr.Max Lempriere

Thanks for the kind words. Critical thinking is so important, but so hard! I hope this article helped you in your academic journey.

Do you have any tips on how to approach a research proposal regarding structure and the do’s and don’ts ?

Thank you David

Sure – you can check out a guide we’ve written here: https://www.thephdproofreaders.com/writing/how-to-write-a-phd-proposal/

Hope this helps,

Hey Max.. This is very helpful for me. Thank u for writing this blog, i am now confident to start my review

I’m glad you are finding it useful. Good luck!

Really helpful. Thank you.

You’re welcome. I’m glad you found it useful.

Hi Dr Max, I’m about to write my Literature review. Your blog helps me a lot. However could you share with me some samples of Literature reviews in Phd?

Hi Sachin. Thanks for your kind words. I’m glad you’re finding the blog useful. I can’t offer any specific examples of literature reviews. It depends on your discipline. My advice would be to read similar PhDs in your discipline for inspiration. If in doubt, ask your supervisor or colleagues for their suggestions of particularly good examples. I hope this helps! Good luck!

Hello Dr. Max. I must say that I enjoyed in this guide to literature review, and while I initially made the same mistake about just listing different studies, I have corrected that thanks to your guide.

There is one thing that I would like to ask you. How to approach to a thesis that is rarely documented, with very small number of published and relevant papers. Obviously, future PhD. thesis is going to offer better understanding of the matter that is about to be explored by experimental study, but what to do when very small number of researchers is dealing with this subject, or all of the available literature is of old date, but there is nothing new or better than this literature from the 60’s or 70’s.

Wish you all the best, and once again thank you for this guide.

Hi Faruk, thanks for the kind words. Your struggle is a common one. If there isn’t much literature to review, your literature review will necessarily be shorter than average and that’s okay. Make sure you thoroughly review the literature that goes exist, even if it is old, and make sure that your argument in the literature review chapter is built upon this idea that the literature is poorly developed. In some ways this makes your life easier, as the gap in your literature is so large that it will be easier for you to fill it. Hope this helps!

Hello again,

Thank you for the prompt response. Yes, this definitely helps. It gives hope 🙂

Thanks for this article. My thesis is on a specific artist about whom very little has been written, relative to other artists. On the other hand, my general approach to the questions I am asking about this artist is interdisciplinary, which means there is a massive literature from about five different fields to review. Do you have any advice about how to manage this. I’ve written about 17,000 words, but my supervisor keeps telling me it’s not enough.

Hi! Without knowing more about your topic it’s hard to say, but I know from my own PhD that blending various literatures together in a review is tough. If you find yourself getting stuck and tied in knots, step away from the chapter/review for a few days and come back with a fresh set of eyes.

Very Very helpful Sir. I am about to start my PhD.

Welcome to the club! Good luck on your amazing PhD journey.

Dear Dr Max

I just started this course and would like to say that its contents are very useful to my current confused state of mind. Thank you for making me see the clearer picture so as not be overwhelmed by the PhD thesis writing. I was at the brink of giving up few years of work, and am so glad I came across your website and registered for the course. Thank you.

I’m glad you’re finding it useful. It’s my mission to make other students’ lives easier than mine was when I was doing my PhD, so I’m glad to see it is having the desired effect.

Thank you so much Dr. Max. It is very helpful, I joined PhD in this year 2020 in January.

You’re welcome. Thanks for reading.

Dear Dr Max ,

Good day sir and thanks for all your good work trying to make sure we get it easier than you did . am not yet in PHD class yet but in DR class .Please how soon can i start my Thesis Writing ? and how do i chose topic to write on ? Please i need help . Thanks again and God bless. Osy

Hi Osy, I’m afraid I can’t offer any advice to help you choose a topic. Have you approach any potential supervisors and asked them? They’ll be better placed to help.

This was very useful. However, I find it difficult to articulate some complex thoughts (English is not my first language). Developing a discursive writing style is my greatest challenge in doing a Ph.D. I am only able to recognize them when someone else has written them,

You might want to work with a proofreader. Check out our website for more info.

Very good pointers shared. thanks for this post.

No problem.

Thank you very much for your article. It addresses some of the many struggles PhD students seem to face. Knowing that I am not alone is a good start. I have finished my methodology and currently writing my literature review. I thought I would have enjoyed it more… but it’s a tough one! I must say I am finding it quite overwhelming particularly to organize the chapter. The first part contexualising the research is fine and done, but trying to critique the main text that acted as a springboard to my research is tough.

I am not quite sure whether I should engage with recent research that has adopted the same main text/research I am using and critically discuss those or else fuse the said recent existing research with other broader themes (which I still need to include as part of the lit review).

Getting my head around this is overwhelming!

Thanks again!

When it gets too tough, remind yourself that this stuff is meant to be difficult.

Thank you, Dr. Max. This blog is a booster for me. I am a research scholar in agribusiness I cover green marketing in agro-based industries. This blog helps me a lot.

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A guide for first year PhD students: Expectations, responsibilities, advice

The first year of a PhD can feel like a rollercoaster ride. First-year PhD students are ambitious and want to fulfil expectations. At the same time, they may be unsure of what these expectations and their responsibilities are. This guide aims to provide first-year PhD students with some directions and advice.

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase using the links below at  no additional cost to you.  I only recommend products or services that I truly believe can benefit my audience. As always, my opinions are my own.

The first year as a PhD student: Excitement, ambition, overwhelm

What to expect as a first-year phd student, responsibilities of a first-year phd student, a supervisor’s expectations of a first-year phd student, thesis/dissertation, academic skills, relationships and networking, health and well-being.

Starting a PhD is exciting. Securing a PhD position is a major life event, and often something that first-year year PhD students have been working towards for a long time.

Many PhD students cannot wait to start. They already want to prepare in the weeks and months leading up to their new positions. And once they do start, they are full of energy, ambitions and plans.

First-year PhD students want to do well, make progress with their projects and meet their supervisors’ expectations. However, it is not always clear what that means.

“Am I doing enough? Do I make enough progress? Am I smart enough? Did I bite off more than I can chew?”

Questions like these, and insecurities, often develop early on in a PhD journey.

Furthermore, starting in a new environment can also be draining. There are new colleagues, new processes, and many unwritten rules in academia. Coupled with open questions about the direction of one’s PhD research, the first year can feel overwhelming.

To avoid overwhelm, it helps to know that the first year of a PhD involves much more than just figuring out one’s research. And absolutely normal to feel lost from time to time.

Succeeding in academia has many facets, including your thesis or dissertation, but also learning new skills, and developing relationships with supervisors, colleagues and scholars in your field. All of that takes energy.

Set realistic expectations for yourself in the first year of your PhD. Not everything will work out as planned. Research takes time, and setbacks are inevitable.

Doing a PhD is often experienced as very stressful : many PhD students are perfectionists, and a PhD requires a lot of self-responsibility. Consequently, PhD work tends to feel very personal, and criticism can sting.

First-year PhD students can deal with ‘failures’ more constructively by realizing that failures are an inevitable part of academic work, and by adopting a more welcoming attitude to criticism and feedback.

First-year PhD students can also expect to read and explore a lot. At times, this involves going down the rabbit hole of academic literature: processing new information, frameworks and perspectives before discarding them again.

Thinking, researching, experimenting, writing and editing are not straightforward processes, and a lot of learning takes place along the way.

Specific requirements and responsibilities of a first-year PhD student differ from programme to programme.

However, frequently a key responsibility of a PhD student is to develop a firm research proposal in the first year, which is often coupled with an extensive literature review.

This requires first-year PhD students to immerse themselves in the relevant literature. However, it is also recommended to read a bit outside of your field or discipline to gain new perspectives.

If a PhD programme involves course work, as is for instance the case in North America much more than in Europe, then planning and starting coursework is also often a responsibility during the first year.

All in all, a first-year PhD student is responsible to get organised and create a feasible plan for the coming years. The first year is meant to set the foundation for the PhD trajectory .

Unless the PhD programme is followed online, and unless there is a pandemic raging, first-year PhD students are additionally often expected to actively participate in the research group, lab or department in which they are based.

Active participation can range from simply showing up regularly, to attending lunches with colleagues, attending research events or presenting preliminary findings.

The internet is full of horror stories of PhD supervisors having extremely unrealistic expectations of first-year PhD students. For instance, several publications in the first year.

While this can certainly happen, I dare to say that this is not the norm.

Again, specific expectations or requirements in terms of performance and output of first-year PhD students can differ from university to university, and from supervisor to supervisor.

Beyond that, however, there are several expectations that many PhD supervisors have of first-year PhD students.

For instance, PhD supervisors tend to appreciate some levels of regularity and consistency. While it is absolutely normal to have periods where you make more progress (for instance in writing) than in others, it is not good to contact your supervisor every day for a month, and then fall off the earth for half a year.

Consistency goes hand in hand with good communication. Communication, respect and openness are fundamental elements in a good supervisor-supervisee relationship.

Many supervisors prefer first-year PhD students to ask for help and support if they experience roadblocks of any kind, instead of finding out that after a year no progress was made.

Lastly, supervisors often expect PhD students to take matters into their own hands. Instead of simply waiting for instruction, this means that first-year PhD students should be in the driver’s seat of their journey. Therefore, it is no surprise that proactiveness is one of the 10 qualities of successful PhD students.

25 things every first year PhD student should do

To turn the more abstract discussion on expectations and responsibilities into more concrete advice, the following list includes 25 things (divided into five categories) that every first-year PhD student should do.

• Read as much as you can. Write down your thoughts and observations.
• Develop a system to keep track of the literature you are reading (for instance through an excel file, notebooks, or a reference manager like Zotero ).
• Develop a literature review on your research topic.
• Familiarise yourself with your university’s PhD requirements (such as length, number of publications, required coursework, etc.).
• Read a few PhD theses from your field and university to understand what is ultimately expected from you.
• Get into the habit of writing . It does not have to be purely academic text. Write down your observations, write blog posts, and write a research diary. The more you write, the easier it gets.
• Develop a good system of communication and effective supervision meetings with your PhD supervisor/s.
• Get into the habit of talking about your research. Speak to your friends about your work, and discuss some readings with your colleagues. Try to formulate your thoughts in an accessible way. The more you do this, the easier it gets.
• Present something in a friendly environment (such as your research group) to practice public speaking .
• Learn how to prioritise tasks . Sometimes, prioritising one task means ruthlessly dropping others. Get comfortable with it. No one can do it all.
• Get to know your supervisor/s . Learn about their research and activities, their preferences and things like their preferred way of communicating. Don’t just expect your supervisor/s to adjust to your preferences, also adjust to theirs.
• Be present in your department, lab or research group. Chat with colleagues, exchange information, support each other and socialise. Collaboration is always better than competition.
• Develop a good support network outside of work. Even the nicest PhD trajectory can be stressful and frustrating from time to time. Know who has your back and can provide support and/or distraction when needed.
• Get to know the administrators and secretaries of your university. They hold a lot of power and you want them on your side!
• Start your online presence by filling out your university profile page, and setting up a professional Twitter account or a LinkedIn profile. You want people to be able to find information about you and your research online.
• Observe your energy levels and find your rhythm. Some people concentrate better in the morning, others late at night. Figure out when to tackle difficult tasks, when to schedule meetings, and when to take breaks. A PhD is not a regular 9 to 5 job. If you have flexibility in your time planning, optimise your routine so that it fits you .
• Be kind to yourself. When having negative thoughts, speak them out loud. Would you talk to your friends or colleagues the same way you talk to yourself? Probably not. Be forgiving and compassionate if you have a bad day.
• Foster an identity outside of your PhD by taking time for instance for hobbies, family and friends. It will help you to separate your self-worth from your PhD work.
• Prioritise your health and well-being . This involves for example getting proper sleep , exercising and eating healthily. Not only will you feel better, but your work will also benefit.
• Take proper breaks. Getting burnout is not a badge of honour or testimony to your dedication. Work smarter, not harder.

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Preparation for doctoral research: a narrative review

• Open access
• Published: 20 May 2023

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• Ailie McDowall   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4737-3563 1 &
• Fabiane Ramos   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0690-1681 2  

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In Australia, only two-thirds of doctoral students finish their degrees, with underrepresented students completing at even lower rates. Students who successfully complete still experience many challenges throughout their degrees. In this narrative literature review, we use preparation and readiness for the doctorate as a framework to examine how students are prepared for studies at the doctoral level, the challenges they experience, and the support that universities provide. We also weave our own stories of the doctorate to demonstrate how the issues raised in the literature play out for doctoral students. Our findings suggest that how students are prepared for the doctorate remains under-researched, with much of the literature focusing on issues that emerge once students commence, and the supports that are provided in response to these challenges. A future focus on preparation may provide insight into how institutional processes can better support doctoral students to successfully complete their degrees.

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Knowing Your Research Students: Devising Models of Doctoral Education for Success

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Fabi: For my first day as a PhD student, I bought a nice new shirt because I wanted to look the part (the part I imagined I needed to play at least). It felt important to be a PhD student, with a great career ahead of me. ‘I am ready for the challenge, and I look really nice in my silky orange shirt. That’s a good start’. I enrolled in every single workshop available to HDR students because I was a good student. I had always been the ‘good’ student with good grades, and I was convinced that if I just kept doing what I had always done before I’d be fine. It was not long after that first day that reality started to sink in. I felt lost and realised that I was completely out of my depth. I had to work with theory. It was a PhD, Doctor of Philosophy. Philosophy is in the very name of the degree, yet I had zero training in philosophy or how to work with theory to a high level. It quickly became clear that the preparation I received in my Master's was child’s play compared to what was now expected of me. And even within the PhD program, apart from generic workshops, there was no formal way to learn how to work with theory.

Ailie: On my first day of the PhD, I did my workplace health and safety inductions, was shown the fire exits, got my photo taken for an ID card, was introduced to the other students in the office, and finally, allocated a computer space. I sat down, turned on my computer, and stared at the screen. Now what? Google ‘How to write a PhD’? Instead, I went into the only database I knew and started plugging in terms relating to my topic, downloading a handful of papers that looked interesting. I dropped in to see one of my supervisors, a junior academic. She gave me some advice, I smiled, she wished me well, and I went home again. It was several weeks before I met my whole advisory team, and so I kept myself busy attending workshops run by the Student Services Centre. I scribbled notes and applied what I’d learnt straight away. I went back to my computer and drew up a table to tabulate my readings. I printed and highlighted and filed my printouts, labelling anything that I found challenging ‘philosophy’.

In Australia, only 25% of full-time Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) students complete their degrees ‘on-time’, and 33% never graduate. Underrepresented students complete at even lower rates (Department of Education, 2018 ). The Australian PhD is the highest qualification available, and the government funds students’ enrolments for up to four years (Department of Education, 2021 ). Given this slow rate of completion, in this paper we review the literature on how doctoral students are prepared for studies at the doctoral level, the challenges they experience, and the support that universities provide. We analyse this literature through the framework of preparation and readiness for the doctorate . In the United States (US), discussions on doctoral preparation often refer to curriculum within the PhD program (e.g. Eisenhart & DeHaan, 2005 ). However, students’ level of preparedness before they commence the doctorate remains under-researched, and this is the focus of this narrative literature review. The narrative review has a double meaning here: we also weave our own stories of the doctorate to demonstrate how the issues raised in the literature play out for doctoral students. Reading these narratives through the framework of preparedness reveals the relationship between the challenges we each experienced; rather than treating these as single issues, as they so often are in research literature.

Doctoral education research is a large and diverse field. In this paper, we review a segment of this literature that relates to doctoral students’ preparation and readiness. We used the following search strings to interrogate OneSearch databases:

(PhD OR Doctora* OR ‘Postgraduate research’ OR HDR OR ‘higher degree by research’) AND (prepar* OR readiness OR pathway* OR entry)

(PhD OR Doctora* OR ‘Postgraduate research’ OR HDR OR ‘higher degree by research’) AND (support OR issue OR challenge OR problem OR training)

The literature review we present here is not systematic, rather it explores relevant literature through the lens of doctoral preparation and readiness. We draw on international literature, but prioritise Australian studies, given the differences in doctoral education in different countries (for example, in the United States students undertake coursework and a comprehensive examination as part of their PhD; in Scandinavia, students are employed by the university and undertake little if any required curriculum). We have structured this literature review based on the common progression students take through the doctorate: the motivations to apply, the pathways students take into the doctorate and the preparation offered within these pathways, the challenges–both academic and psychological–that emerge when students commence, and finally, the personal characteristics and supports that enable students to succeed. In each section, we share some of our own stories that relate to the topic at hand.

Defining doctoral preparation and readiness

‘Doctoral preparation’ has received some attention in previous literature, namely in discussions about the types of preparation doctoral students should receive to prepare them in their future research careers (e.g. Young, 2001 ). This theme was a common occurrence in the literature that we reviewed, and it is clear that the doctoral students have many competing demands placed on them. There are debates about the types of research training that students should be exposed to (e.g. Eisenhart & DeHaan, 2005 ) and students’ preparation to work in epistemologically diverse research communities (e.g. Pallas, 2001 ). Additionally, concerns have been raised about disciplinary requirements for doctorally-trained workforces (e.g. Carr & Galvin, 2005 ), government ambitions for industry collaborations and training (e.g. Owens et al., 2019 ; Valencia-Forrester, 2019 ), transferable skills (e.g. Milos, 2019 ), and better preparation for later university teaching and research (e.g. Jepsen et al., 2012 ; Schwartz & Walden, 2012 ). Given the number of demands on PhD students’ time, it seems pertinent to consider how students are prepared to do their primary task: that is, to undertake a major research project culminating in an independent research thesis.

In contrast to the current literature on doctoral preparation, here we focus on the types of activities that prepare doctoral students to complete this task. In doing so, we turn to the broader educational literature on academic pathways and transition pedagogies (Kift, 2015 ). Academic readiness is a broad term used to explain the status of students transitioning into new educational environments, such as school-leavers starting university (Porter & Polikoff, 2012 ). Whilst academic readiness is often measured through standardised achievement measures (Porter & Polikoff, 2012 ), qualitative understandings of academic readiness incorporate content knowledge, academic behaviours, meta-cognitive and learning strategies, and knowledge about the learning environment (Reid & Moore, 2008 ). Preparation is thus the activities that enable academic readiness. Here, academic preparation and readiness are reference points to explore how predoctoral and doctoral curricula develop the academic behaviours, knowledge, dispositions, strategies, and skills that are required for doctoral level studies.

Entering the doctorate

Motivations for the phd.

Fabi: I knew I wanted to teach, and I knew I didn’t want to teach children. I had been an English as an Additional Language teacher at a private language college for a few years and I understood that teaching in that industry would be unsustainable for me financially long term. I also wanted a challenge and to go beyond what I had been doing until then. It then occurred to me that teaching at university sounded like a path I wanted to take. I was towards the end of my Master of Applied Linguistics at that point and an academic career seemed appealing to me. I checked what was the requirement to become a lecturer and found out that a PhD was a must.

In researching preparedness, we found a range of studies exploring students’ motivations for undertaking a PhD. Students are driven by personal motivations, such as a love of learning, an interest in research and a personal challenge; social motivations, such as being encouraged by family or academic teachers to engage in research; and professional motivations, such as broadening career opportunities or developing professional knowledge (Guerin et al., 2015 ; Naylor et al., 2016 ; Skakni, 2018 ; Stehlik, 2011 ). Guerin and colleagues (2015) suggest that students negotiate intersecting motivations at different stages of their candidature. Some students, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, often have additional motivations. In a study of Indigenous Australian postgraduate research students, for example, making research accessible and beneficial for students’ communities were key motivators, as was the importance of having Indigenous researchers setting the agenda for Indigenous peoples (Barney, 2018b ). These students also discussed the importance of being encouraged to apply by teaching staff, and previous research experience. In the United States, engaging with Latinx professors was particularly motivating for first-generation Latinx students (Bañuelos & Flores, 2021 ). These professors were also able to provide experiential knowledge to support students in their applications, such as sharing information about scholarships for low-income students. Motivations are included in assessments of students’ own motivation, personal circumstances, and understanding of the application process (e.g. DeWitty et al., 2016 ; Syed et al., 2020 ) as a way to measure personal (rather than academic) readiness.

Whilst motivations may not relate directly to academic preparedness, understanding the reasons students choose to enrol in a doctorate provides context for students’ mindsets as they commence their degrees. It would also appear that students’ experiences in earlier degrees contribute to the decision to undertake doctoral research, and it is to these degrees that we now turn.

Preparation in qualifying degrees

Ailie: I didn’t know it at the time, but the pathway I took to the PhD was ‘traditional’. A four-year undergraduate which culminated in an Honours year, and I was deemed ready to take on the highest degree the country offered – a PhD. But my Honours experience was something more akin to factory farming than a scholarly endeavour. A hundred and thirty students were each assigned a supervisor and enrolled into specialist seminars that explored ever increasingly specific and applied knowledge. Our research methodology course focused on advanced statistics, our lecturer promising that we would be more knowledgeable than 99.9% of the population. To this day, I’m still not sure what bootstrapping is, and nor did it help me to write a thesis.

We also found in the literature a small body of Australian research that describes the pathways that students take into the PhD, which is vital to understanding what preparation best supports doctoral students. Traditionally, the primary qualification for an Australian doctorate has been an Honours degree (Kiley et al., 2009 ). Whilst some disciplines offer Honours degrees embedded within the four-year coursework, in most fields an Honours is an end-on degree, that is, a distinct fourth year completed after three years of undergraduate study (Shaw et al., 2013 ). In one study, supervisors suggest that an Honours degree prepares students with time management skills, practice in thesis writing and the ability to communicate research findings, giving a solid preparation for further postgraduate research; and students view their learning as a ‘vital precursor’ (Kiley et al., 2009 ). Honours students in an end-on degree also show more evidence of research preparedness, with higher levels of self-efficacy, motivation, a better understanding of the research environment and an orientation towards research (Shaw et al., 2013 ). However, universities and disciplines have considerable differences in prerequisites, curriculum and assessable components (Kiley et al., 2011 ). This variability makes it difficult to assume readiness for research. In a series of interviews with Honours coordinators, Kiley et al. ( 2011 ) report that it was often the Honours supervisors’ role to teach research skills, but with far less support than is provided for PhD students. Furthermore, surveyed Honours students report that the requirement to acquire new knowledge is high, making it difficult to balance with the need to produce new knowledge (Manathunga et al., 2012 ). Some of these students are required to complete high loads of coursework and assessment that do not relate to their research project.

In addition to Honours degrees, Australian students are increasingly entering the doctorate through a variety of pathways. Bourke et al. ( 2006 ) report 46% of students having an Honours qualification, with the rest entering through coursework and research master’s degrees. Kiley and Cumming ( 2014 , 2015 ) argue for more research to identify Australian pathways to the doctorate, and further investigation of the training provided to students in their earlier degrees. They found that students who enter a PhD following a coursework Master’s with a minor research thesis tend to feel somewhat prepared for PhD research (Kiley & Cumming, 2014 ), a sentiment not matched by PhD advisors (Baglin et al., 2017 ; Drisko & Evans, 2018 ; Kiley & Cumming, 2015 ). Rather, advisors see a coursework Master’s as an unconventional pathway to the PhD, only suitable for high achieving students. Nonetheless, student data from a range of Australian universities suggest that students with a prior Master’s degree complete their PhDs earlier than students with an Honours entry qualification (Bourke et al., 2006 ). International studies suggest that coursework Master’s degrees can be a productive environment to teach research, with supervision and students’ intellectual motivation the best predictors of self-reported research skills, rather than students’ personal backgrounds (Drennan & Clarke, 2009 ). Given the inconclusive outcomes in this small group of papers, more research is required to understand how qualifying degrees can prepare future doctoral students to complete doctoral studies.

However, insight into a fuller conceptualisation of PhD-readiness can be found in international case studies of preparatory programs for underrepresented students. One study by Williamson ( 2016 ) reports that a first year PhD program that prepares African women for doctoral studies has had a positive effect in fostering solidarity and academic identities for the women enrolled. The focus on identity is also prominent in the United States, where several universities have trialled preparatory programs to encourage Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino and Native American students, as well as students with disabilities, to enrol in PhD programs. These programs range from first-year undergraduate programs (Luedke et al., 2019 ), to summer research intensives (Martinez, 2018 ; McCoy & Winkle-Wagner, 2015 ; Salerno et al., 2017 ) and one-year pre-PhD programs (Hall et al., 2016 ).Whilst most of the reported programs focus on building a scholarly identity, similar to Williamson ( 2016 ), they also report a range of outcomes including improved self-efficacy, disciplinary knowledge, research and academic skills, academic communities, and confidence in navigating professional environments. Most of these studies are limited by only incorporating immediate and self-reported evidence, with a notable exception. Hall et al.’s ( 2016 ) full year program for biomedical students offered a comprehensive curriculum, with 91% of students matriculating into a competitive PhD program. Here, students were taught how to quickly and critically analyse scientific literature, received laboratory skills training, prepared for the entry examination, developed an individual learning plan with a mentor and the program director, and received tutoring for a biomedical skills course. These students reported increased self-efficacy for scientific research and had a high retention rate in the PhD program (95%). The range of activities offered in this program may provide useful to mapping an understanding of curriculum that can support PhD readiness, given the challenges that doctoral students face throughout their degrees.

Fabi: I made up my mind and started working towards getting accepted into a PhD. I enrolled into the pre-requisite research methods and dissertation units and worked very hard. However, I was confused about the research methods course as I felt it was quite vague. With the dissertation unit, it was a massive challenge getting a full research project completed in one semester, but it was exciting being able to ‘do’ research. Managing to get this project done was a major motivator for me. I did not only complete the project but also achieved a High Distinction and received a full scholarship for the PhD program in Education that I had chosen. This was a proud moment. As an immigrant, writing in my second language, knowing that I had done well in the Master’s thesis, gave me the confidence to believe that I was ready for the challenges of a PhD. Little I knew that I was about to have the shock of a lifetime.

Challenges in the doctorate

Research and institutional challenges.

Ailie: Some of the challenges I experienced can be explained by changing disciplines, and working in research traditions that were very different from the ones I had trained in. It took me a year or two to understand that there were different traditions of research with different underlying assumptions. It wasn’t until I later began supervising students myself that I could really articulate the fundamental epistemological differences between positivist, interpretivist, critical and post-structural schools of thought. There was so much to learn, a whole new set of language that revealed a way of thinking. I was absorbing the lessons as quickly as I could, but there was always another word or concept around the corner, and everybody else seemed so sure that they knew what they were talking about.

While students’ preparation for the PhD has received little research attention, the challenges that students face during their doctoral degree have been well documented, highlighting potential areas to improve preparation. Research to date has identified gaps in students’ knowledge and skills for several of the key capabilities that are needed to successfully complete a PhD. These include investigations of research skills (Bamgboje-Ayodele et al., 2016 ), academic reading and writing (Ma, 2021 ; McAlpine, 2012 ), challenging disciplinary conventions (McDowall & Ramos, 2018 ), statistics (Baglin et al., 2017 ), academic integrity (Mahmud & Bretag, 2013 ), and library search literacies (Warburton & Macauley, 2014 ). In an Australian study, Bamgboje-Ayodele et al. ( 2016 ) analysed the limitation sections of PhD theses and interviews with final year students to explore the challenges students faced during their degrees. Research-related issues–such as problems with methodology and how to conduct a study–were central in the findings. However, the data revealed other areas of concern for students, such as insufficient resources, supervisor availability and information about university processes, as well as personal challenges including work-life balance, isolation and cultural mismatches. Similar non-academic issues that can hinder students’ progress are more widely documented in the literature (e.g. Due et al., 2015 ; Son & Park, 2014 ; Velander et al., 2021 ; Zeivots, 2021 ). Interviews with first-year doctoral students show how academic, self-organisational, institutional, and social factors can create high levels of stress and anxiety as students move from previous degrees to a more independent doctorate (Hockey, 1994 ). Learning to manage one’s emotions and self-perception as a doctoral student becomes a challenge that students must negotiate in their first year (Green, 2016 ).

The types of challenges that students experience are emphasised in studies investigating the experiences of students who have traditionally been underrepresented in academia, or in their disciplinary fields. For these students, there has been a particular emphasis on personal factors in the literature, suggesting that finance, isolation and outside-of-university responsibilities may impact these students more. For example, in an investigation of success factors, Barney ( 2018a ) identified key obstacles affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander postgraduate research students’ completion: social isolation, financial pressures, being first-in-family, and complex family and community responsibilities. Similarly, women completing their doctoral studies in STEM disciplines have added responsibilities of balancing financial and caring duties, often resulting in slower completion rates (Velander et al., 2021 ). For culturally and linguistically diverse students, particularly those who move countries to enrol in their studies, isolation compounds with the challenges of negotiating new academic, cultural and linguistic environments (Due et al., 2015 ; Son & Park, 2014 ; Zeivots, 2021 ). This research, with its emphasis on the personal and social, illustrates the complex issues outside of the university which impact students’ progression.

Fabi: I started reading and trying to figure out what to do. I borrowed all the methodology books I could find. I sat, I read, I struggled. I had the self-regulation and discipline to manage my time, to get things done, to work hard, but I just didn’t know what to do. I could write academically but I didn’t know how to create the ‘original contribution to knowledge’ that was expected of me. I wanted to give up. But I’m not the type of person who gives up easily. The Master’s helped very little, the workshops were too generic, the initial support from supervisors was there but limited by restrictions with time. Looking back today, I realise that too much emphasis is put on the relationship with supervisors. It’s unrealistic to expect that supervisors (with multiple priorities) can be the central and sometimes only source of support to students. I could not expect this from them. I know they assisted me as they could at the time.

Mental health challenges

Ailie: Sitting quietly before a supervision meeting became a habit as I calmed myself down and steeled myself up for another hour of feeling out of my depth, legs pedalling below the surface to keep myself afloat as I smiled and nodded and took notes as my supervisors directed me to concepts and theorists that I didn’t understand. I stopped drinking coffee, aware that the continuous knot in my chest wound itself tighter with chemical stimulation. And I took on work, and volunteering opportunities, and service roles, all allowing me to avoid working on my thesis. I needed the work. I was scraping by with a half dozen casual teaching contracts and private tutoring sessions. I couldn’t afford to say no to paid work.

Fabi: The other people in the office, in our little PhD factory as we called it, were going through similar motions. The ones further ahead in their degree would encourage the newbies, and that collegiality was a lifeline in those early dark days. I sat, I read, sometimes I cried. And that feeling on my chest, like someone was pressing it down and constricting airflow, started growing little by little. The constricting feeling on my chest soon became part of my daily life. It took me a while to understand that wasn’t healthy. It was not until much later and with a lot of work that I started to heal from that weight on my chest. I kept going, I sat, I read. Theory was still not within my grasp. I felt inadequate. ‘Maybe I’m not cut out for this,’ I told myself multiple times.

Given the multiple and diverse challenges that doctorate students face, a growing area of research investigates mental health and well-being as central aspects of students’ experiences. A well-documented consensus in this body of literature is that doctoral students are at a considerable higher risk of poor mental health compared to the general population (Hazell et al., 2020 ) and that the doctorate itself contributes to poorer mental health outcomes (Mackie & Bates, 2019 ). Here, a range of risk factors are at play, including students’ relationships with supervisors, finances, and their institutional and personal supportive systems (Berry et al., 2020 ; Hazell et al., 2020 ; Mackie & Bates, 2019 ; Sverdlik et al., 2018 ), social isolation (Hazell et al., 2020 ), and perceived career prospects (Byrom et al., 2020 ; Mackie & Bates, 2019 ). Hazell et al.’s ( 2020 ) meta-analysis established that overall, women doctoral students are more likely to experience poor mental health outcomes, with smaller studies suggesting that males are more likely to experience isolation outside of the university yet experience less anxiety in their studies (Usher & McCormack, 2021 ). Berry et al. ( 2020 ) suggest that this combination of personal, social, and institutional factors exist in a delicate balance.

In addition to institutional and social factors, students’ preparation for doctoral studies appears to have a relationship to their wellbeing. In a survey of doctoral students in the United Kingdom (UK), those who felt well prepared for their studies were less stressed (Byrom et al., 2020 ). Similarly, UK doctoral students suggested that an emphasis on students receiving better training and development in research skills would be useful to support their mental health (Jackman et al., 2021 ). Here, it is clear that there is a relationship between the types of challenges detailed in the research literature and wellbeing. While many of the proposed interventions seek to support students’ mental health literacy and coping strategies (Schmidt & Hansson, 2018 ; Waight & Giordano, 2018 ), being better prepared for doctoral studies may alleviate some of the risk factors influencing doctoral students’ poor mental health.

The focus on challenges that doctoral students face (whether these be research-related, personal, institutional, or issues of mental health and wellbeing) has been a prominent focus of doctoral education research in recent decades. Reading this literature through the lens of academic readiness and preparation suggests that a diverse preparation is needed for students wanting to enter doctoral degrees, drawing together research-related skills and capacities, an understanding of how to navigate institutional and degree related systems, building the supervisory relationship, and the potential to build communities of support, amongst others. To extend this mapping of the preparation required by doctoral researchers, we now turn to the support offered throughout the degree.

Getting through the doctorate

Personal characteristics.

Ailie: I found strategies to keep myself going. A post-it note above my desk reminded me that if it was easy, everyone would do it. I often took time to look back on where I came from, amazed at how much I had learnt in a few short years. I ran. I maintained work and friendships outside of the university, which gave me some perspective which was missing at the tender age of 26. I read books on writing and slowly realised that motivation followed action (Gardiner & Kearns, 2010 ), and that nobody is ever ‘in the mood’ to write difficult things (Deveny, 2016 )–that one had to, simply, start. I also re-formed my understanding of what a doctorate was–not a Nobel Prize, but an apprenticeship in research, an education, an opportunity to move my field along in a small step, not a giant leap.

Given the challenges that PhD students face throughout their candidatures, there has been a decades-long movement to better understand the factors that help students to persist and complete. This research helps us to further map the preparation students require to work at a doctoral level. In light of institutional pressures to ensure that doctoral students completed, studies in the 1980s (predominantly in the United States) tried to identify the characteristics and commonalities of students who persisted in their studies, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds (e.g. Clewell, 1987 ; Nettles, 1990 ). These studies mostly focused on demographic indicators, as well as students’ experiences within their research degrees. In the 2000s, more qualitative research tapped into advisors’ knowledge of the characteristics of successful doctoral students. Lovitts ( 2008 ), for example, interviewed experienced advisors to identify the personal characteristics that predict distinguished completions: ‘practical and creative intelligence, informal knowledge, perseverance in the face of frustration/failure, tolerance of ambiguity, self-direction, a willingness to take risks, and intrinsic motivation’ (p. 323). These indicators are reflected in other studies (e.g. Skakni, 2018 ). In both of these studies, the authors note the difference between a coursework Master’s and a PhD, with one interviewee in Skakni’s study noting that ‘between the master’s and doctoral levels, there’s a whole flight of stairs’ (p. 933). However, many students, including students in Australian universities, do not appear to enter their degrees with the epistemic openness (that is, being open to uncertainty and complexity) that predicts more constructive metacognitive strategies (Cantwell et al., 2017 ).

Communities of support

Fabi: Towards the end of my first year, I met a group of PhD students from different disciplines all working with decolonial theory. This was a turning point because it felt that finally I started to receive the preparation that I needed for my PhD. Most of the people in the group were further ahead in their degrees and had trained in Philosophy. We were reading complex texts and sitting together to unpack theory and think how we could apply it to our research. This community feeling of mutual help and intellectual engagement was unlike anything I had ever experienced. Looking back now, these relationships and collective intellectual work were fundamental to help me finish my degree. The decoloniality group was also a lifeline because it opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking academically. For the first time I was curious about theory and to find out that there are many paradigms and ways of writing that were unfamiliar to me.

In addition to personal characteristics, other studies have focused on supervisory, institutional and project factors that influence students’ completions. In a review of research related to completions, Sverdlik et al. ( 2018 ) suggest that whilst supervisory relationships are considered to be the most influential factor, the university environment plays a major role by socialising students into research cultures. Support can also come from outside of the research environment. Alongside strong supervisory relationships and other students, Indigenous Australian postgraduate research students report family support and Indigenous student support centres as key elements in their success (Barney, 2018a ). Similarly, PhD students in England draw on family, friends, and sport to build their resilience (McCray & Joseph-Richard, 2020 ).

Ailie: Somehow, I scraped through. I realised that if I was experiencing these challenges, then other people were too. As the student representative, there was an opportunity to respond systematically. My colleagues and I surveyed the broader student body, and established a series of workshops to answer some of the questions we had about theory, method, data. I joined several reading and writing groups, where we would read theory and share drafts of our writing. Far from the blind leading the blind, these groups provided friendship and working relationships with students and staff who had a better understanding of the issues I was grappling with. I sat and listened and learned. I tried out different ideas. We organised visiting academics and symposia, where we could invite in the very theorists whose work we were using. I read philosophy with a colleague who had trained in that discipline. I attended postgraduate workshops run by my discipline’s national research society. These were never quite aligned to where I was in my journey, but provided insight into a range of complex issues.

University support services

There has also been an institutional response to the challenges raised in the literature. Universities’ attempts to boost their rates of successful completion has been well documented. Academic writing has been a key area of concern in research, perhaps because of its central role in doctoral completion. Initiatives such as multidisciplinary writing groups (Cuthbert et al., 2009 ), peer reviewing workshops (Batty & Sinclair, 2014 ), thesis writing groups (Chatterjee-Padmanabhan & Nielsen, 2018 ), writing for publication (Cargill & Smernik, 2016 ) and writing improvement/feedback program (Hey-Cunningham et al., 2021 ) have received positive feedback from participating students and advisors. Whilst most of this research measures impact through participants’ self-perceptions, Tynan and Johns ( 2015 ) were able to demonstrate an increase in writing capacity using a standardised measure following a 6-month program of tailored language support for English as Additional Language students.

Academic support extends beyond writing. Library consultations to support the development of literature research skills (Warburton & Macauley, 2014 ), individualised learning plans (Ayers et al., 2018 ), foundational statistics workshops (Cronley et al., 2019 ), and mentoring programs (Brown et al., 2020 ; Guo et al., 2018 ; Moore et al., 2020 ) are among other initiatives that have shown promise in improving commonly required capabilities after doctoral students commence their programs. The initiatives explored in this body of research also seemed to be important sources of social support, an aspect recognised as significant for students’ progression and well-being. Much of the research also emphasises the importance of socialising students into their academic identities when theorising the learning students undertake in a doctorate degree (e.g. Cuthbert et al., 2009 ; Guo et al., 2018 ; Kwan, 2009 ).

The student support initiatives and programs that universities offer suggest institutional issues with students’ preparation for the doctorate. The initiatives are remedial and aim to address the gap between the level of preparation and the expected level of students’ capabilities in the doctoral curriculum. In other words, this previous research has examined programs that emerge as a response to challenges after students commence their PhD. By mapping the issues that arise, we hope to begin formulating a program of reform, whereby universities can more systemically prepare students with an aligned curriculum prior to (or early in) their degrees, decreasing the need for remedial interventions.

Fabi: For the first time since my first day, I felt that I could drop the mask that I was trying to create, the PhD student mask. The one that reads the right people and writes in a contrived way but that gets over the line. Slowly my confidence boosted, and I started experimenting with alternative and creative ways of writing academic texts and reading theorists that were more suited to my work (McDowall & Ramos, 2018 ). I realised that I had to look for my own preparation to be in a position to complete the PhD.

Ailie: I remember the day that my supervisor called me as I was on the bus, heading towards the university on a chilly winter’s morning. She had read my thesis, and wanted to talk to me about it. Holding down the emotional wall, I listened intently, finally pausing her to ask, Is it a thesis? After a brief moment, she replied, Yes, it’s a thesis. If I wanted to submit in the coming days, it was examinable, but she recommended I take the time to make further changes and edits, to strengthen the core and clean the argument. The day before I submitted, I re-wrote the conclusion, again, still not sure how to wrangle what I had written into a final statement, where everything I learned felt anything but final.

Many students experience personal and academic challenges throughout their doctorates, and these degrees are marked by a high attrition rate internationally. In this paper, we explored the research related to doctoral students’ eventual success or failure: how doctoral students are prepared for studies at the doctoral level, the challenges they experience, and the support and characteristics that help some students to persevere. Much of the literature we reviewed focuses on issues that emerge once students commence, and the supports that are provided in response to these challenges. On the other hand, the systematic investigation of students’ academic preparation and readiness prior to the PhD and its relationship to completion remains an under-examined area of research. Further investigation of preparation for the doctorate may provide insight into the challenges doctoral students experience as well as how institutional processes can better support students. The current literature does, however, provide direction as to what types of readiness and preparation are required for the doctorate. In mapping the previous research, we were able to establish that what PhD students need to be successful is multi-faceted, as are their experiences throughout their degrees. Students’ dispositions, meta-cognitive strategies, research skills and disciplinary knowledge contribute to their success, as does their ability to read, think, and write critically in their disciplinary field. Students’ ability to navigate sources of social support, supervisory relationships, and institutional environments also influences their progression. While the current research mostly treats these factors as fragmented, isolated and unrelated issues (similar to Sverdlik et al.’s ( 2018 ) findings), preparation may better demonstrate the complex interrelationships between student and institutional factors.

What is already clear is that preparation for doctoral level studies must be robust, given the combination of academic, affective, psycho-social and socio-emotional factors at play. While students may have little control over shaping external factors, preparation may give students more agency in mitigating some of the challenges they may face. Where previous research has investigated the issue of student success or failure retrospectively, a focus on preparation would instead centre on the responsibilities that institutions have to set students on a pathway for success in the doctorate.

Whilst this review is an initial step in a broader program of research into the question of preparation for the doctorate, we suggest that the evidence provided here already provides guidance to university educators looking to support doctoral students more systematically. In particular, those with responsibility for pathways into doctoral research, including Honours, Master’s by Research, and increasingly coursework Master’s programs, can start to analyse and renew their own curricula to better align them with the needs of doctoral students. Such an analysis would need to cover the range of factors: what research skills are developed through the preparatory program? How can educators embed opportunities to practise reading and writing with different theoretical frameworks? What curricular elements can help to develop the personal dispositions and emotional regulation strategies that characterise successful researchers? How can students start to build academic communities within their fields? How do students learn to take on feedback and critique? By better preparing students for studies at the doctoral level, it may be possible to lessen the challenge for both students and advisors to bring students up to speed in the initial years of the doctorate, and to instead open more space for the new generation of researchers to exceed.

Fabi: It was hard. I sat, I read, I talked, I wrote, I cried. In the blink of an eye, I was in my third year. I managed, I made it to the finish line. I wrote my 200 + page thesis. I am a doctor now. I developed a love for theory. I battled chronic back pain and anxiety for the year after finishing the PhD. I had to do some deep digging and healing work to get to a better place. I wonder how things would have been different if I had received a more robust preparation before going into the PhD? What would this preparation look like to foster a healthier PhD experience?

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McDowall, A., Ramos, F. Preparation for doctoral research: a narrative review. Aust. Educ. Res. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00630-y

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Received : 01 August 2022

Accepted : 12 April 2023

Published : 20 May 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00630-y

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Welcome to the research world! - My first PhD annual progress review

"The week has been chockers!", let me just quote what my supervisor said today, as the last week of November finally came to an end and we embraced the many nerve-racking moments that we went through in the past month and year, as we prepare to wind down for end of year.

From thesis students completion, final exam and finalizing marks for a class, the end of the year has been all about assessment. The most important moment for PhD students who begin their enrolment in the beginning of the year, is the annual progress review (APR) that usually takes place in the end of November. I am one of those PhD students, so the most important thing about this week was I have successfully gained the confirmation!

Yes, the confirmation is the term given to the first year PhD students who have successfully gone through the first 9 months of candidature, including completion of all the mandatory writings and trainings, and these are assessed in the review meeting. The goal of this review meeting is to discuss about candidates' progress and research plans and also serves as the opportunity for candidates and supervisors to raise any issues that might be impacting their research. Before attending APR, students are also required to attend workshops to be informed about what are expected from a candidate in order to receive a satisfactory outcome. 

In my university (UNSW), candidates ideally has 1 APR meeting every year for 3-4 years of their candidature. The third one is usually the final meeting that determines timely completion and thesis submission according to the projected date. The outcome of each APR meeting will be decided by the panel whether the student achieved satisfactory, marginal or unsatisfactory progress. An unsatisfactory outcome means that the next review will be held within 3 or 6 months instead of within a year to make sure that the student get all the support and resources they need to complete their thesis.

The APR meeting is organized by the school's postgraduate coordinator (this is what is like in biomedical Engineering, UNSW, Sydney). For each candidate, a panel are assigned which consist of 3 academic staffs that may hold different position (professors or associate professor or lecturer) or have different research field/background. One month before the APR, the school sends a calendar invite and information about the meeting, and forms that the candidate and panel require to complete. In my university, a first year PhD student is required to also complete and submit a bunch of documents to be assessed by the panel include:

• Literature review (average is of 30-50 pages)
• Research proposal (containing a shorter literature review as background, then justification of research, aims, methods, and plans for the next 4 years)
• Milestones (Year 1 milestones and activities done to achieve them, and milestones for Year 2. Average of 4 key milestones is usually enough as it is better to not overestimate your available time and resources)
• Proof documents (e.g. email or screen shots) of completion of mandatory workshops and courses such as research integrity, research data management, data storage, student welcome and orientation
• Proof of completion of mandatory coursework such as writing courses, or research essentials

So, when all the documents are gathered a month prior to the schedule APR meeting, the student must complete a review form through the GRIS ( Graduate Research Information System ) platform. GRIS is where candidates information and progresses are managed. The forms that candidates need to complete ask about students research aim, achievement, weekly work hours, meeting and support from supervisor, and any issues that need to be resolved. The forms then get forwarded to the supervisor where they fill out similar information about the candidate. The whole form is completed by the panel on the day of APR with the outcome achieved by the candidate.

So, the way first APR meeting works in my school (Biomedical Engineering) follows this format: 

• 5 minutes welcome and introduction - where the chair introduces everyone in the panel and supervisory team
• 15 minutes presentation by the candidate - this is the opportunity for the candidate to really report about research progress, future plans and explaining mostly results achieved. For a first year candidate, it is important to have a strong, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based) milestones, that become the key performance indicator to be assessed in the following year. Important TIP: This is the most important aspect being assessed a a first year candidate, make sure that you are clear with your aims!
• 5-10 minutes discussion about research - this is where the panel asks about research background, data and the statistics, some science and justification for experiments. In this part, the candidate really wants to show in depth understanding about the research, that should reflect the wealth of knowledge one writes in their literature review.
• 5 - 10 minutes discussion between panel and the candidate alone - this is the opportunity to raise issues or ask for help outside the supervisory team
• 5 - 10 minutes discussion between panel and the supervisors alone -this is the opportunity for supervisor to report about the candidate

Since COVID-19 has forced all the review meetings to happen virtually (video conference), I had the privilege to attend my APR meeting at home and with a side note for presentation shown in my second monitor 😅. The meeting went very smoothly and the only hurdle was panel have to manage people leaving and joining back to the call during the individual discussion.  And I soon got notified of my satisfactory outcome and the panel report!

Anyway, what is the progress review meeting like in your university or school or faculty? And how are your experience in going through this process? I am very curious to hear about your experience in going through PhD review meeting and the differences. Share in the comment section below!

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Year 1 timeline

A breakdown of 1st year key milestones in a timetable.

Months stated in the column 'Sept Start' are indicative for full-time students who commence study in September. Students with other start dates should adjust these accordingly.

Each PhD student is on probation during their first year, and progressing to full PhD status depends on the supervisor's evaluation in the first annual report; this report takes into account the panel's evaluation of the student's thesis proposal; there is a section in that report for providing a written record of the feedback the panel gave to the student.  The research institute, and in particular the student's supervisor, is responsible for ensuring that the student submits the thesis proposal and that it is presented and reviewed by the panel within this time frame.  

Note for part-time research students

For part-time students, milestones in first year and subsequent years are delayed according to the extent of part-time studies. For instance, for a student with prescribed period of 60 months rather than the usual full-time prescribed period of 36 months, the thesis proposal is due in month 9*60/36 = 15. An exception is that formal reports from the supervisor are due at 12-month intervals for part-time students, just as for full-time students.

Note for CDT students

The Graduate School milestones are intended for all PGR students who are registered to do a PhD , including CDT students who are in the “+3” portion of their “1+3” programmes.  The monitoring and milestones for the first year of the CDT programmes, in which students should complete an MSc by Research, varies across the different CDTs.  Please consult your relevant CDT programme for details.  When CDT students are accepted onto the PhD programme (that is, the “+3” portion of the 4 year programme), they are expected to follow the standard PhD milestones process, supported by the relevant research institute . All information held on this and other milestones pages  is therefore relevant to CDT students. Please also note that the document that is evaluated as part of the First Year Review is not the same as the post-MScR PhD Proposal (for instance, the review panel would expect to see a substantial piece of work under item 2, which describes the achievements so far towards completing the work plan).