Research Matters 16 - Aberystwyth University

teach and assess students (or facilitate
the learning process, as we must now
term it); how best to disseminate their
research; how to give a conference
paper; how to go about the business of
getting published; how to initiate
and/or engage with academic networks
and organise conferences. All this
seems blindingly obvious, and on the
whole, today’s doctoral students
engage energetically with all of these
aspects of the PhD process which are
essential for career development and
CV building. I also happen to think
that they are intrinsically a good thing
to do. Far from ‘diluting’ the PhD
experience, I think that the modern
PhD process enriches it. Perhaps my
view is coloured by the fact that I can
(just about) recall a time when the PhD
process was one in which students
were left pretty much on their own to
find out more and more about less and
less; when it was assumed that they
could just go into a classroom and
teach because they had themselves
experienced the process of being
taught (often rather badly I might add);
when they might find themselves
giving a paper to a specialist seminar
having received no guidance
whatsoever, and so on.
The PhD process as a stage
As I indicated earlier, it is likely that
the PhD process will have elements
added to it in the near future in the
form of the further development of
both employability and knowledge-
transfer awareness and skills. I expect
to see developments which link to the
increasing emphasis placed by RCUK
and others on collaborative working
and working across disciplinary
boundaries. Notwithstanding the
British Academy’s reduction of its
postdoctoral awards, the increasing
availability of postdoctoral awards
from other sources and the emergence
4
of an array of early and mid-career
research development awards is
evidence of a growing
acknowledgement that the PhD process
and product are just a stage – albeit an
important one – in the development of
a researcher.
Lyn Pykett
_______________________________
Lyn Pykett is Pro Vice Chancellor for
Research and Professor of English at
Aberystwyth. Her most recent book, Authors in
Context: Wilkie Collins (2005) has just been
re-issued by Oxford World’s Classics in the
influential ‘Authors in Contexts’ series.
_______________________________
The Outsider,
or, On Being an
External Examiner
Most people remember
their first meeting with
their external examiner.
More often than not,
despite the fact that
candidates have normally read at least
some of the external’s work
beforehand, it’s during the viva voce
that they first encounter them in
person. It’s a nerve-wracking occasion
anyway, but the presence of this
stranger, this outsider, can make it all
the more so. Recently, I adopted this
‘outsider’ role, having been asked to
act as an external examiner on a thesis
for the first time. Given my own
sojourn as a PhD candidate, I was keen
to use my old ‘inside’ perspective to
inform my new ‘outside’ one. Here are
some reflections on that experience…
Before the viva
Upon receiving the thesis and finding
the time to open it, I first checked the
table of contents and pagination, and