Legal PhD

ravingitup

I've been researching for a couple of months (well, some days are better than others) into the possibility of starting a PhD in Law this coming September in either Trinity or UCD, but I've been finding it hard to come up with a solid proposal that will add new knowledge to my field of choice.

It seems I am always skating the fine line between doing something safe (i.e. with quite a lot of research already in the area) or something a little risky (i.e. a step into the unknown hoping I can pull it off, with little or no source material) and this concerns me - it's very difficult to come up with a proposal that gets the balance right (or any proposal at all, for that matter)

The reason I emphasise this is that a friend of mine in a similar area did a year of his PhD before dropping out, essentially because he bit off more than he could chew in his area of choice - it was a very ambitious PhD trying to question long-standing knowledge.

Is this a valid concern - should I be worried about coming up with an exact, well-defined area before approaching anyone about supervision?

bren2001

ravingitup wrote: »

I've been researching for a couple of months (well, some days are better than others) into the possibility of starting a PhD in Law this coming September in either Trinity or UCD, but I've been finding it hard to come up with a solid proposal that will add new knowledge to my field of choice.

It seems I am always skating the fine line between doing something safe (i.e. with quite a lot of research already in the area) or something a little risky (i.e. a step into the unknown hoping I can pull it off, with little or no source material) and this concerns me - it's very difficult to come up with a proposal that gets the balance right (or any proposal at all, for that matter)

The reason I emphasise this is that a friend of mine in a similar area did a year of his PhD before dropping out, essentially because he bit off more than he could chew in his area of choice - it was a very ambitious PhD trying to question long-standing knowledge.

Is this a valid concern - should I be worried about coming up with an exact, well-defined area before approaching anyone about supervision?

Since nobody else replied, I will. I am not doing a Law PhD so it might be slightly different in your case.

Is it a valid concern? Yes, of course it is. If you set out to achieve too much in your 4 year period, you won't get it done. However, clearly you want to do a PhD. When you approach your supervisor you will not have your question fully defined. Your question will change as you go more in depth into your studies. What is important to approach a supervisor is knowing what area you want to study in, a good idea of what you want to study with a timeline of the steps you think you should take. The whole point of a supervisor is to guide you along the process. A good supervisor will guide you between being too safe and too risky.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

I'd concur with above. I'm in the middle of a PhD now that was wildly too ambitious from the off. Of course I couldn't see that as I was naive starting off and my supervisor was extremely convincing. Now I'm stuck in a project that has next to no hope of finishing on time and is unlikely to produced publications.

The most important thing you can research is your supervisor. DO they have a good publication record and do they get students out in 3/4 years. The more experience a supervisor has generally the better your PhD will be. I cannot stress how important it is to research your supervisor. Do it. Do it now.

ravingitup

Thanks for the replies guys, real food for thought. I'm focused on getting my area sorted (I'm very much into Sport and the Law) and then I'll approach my supervisor. I'm finding it difficult to come up with something concrete but I will focus on finding the right supervisor for me - I'm starting to realise how important that is.

Good luck with your respective PhD's and I hope it works out for you Donkey (em, if I can call you that? Ha!) - that was my fear with an area I was looking at before i.e. it being so obscure and too much of an undertaking etc!