What is a PhD? From the Horse’s Mouth.

https://www.slideshare.net/LyllaLatif/phd-what-is-it-all-about

A PhD is NOT about finding a gap. 
A cliché that you all might have heard is that PhDs are for filling in gaps. Gaps can be filled in quick. While you are spending 3 years researching on your gap, someone, somewhere will publish on it, a law will be passed or a policy made. Gaps are not unique.

It is your approach to responding to a gap that is unique. 
The approach that you take is what will make your PhD original. Your approach could be using a theory, a method or a particular concept. Your originality could be linking together 2 schools of thought on an issue or linking schools of thought from different fields to answer a contemporary problem. A gap filling PhD is dangerous.

A PhD should be an inquiry into something or an examination of something. 
It could be an inquiry into a theory maybe to test its applicability in an area you have identified as researchable or into a previous study whose findings you want to test in a different context. It could be an examination of various methods of research or it could be applying a normative framework from another field into your research in a different field, making it multi/interdisciplinary.

The originality of your PhD should lie both in its content and process. 
How you write and how you present your arguments and content matter.

A PhD should acknowledge what is currently there.
A PhD should build on or make mention of previous studies and the scholarly input of academics in your research area, before you start positing the substance of your original arguments or position.

A PhD demands persistence and patience. 
You will spend late nights and clock all day when writing. You may question the truth of this in first year. Trust me, second year will demand a lot of persistence and patience from you. You will require reflection time. You will have long reading hours. You will write and re-write and re-re-rewrite drafts. This phase will demand the best of you. Persistence will keep you focused and bring clarity to your writing. Patience will give you strength of mind and keep you strategic.

A PhD is not that difficult.
You are not figuring out how to create a galaxy. You are only aiming to answer one research question. You just have to figure out how to get to this answer.

A PhD is you telling a story.
Not just any story. An academic story or a scientific story. Stories take time. Jot down outlines of the arguments you want to push forward, the articles you want to critic, the theory you want to adopt. Don’t sit and stare at an empty page – the PhD will not write itself. You must.

A PhD is a reflection of you. 
It is your effort. It is the labour you put into it. Invest your time in completing your PhD. It only requires you putting across your ideas into a well thought out, well researched academic document.

Have fun telling your stories,
Lyla Latif