How to get a PhD

General

These informal suggestions come from students and members of staff attending previous meetings of the PhD workshop. For the regulations governing the PhD you should consult the Graduate Handbook.

HPS PhDs cover such a broad range of possible topics that anything more than general advice is bound to be ad hominem. In the first few meetings with your supervisor, a relatively full account of research should be extracted. PhD topics are always revised massively and amazingly fast...

Scope, form, topic

You need to end up with a project that is interesting and on a thesis-sized topic. A thesis-sized topic should be something that can be achieved within three years.
There is always a danger, especially in history theses, that you will put off defining the topic until you know more about it. Don't keep an ideal, multivalent thesis in mind as a model, and in so doing delay making clear statements of your thesis. A thesis is not a utopian project.
While looking at material, you will come up with original ideas. As you re-think your topic, ensure that these new ideas inform the major organisation of your thesis, not minor. This should take place throughout the first year or year-and-a-half. The longer you leave this, the more problematic such structuring work becomes.
It is a good idea to keep a dynamic outline of your PhD as you go along.
It is a big plus for a thesis to have a thesis. It should not be just an exploration of a region of intellectual terrain. Specify and define your case.
Do not overexaggerate the scale of the project that you are undertaking. Do not take a big book as your model; take a substantial article that does a workmanlike job in your area. A thesis is two or three good articles with supporting and contextual material that evidences your competence in your area.
The thesis should, according to examiners' criteria, be sufficient to serve as a basis for one monograph or two substantial articles. And whilst your examiners are your ultimate audience, it is worth trying to make your PhD interesting to a wider audience – this will make it easier, if ever, to turn it into a book.
The classical structure for a PhD tends to be six to eight chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. This functions as a kind of strange attractor to doctoral students. Consider whether this structure is the right one – in at least two recent cases, the imposition of such a structure led to a large number of conceptual problems which were resolved by losing this format. For example, a recent thesis was improved vastly by breaking it into 25 chapters. Although supervisions are often arranged around chapters, don't assume that a unit equals one chapter.
Avoid having chapters of radically different lengths.

Supervisions, supervisors, advisors

Make regular meeting with your supervisor on the basis of something you have written.
You get to choose your advisor. Typically this person is in your department, but this is not required. (Nor, incidentally, is it required for your supervisor to be in the Department.)
See your advisor at least once a term.
Each year you should have at least one meeting with your supervisor and advisor where written work is presented.
A common mistake is not to show your work to other people in your field. However, do talk to your supervisor about sending work to other departments or abroad.

Time budgeting

How should I define 'essential' and 'non-essential' activities: archival research, investigation of secondary sources, conferences, organising and/or attending seminars, etc. What is relevant and irrelevant for my PhD and my CV?

This is a process of self-negotiation – there is no algorithm. All these activities are important. Doing a PhD is training for a profession, and upon its completion you should be poised to have some shot at getting a job. Some publication will improve your chances. You must become as well-known as possible so that, for example, letters from referees will be informal and more convincing.
Although all these activities are important, they should run in parallel, not in series. You should not read everything before you write. Revise as you go along. Don't fear the writing stage!
Don't attend conferences and give papers if this will take you away from your thesis. MPhil essays can be the source of good conference papers. Do attend conferences and give papers of relevance to your PhD; they can be a source of very useful deadlines.
Do read widely in the first year of your PhD. You need a broad background for your work; you never know where you'll find useful information and ideas; and later on you'll be far too busy to read around.
Do attend lectures in other departments (particularly in your first year): they can be a very valuable source of new ideas and inspiration.
Especially for historians: At an early stage, discuss with your supervisor the resources you'll need. In many cases proper planning of your research is impossible until you know precisely where the relevant archives (or instruments) are located, in what languages, etc.
Cambridge HPS PhDs are unusual. Many departments – in Holland or the US, for example – do not suppose that after nine months of a taught masters course you are simply to be left alone with your supervisor and advisor to write a PhD. Here, everything after your Masters is self-directed and informal.
However, HPS is idiosyncratic in the number of seminars, colloquia and supervision demands placed upon graduates. The doctoral programme may be relatively informal – but is baroque in other terms.
Remember that much of the literature is written by professionals who have been working on your topic for a long time. To avoid perfectionism, go to conferences, look at recent PhD dissertations, and read really bad writing.
Manage the teaching load you take on! Keep your supervisor informed on what your teaching commitments are and take their advice as to what to take on...

Working away from Cambridge

This can be very valuable, and is sometimes essential when archives are elsewhere. Do plan this well in advance, and make sure to get the permissions needed from the HPS Degree Committee, your college and your grant-giving body. Grant-giving bodies are more generous if you plan and apply in advance.
Remember that, at the very least, you must be in Cambridge for three terms of the PhD (and that does not include terms of the MPhil, even if you are retrospectively registered for the PhD from the start of the MPhil).

Structure of the thesis

How much 'originality' is required in a thesis of 80,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography)? What should be the relative proportions of 'picture of field' and 'original thought' in a thesis?

First of all, do not segregate: you do not want four chapters, with only the last 'original'. You do want to provide 'springboard material': a critical reading of material as equipment to provide points that you want to make. You will be making critical observations of material – which will be critical.
Regarding how you extend an argument to 80,000 words – your original points should be placed in relation to an overall structure that is designed to support them: the capstone analogy. It is often more easy to incorporate original material when you step back from your thesis. It is helpful to write chapters initially as rough drafts, and to reorganise them once you have worked through them and decided what you consider to be original material.
Disagree with the people you think are 'most right' or who are closest to your position, not those you consider easier targets; this will lead to finer distinctions and better positions on your part. If you criticise work you see as obviously 'wrong' you run the risk of having your work being seen as a subsection of their work.
It is easier to criticise material closer to your position than further away. If you attempt the latter, you will share too little common ground, share too few premises and will end up begging the question.

Completion rates

The AHRC have imposed a sanction policy on departments with poor submission rates. If the number falls below a certain percentage in a specified time period of four years from the start of the PhD, the Department will lose all of its AHRC grant for two years. This is, of course, a very serious prospect.
Currently this does not include non-AHRC students in the percentages, but the Department is issuing strong advice to all students to meet 4 year deadline.
In future, admission letters will be accompanied by a letter explaining how graduate students have this undertaking. Please consider yourself bound by such an undertaking, even if you were not supplied with such a letter.
Four years is actually quite a long time, but remember that the last stages of a thesis tend to take about 100 times longer than you expect!

Examiners' judgements

There are several techniques on whose performance the thesis is judged. The examiner will look for technique independent of originality: for example, the analytical exposition of familiar material. Examiners can rapidly spot competent structural technique quite independently of other considerations. Technique is fundamental. In many ways, PhDs can be considered analogous to the masterpiece of a medieval trade guild member – that is, as an exemplary piece of work.
Theses are often sent back for reasons such as having an inadequate conclusion. Generally, the less argumentative the thesis, the longer the conclusion should be; at least ten pages. Examiners do, to some extent, take on trust: if you map out your argument in your introduction, and so on...
There can be a fair degree of autonomy in chapters. At the end of the operation, however, the thesis is not simply five essays – a conclusion is crucial to 'fit' chapters.
HPS is a humanities discipline, and as such, the writing component of the doctoral programme is very important, quite apart from its other goals. Writing is only learned in its execution. In the humanities, execution is achieved through performance: drafting articles for publication; giving talks, and so on. These other activities are not marginal or peripheral. They are building activities: learning how to express yourself in 20 mins, for example, in giving a paper.

Publishing

It is never too early to begin publishing. Readers' reports are extremely useful. The timescale for work appearing in print is often extremely long.
Some students are chary of submitting work for publication that they are including in their thesis. This is not a legitimate worry. Although you must not include in your thesis material that has been submitted for another degree, its appearance in print is irrelevant.
Typically, edited volumes take even longer to appear than papers in journals. In some cases, in the US, for example, articles in refereed journals have higher cachet than articles in volumes.
Citing page and volume numbers for a paper in your CV is more useful than simply 'forthcoming'.
Seek advice from your supervisor and other members of the Department.

Annual review

At the end of the third term of every year, your supervisor and advisor should read your material and discuss it in depth. These meetings are designed to give the student an idea of their progress.
Towards the later stages of the PhD, a substantial chunk of the thesis should exist, sufficient for it to be discussed critically. The meetings at this stage serve as a 'fundamental check' to see that your written work is in line with what the University requires for submission. It is not necessary for a complete draft to exist at this point. However, these later meetings are extremely useful in terms of thinking about structure.

Examiners and advisors

How are examiners chosen? What is the status of advisors?

There are two examiners, at least one external, neither of whom is your supervisor. They are appointed by the Degree Committee. Typically, the Degree Committee receives suggestions from supervisors. Supervisors may or may not discuss this with candidates.
Typically, efforts are made to find an examiner in precisely the area.
One constraint is retrospective. Given the small size of the field, and the even smaller subfield of your particular area, it should in retrospect look like the thesis was examined by the best people it could have been. Examiners should have high status in the field and may end up as referees.
The issue of how familiar they should be with your work prior to examining it is not particularly problematic. This question comes up most obviously in the case of thesis advisors. At least one of your examiners needs to know the standard of a Cambridge PhD.
The role of the advisor is not such as to intrinsically bar one from being an examiner. Other faculties handle this differently. An individual advisor may tell the Degree Committee they are unwilling to examine a particular thesis.
The pass rate for HPS theses is historically high.
You should see your advisor at least once a year. If your advisor has not contacted you, chase them.

Feedback

Schmooze! If there's someone whose views you wish to obtain, write to them, say that you know they're busy, but could they possibly read...
If you do write to people, ensure that they are genuinely close to you in the field and not just well-known.
Also, if you go to meetings, such as those of the British and American Societies for the History of Science, chat up people; introduce yourself at conferences. Once you have a job, conferences are places to go to find out what's happening in the field and to source articles. The field is a very shallow pyramid: there are few top jobs and many researchers.
Have other students read and discuss your work. Present your work at the History of Science or Philosophy Workshop. These are very valuable sources of peer group feedback and discussion of on-going work.
Don't be upset if someone is particularly unsympathetic towards your work; it is bound to be the case that some people will be more open towards your work than others.
It is very useful to get a third member of staff or academic to read your work (other than your supervisor and advisor) as often a third reference is needed for job applications.

Libraries and archives

In principle, the Department should help you make sure you are finding and getting access to sources you require. You should be talking to library staff here, who are fantastically good at finding out data on library resources and access on demand. The Whipple is a good place to discover archives.
Just as this department has an 'understructured' doctoral programme, there is a strong sense in which it is up to doctoral students to demand supervisions, and not vice-versa. It is often too easy to vanish into a hermeneutic cave and never reappear... supervisors are not in loco parentis regarding graduate students!

Computers

You cannot know your word processor too well. Particularly helpful is the 'outline' feature which lists headings, subheadings, etc. without text. This allows you to visualise clearly the structure of your work. Bibliographic software (e.g. Endnote) is also of use.
Keep up to date on methods for backing up; they change all the time. Backing up is an absolute necessity and may well save you from an early grave. Even more importantly, it may save your PhD!
It is a good idea to PDF work that you send to people to read.

Department of History and Philosophy of Science