1. Reviewing the literature: Critical thinking and making an intervention
Developing as a Researcher – the next steps
PGRS Induction, 2016
Paul-François Tremlett
Senior Lecturer & Director of Research Degrees, Arts
Religious Studies
Arts Faculty

2. A Bit About Me: Shrines in Mount Banahaw, Philippines
Religion & politics
Catholics or animists?

3. Re-Assembling Democracy: Ritual as Cultural Resource
Sacred or secular?
Protest or ritual?

4. Aims and Objectives:
What is a PHD?
What is a literature review?
Existing work and one’s own voice: framing an intervention
Critical thinking: what’s that?

5. What is a PhD?
New students often think of a PhD as a ‘magnum opus’, a brilliant research project culminating in a great work. This is rather a demanding model, and few students win Nobel Prizes as a result of their doctoral studies. More realistically, a PhD is research training leading to a research qualification. The PhD is a qualification that may lead to a research career.
There are other views of a PhD, as well. Getting a PhD can be a ‘rite de passage’, a prerequisite to admission into the academic ‘tribe’. It can be a deep, specific education in a discipline, preceding a post-doctoral period of on-the-job training. But, it must make a contribution to knowledge, and so it should be viewed as one’s entry into the research discourse.

6. What is a PhD?
There are certain things that you are demonstrating through your thesis:
mastery of your subject
research insight
respect for the discipline
capacity for independent and critical research
ability to communicate results and relate them to the broader discourse
Ability to engage publics
These skills are examples of competence and professionalism, rather than genius or greatness. Importantly, they are as much about comprehending others’ work as about doing one’s own.

7. What is a literature review?
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW
CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY AND METHODS
CHAPTER 3 CASE STUDY 1
CHAPTER 4 CASE STUDY 2
CHAPTER 5 CASE STUDY 3
CHAPTER 6 CASE STUDY 4
CHAPTER 7 ANALYSIS
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY

8. What is a literature review?
A thesis is one coherent overriding ‘story’ or argument
The literature review demonstrates your knowledge of your subject area
It positionsyour research question in existing knowledge, i.e. a critical review of prior research which motivates and justifies your research question
It demonstrates a gap in the existing research which your research addresses
The research delivers clear and explicit evidence, substantiation and chains of inference and the impact on existing knowledge
Note: More hangs on your ability to demonstrate intellectual maturity and critical depth than on the scale or scope of the research findings. A good PhD is based on an honest report of research that reflects sound practice and well-articulated critical thinking.

9. Existing work and one’s own ‘voice’
Citing others and ventriloquism
Who is speaking? The individual and the academic tradition
Voice, style and objectivity
The development of your research as a critical intervention in an existing body of knowledge goes together with the development of your voice as an researcher and academic

10. Critical thinking: what’s that?
there is no such thing as data free from interpretation
Facts are not ‘out there’ waiting to be found - they constituted by the research questions you pose