Mind the Gap, or The Importance of Your Project
Dr Steve Joy Today's post is in response to a phrase that has always been ubiquitous but seems to have crossed my path much too frequently in recent months. You will no doubt recognise it yourselves. "This project will be the first book-length study on [insert your topic here]." Seriously, this won't do. Why not, you ask? Surely, what anyone who has successfully completed a PhD learnt from that process is that research projects need to make an original contribution to scholarship. In other words, here is a gap (as proven by the fact that no book has been written on this precise topic before), and this project will fill it. Sorted. But here's my question. Does it even matter than no previous scholarship exists on this precise topic? It might well do, but you must say how & why. What are other academics unable to do because of this gap? What has this lack of understanding been leading us to get wrong hitherto ? What will we be able to do differently once