Authoring a PhD

in one interpretation or intellectual position and express them coherently. Next you assemble an alternative or opposed interpretation, originating from a different intellectual position and seek to better explain the phenomena being focused on. The sequence of materials becomes one of pro arguments then
‘anti’ arguments, of thesis and antithesis (and perhaps synthesis. Figure c shows how I might do this when giving an account of my home study. Here I could set out all the points that I like about my study, perhaps sequencing them in terms of their importance tome in evaluating the room. I like my study because it is spacious, conveniently shaped, equipped with lots of walls suitable for storage, newly setup, restfully decorated, well lit, quiet, set a bit apart from the rest of the house, and soon. Then I might consider all the problems I still have with the study, such as the amount of clutter I’ve managed to jam into it already, my inability to keep it neatly organized, or its patchwork feel. (The study was not equipped in one go, as real offices are. Instead its current state represents a layered accumulation of different bits of kit that I’ve been able to afford at different stages of my career and never had the heart, or the finances, to scrap and start again from scratch.)
An argumentative approach will usually look well organized for readers, so long as you distinguish clear intellectual positions or sides in a controversy, using labels and schools of thought already recognized. By definition an argumentative approach focuses on a debate or disagreement and tends to project into sharp focus your value-added. It will also usually look personalized, especially where you have taken care to frame or configure your central thesis question in away or from an angle which is particular to your work. This approach will also handle multiple theoretical positions or relational arguments explicitly, normally an important feature of humanities or social sciences research.
There are also some disadvantages of an argumentative approach at doctoral level. Pro- and anti- arguments, thesis and antithesis oppositions are usually pairs, and only rarely triples.
So argumentative categories may not be enough to organize eight chapters. People sometimes react to this difficulty by trying to handle many more interpretations at once. Some students,
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especially those who have carried out overextended literature searches, somehow lapse into thinking that at doctoral level they must cover all possible interpretative positions, even if they are very numerous. In fact this option is neither feasible nor desirable in an argumentative approach. A doctorate is basically a monograph, treating a single subject intensively. It is not a textbook, still less a work of reference. Trying to show how four or five perspectives would handle a particular problem or interpret the same set of phenomena will quickly become very repetitive. Carried through at any decent level, such an enterprise can also consume a large amount of your wordage limit.
You need to configure your thesis question, and setup any initial literature review which you do, so that you can legitimately restrict your work to considering only two, or at most three,
main lines of argument.
Another problem with an argumentative approach is that it may not sit very comfortably in disciplines which adopt a normal science approach, those with a hegemonic ‘mainstream’
view built up by the careful cumulation of work within a single,
accepted paradigm. Argumentatively structured theses can be unattractive for students from more consensual societies (such as Japan, where overt disagreements can seem somewhat vulgar or wrongheaded. And since scholars often tend to self- select themselves into groupings of like-minded people, it will sometimes be hard to stand up and treat as credible a view considered deviant by your local department’s orthodoxy, perhaps even anathema to it. Finally it can be difficult to identify and develop an effective argumentative approach which is close- fitting around your thesis question at an early stage of your research. At the start of your effort you may tend to focus on disputes that are too broadly drawn or too conventionally specified, again a tendency that is exaggerated where people author long introductory literature reviews, rather than snappy focused ones.
Matrix patterns
To get more articulated organizational structures for neatly organizing eight or so chapters, you can combine any of the AUTHORING AP H D

three approaches above. There are four pairs of possible combinations:
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analytic plus argumentative
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argumentative plus analytic
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analytic plus descriptive
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argumentative plus descriptive
In each pair, the first approach listed is the primary or top-level organizing principle, grouping together sets of chapters. The other part of the pair is the subsidiary or second-tier organizing principle, explaining the sequence of chapters within each of the top-tier groupings. Figure 3.6 shows this distinction in a diagrammatic way for the two matrix patterns combining analytic and argumentative approaches. If the analytic dimension is primary then arguments and interpretations are used in pairs of chapters pulled together by systematic or causal or functional criteria. If the argumentative dimension is primary,
then each contrasting broad view is considered in turn, broken down into its component aspects.
Matrix patterns involving a second-tier descriptive organization of chapters are very common in doctoral theses. Here authors recognize that they cannot just pickup an external or
‘real world pattern of phenomena and use it to structure their thesis without risking a random shopping list appearance. So analytic categories or a consideration of different argumentative positions are used to provide the primary structure of the thesis.
But within groups of chapters a narrative, or historical, or guidebook pattern is then followed. (In my experience a descriptive approach is rarely or never used in a matrix approach as the primary organizing dimension. People who like using externally given structures tend just to do a wholly descriptive thesis.)
A matrix approach offers many advantages for doctoral students. It almost always generates enough categories to slot your chapters into. Figure a shows a six-box pattern combining a primary argumentative dimension (a liberal view versus a
Marxist interpretation in this case) and a secondary analytic dimension (compartmentalizing each approach into economic,
political and cultural boxes in this case. Using this kind of graphical planning device is helpful because it will alert you to an alternative sequence shown in Figure b, where you go across rows first and move down the columns second. Here the
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primary dimension is the analytic one, and the argumentative dimension is secondary. Exploiting the two-dimensional space of a blank matrix like this means that you will often be able to pull together more strands of your thinking than can be accommodated in the more usual simple, linear approach.
Either way Figure 3.6 would generate enough boxes to arrange the core chapters of a thesis in a strong and robust pattern. Add a lead-in chapter at the beginning and a lead-out chapter at the end to this core and you would have an effective eight- chapter PhD AUTHORING AP H D
Liberal view
Marxist view economic aspects political aspects cultural aspects

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