Developing ideas

Find out about the considerations you should be aware of as you decide on your research direction

The early stages of your doctorate will be spent developing your ideas, increasing your knowledge of the literature and formulating research questions.

For PhD candidates the first step will be to agree on a programme of study with your supervisors. For those enrolled in a professional doctorate you will develop your ideas, methodology and research questions during your coursework in Part 1.

Formulating research questions

For most students, formulating proper research questions is a major focus of the early stages of a doctorate.

Your research questions should emerge from a review of the literature – it should be possible to point to some gap in the literature you hope to fill or to some controversy to which you wish to contribute.

There are other constraints on your research questions, however. Research questions should be such that they:

• can reasonably be expected to be answered within approximately 36 months of full-time study for a PhD, or 24 months part-time for most professional doctorates
• can be answered within the limited space available in a thesis (see thesis length guidelines)
• can be investigated legally
• can be investigated ethically
• are unlikely to incite hatred or belittle identifiable social groupings
• do not expose individuals to danger of any kind when the thesis is published
• do not have answers that are predetermined by the candidate (a thesis should not be an excuse to justify your own prejudices, but an open investigation).

When choosing research questions, you should also bear in mind the expectation that your thesis will be publicly available. Read our guidelines on the public availability of your thesis.