Saturday, February 16, 2008

Preparing for my PhD (1)

Good news, I have another big name to be my co-supervisor. Dr Sp_ash directly talked to him - Prof J. Dry_zek in ANU, one of the top environmental political scientists and got his agreement several days after we met.

Now I am thinking about my PhD project. I have a plan but it seems to be too big for a PhD project. I raise my question about resource contraints and feasibility in an email to Dr Sp_ash. He suggests me to start with searching for a problem (or an issue) that is interesting and important, then methodology and techniques, and then availability of resource and logistics. He is right, it is far more important to look at the problem/issue first because it determines the nature of the research, which in turn points to what approach you should and can use. Any research has to be contrained by resources available but you should not let it determine your research questions.

1 comment:

chungenliu said...

Congratulations! It is so cool that Clive Spash is your advisor. He has done many wonderful work. Dryzek's work is also interesting. Good for you, and I hope one day we can meet up and talk!

John