It’s a very busy time for me with my PhD. I am fast approaching my confirmation of candidature presentation and the amount of work that is going into all the supporting documents and processes has turned my brain into either an academic machine or mush – still waiting to hear back which one it is.

But Anna, what is a confirmation of candidature? You said you were a PhD student, so doesn’t that mean you are doing your researching now?

When you get accepted into a PhD programme, you are a PhD student. This means you are working towards finalising your research project and completing any prerequisites and conditions to your acceptance. After roughly nine months, PhD students are required to do complete a confirmation of candidature and there is a three month window where you should complete your confirmation of candidature in. This confirmation of candidature is a presentation of your final research proposal and plan, and it goes into great detail as to what you are doing, how you will go about doing it, and why your research is worth it. I don’t know the exact procedures and information, but what I do know is that I have to have a 10k literature review and my methods chapter completed and ready for submission. Once the initial green light has been given, I then need to present the lit review and methods chapter to a panel for consideration. If they are happy with it, I become a PhD candidate. If they want things fixed up or worked on, I make those changes and resubmit it for consideration. They can then approve me, making me a candidate, or reject me. Or there is always the fun flat out rejection after the presentation.

You’ve lost me, Anna. A literature review? A methods chapter? Are you just giving book reviews as part of an academic presentation?

A literature review is a review of all the appropriate and relevant sources that fit within the scope of the research. For example, my research field is within social media, specifically bookish social media, so any academic journals, books, articles, studies, and peer reviewed research pieces that look at bookish social media are beneficial in my literature review. Similarly, anything to do with New Zealand’s literary history and current impact on the global stage is useful information. All of these articles, books, journals, etc. I have to read, summarise in my own words, detail the key findings, and link to other sources that either support or challenge the points. A litertaure review is a comprehensive assessment and accumulation of the relevant data that has been collected and the significant findings other researchers have made. It is important to have a sturdy litertuare review because I am showing a wide knowledge of the current litertaure within my field of study, showing how the findings relate to my research questions, and most importantly, showing how the gaps in the research warrant a need for furhter research, which is where my research comes in.

A methods chapter is a portion of the research which details how the researcher will go about their research. What is the plan? How is the data going to be collected? How will interviews be conducted? What about content or thamtic analysis? How will data be analysed? What research methodologies are being employed? What are the ethical considerations of the research? There are many more questions and details that need to be addressed in this portion of the research proposal and it is a meticulous process to go through. This methods chapter requires you to be acutely familiar with the processes and methods you will be using for your research. For example, my research will use netnography, a form of ditigal enthography developed by Robert Kozinets, and I need to know netnography practices, principles, processes and reasonsing like the back of my hand. I need to not only know it, but prove to others that it is the best methodology for the research I am conducting. I need to be able to explain the ethical considerations and protection measures suggested by Kozinets for conducting netnographic research. I need to be able to explain what the end results will look like when using netnography in terms of the visual data and how that compares to thematic analysis data, the other method I’m using in my research.

So you can see how things have been and will continue it be a bit hectic for me. I am handling it well, finding a ey balance between work and downtime. April marks the nine-month point and with the nuances in my research proposal, I will need as much of that three-month window as possible to iron out issues and concerns from various committees and boards, namely the ethics board. Gaining ethics approval for social media research is not an easy feat, but it is posisble. I will share with you all the challenges I faced when I pass that milestone so that you can be better prepared should you also be doing your confirmation of candidature.

The last few months have been a pleasant but demanding snap back into academic life, and with more weeks like it on the horizon, I can safely say annafromuni is well and truly doing academic studies. Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of book reviews and discussions to read. I have several things planned out already, so keep an eye out and enjoy my posts when they crop up.