How to Plan a Ph.D. 1: What Is a Ph.D.?

What the heck are you doing, when you think of starting a Ph.D.? You're thinking of building expertise in a certain area. A Ph.D. means that you have a professionally recognized level of expertise. It does NOT mean you have a book. It does NOT mean you have a job (as we all know...). It means that you, Joe Schmidt, are the expert in topic X.

Your dissertation is the treasure trove of this expertise. Let me repeat that in a different way: your dissertation is NOT a book. Do you understand the difference?

Get clear on this now, while you're planning. A dissertation is not a book. Sure, some dissertations turn into books, some quite easily—Graham Harman's for instance, and mine. But even in this case, a book is not a dissertation. Why?

A book is a product that is sold to make money. A dissertation is a transitional object that turns you from being a student into being an EXPERT. Did I say “turns you into a professor”? No. Did I say “turns you into an author”? Why no. A dissertation is a transitional object.

Think about this. Not every professor will tell you this—in particular the ones without too many books. And professionalization has confused us all, treating grad students like professors without security. But once you've written about three or four books the difference between a dissertation and a book should be obvious.

An awful lot devolves from this simple fact, so in the next couple of posts we'll think this through some more.

But let me say this for now. Confusingly, having publications and conference papers under your belt will help you get a job these days. But they massively inhibit the process of writing a dissertation. Why? And even more so, thinking of the dissertation as a book from the get go is a disaster. Don't do it. Again, why?