Metaphors for doctoral research: Fundamental tenets & creative courage

Abstract

Doctoral research candidates navigate a unique path and sustain a rigorous program of study as they make an original contribution to knowledge. The complex and challenging nature of doctoral research is evidenced by high rates of anxiety and depression among candidates (Evans et al., 2018). Metaphors are one tool used by candidates and supervisors to facilitate communication and the candidate’s understanding of the research process. In this article, we argue that the existing range of metaphors have limitations, firstly in cases where they imply an ongoing process with no clear end, and secondly when presented in text or through oral communication without a pictorial representation. We aim to enrich current offerings of metaphors by contributing a new metaphor, which we present as The Moon Diagram. This combined pictorial and textual representation points to two areas of endeavour encountered in the research process, Fundamental Tenets and Creative Courage, and their correlation. The moon is depicted during a half-moon phase to symbolically differentiate the two regions, while overlaid text indicates the skills and experiences associated with each. The whole moon symbolises doctoral completion, and a separate celestial body represents post-doctoral employment. The Moon Diagram may be a useful mnemonic device for potential and confirmed candidates and printed as a larger-scale chart for supervisors to reference when mentoring candidates to doctoral completion.