The document
What the SoA+Biblio document will give? It will give the picture that Figure \ref{324940} is trying to explain. Each of the box in the left zone, may be a paragraph, dedicated to each Research Line, as identified. A research line is not just a set of lists, as explained, i.e the list of the people that the Candidate associates to the link, of their Institutions, of the documents they produced in a fixed time-window, et cetera. It is the story that will come with these lists.
Among all these research lines, the Candidate is expected to find his/her position. That yellow square in the left of figure three is, in effect, something that is expected to be produced in the middle of the second year but ... the sooner the Candidate is able to identify (also roughly, blurred) the contribution he is planning to realize, in the actual scientific contest, the best.
State-of-the-Art or Literature Review?
What is the difference between a State-of-the-Art, as proposed in the previous paragraphs and a simple literature review? Not so much.
The Literature Review, that is required as homework of the SCIENTIFIC WRITING COURSE, is a step before the SoA (but a very close one) and also something more. These were the specifications about it:
- The first chapter of your Literature Review will tell the WHOLE STORY of your search, explain the keywords and the syntax of your search, report the different databases you have used, and their results (what and where you tried the searches, what you obtained and how you changed your research strategy to optimize your results). This will, probably, be the last chapter you will write.
- The second chapter will report the main information sources you have used and found. Once you have identified your first set of “interesting papers”, you will be able to define the LIST of JOURNALS and other CONTENT REPOSITORIES that are more close to your research topic and questions. The list of journals may be organized like a bibliometric database and its content reported per PUBLISHER, with some bibliometric information like the number of papers identified in each journal or even the whole time distribution of the documents.
- Researchers are social animals and you should be able to find the main meetings and other events during which a reasonably good number of researchers meet, in the world, to discuss their work. The third chapter will report the international or national CONFERENCES, their past proceedings, their past and the future ones where you would (should) present your work.
- From the list of papers and conferences you will easily realize a LIST OF RESEARCHERS and INSTITUTIONS: some comments about their history will make the reading of this fourth chapter more exciting.
The list may be even mapped in a world map.
- RESEARCHERS write in JOURNALS and go to CONFERENCES. They are part of INSTITUTIONS and get funds from them. Often they get funds starting RESEARCH PROJECTS. If your subject is somehow related to a product or something similar, try to find PATENTS and a fifth chapter might enlist all them.
A Literature Review comes with a Bibliography, although it is a bit more than a simple annotated bibliography sorting a list references. A Literature Review is expected to identify:
- the main “schools of thought” or “approaches” or “trends”
- the main subtopics or competences (tools, methods, discoveries, …) you are referring to
- What has been written (significative, relevant) in the last n (5? 10? 50?? 200???) years about your specific topic or a general research question?
The wider and deeper your LR is, the more your SoA is.
MILESTONE TWO - The Research Project
Aims of the Research Project Milestone
During the second semester of the first year, Candidates are expected to focus their work and attention on the specific subject that will become their PhD Thesis. They will still follow Doctoral Courses, attend to ABC Research Conferences, other events or activities, in the Department or wherever they can get to the edge of the actual knowledge, following as much as they can their R&T Plan (or negotiating a change with their Supervisors).
Moreover, in the second semester, Candidates are expected to consolidate the choice of their Research Topic, to advance in the understanding of the state of the art about that topic and to choose the field of work to be deepened, to identify a clear Research Question (RQ) and to define how to give an answer to it, writing a Research Project, that will present the Research Methodologies to be adopted and the main steps anmd the resources needed, so that it will be feasible in about two years of work.
It is particular important that the RQ comes in the framework of the State of the Art (SoA). The text of the project is also expected to face the following questions:
- How much is that RQ original? Of course the more original it is, the higher is the probable impact of its answer(s) but, while looking for those who may be facing the same question, be open and consider also non strongly related researches. How many other people are facing similar problems? How many other problems are directly or indirectly related to your RQ? may be in very different fields? Originality is related to the idea of a knowledge gap, of an unexplored space in your field of work. Check if anyone
- How much important (from a social, economical, environmental or just cultural point of view)is the answer that your PhD thesis will give to the world?
In this way, you will face the question of the impact of your research work and that of your future impact, as researcher.