90 7 Establishing Your Contribution
when, for example, the same phenomenon might cause multiple effects, and differ-
ent methods are required to measure each of them. Consider the example of marsu-
pial dietary adaptation. It should affect relative populations of different species and
the abundance of different food sources—both can be used to assess impact. Also,
note that both of these are subject to confounds (many things affect population and
abundance) that your thesis needs to address.
Use of multiple methods can add great strength to your arguments; how much
more convincing it is to have many voices rather than one telling us the same thing.
If you use more than one method, though, you not only have to describe each of
the methods and why you selected them, but also why one method was not enough.
That is, you need to consider the relationship between the methods—to what extent
are they independent of each other, for example?
I touched above on the concept of confound. Lack of consideration of possible
confounds—other reasonable explanations for the same observations—is one of the
commonest weaknesses in theses. Your arguments can only be strong if you actively
seek confounds, and show that they do not invalidate your results.
‘Research Methods’
There is a large literature on the topic of ‘research methods’, much of it specific to
particular disciplines. This literature is largely concerned with the practice of re-
search, or, in the terms I’ve used in this book, developing the research questions and
hypotheses and designing experiments, instruments, and processes for testing these
hypotheses. There is also a substantial literature—reaching back many hundreds
of years—on the nature of research methods and the philosophical attempt to link
observations, experiments, and knowledge. Both of these perspectives on research
are beyond the scope of this book.
However, there are respects in which the issues of research methods are inter-
twined with the development of your thesis. One of them I have already discussed
at length: the fact that your research should be shaped, right from the start of your
candidature, by your writing. Until you have made the attempt to capture your hy-
pothesis, experimental design, and so on in a precise form, you aren’t really ready to
explain and argue for your research program. That is, you need to be in the position
of being able to say, as unambiguously as possible, that ‘this is what I am doing’
and ‘this is how I am going to investigate it’. Only once you have a concrete this
can your colleagues and supervisors debate it with you and help you to sharpen your
arguments and your thinking.
Another respect in which method and thesis are intertwined is a subtle point that
many researchers overlook: the issue of measurement, or assessment. A researcher
who uses thousands of words or more of careful argument to explain a hypothesis
and its importance, and thousands more explaining how it is to be evaluated, may
completely fail to justify the method being used to measure the outcomes.