Your PhD literature review no longer fits your findings? That’s normal
The PhD you finish is not the PhD you start. Along the way, this happens:
PhD: (Grabs you by the elbow) "THIS way! Over here!"
You: "Mmmm, but I read all that stuff and wrote thousands of words on the other thing, can't we just stay here?"
PhD: "NO!"
You: "Okay, I guess I'll need to go back to my literature review later."
PhD: "Yeah, yeah, whatevs… Look at THIS!"
You: "Oh, wow! That's so cool! Let's go over there!"
Then the day comes when you've got your findings, you look back at your literature review and it's like reading something that was written by someone else and belongs to a whole different PhD.
Cue the existential crisis and the realisation that whilst you have the back end of the horse, the front is completely missing. Oh fiddlesticks. You need to reverse engineer it and write the front to match the back - which feels like kind of CHEATING. Someone's going to figure this out and say, "No - naughty!".
It's okay.
This is not cheating.
Your PhD argument often emerges retrospectively because you're still figuring out what actually matters WHILE you're doing the research.
Of course you couldn't write the perfect literature review for your eventual findings three years ago. You didn't HAVE the findings then. Sometimes you have to build the back of the horse before you properly understand what the front needs to look like.
That's not dodgy or underhanded.
It's how a lot of PhD researchers figure out what their contribution actually is: backwards.
If you found this helpful (or even mildly amusing), you might want to explore:
▶️ My YouTube video series on the Hidden Curriculum of Qualitative PhD Research. Yes - there’s a whole lot of stuff they don’t tell you. Click here to watch.
📥 My free mini guide: The PhD Discussion Chapter - What they don’t tell you. Yes, I know, there’s a theme developing here... Click here to download it - I don’t even want your email address. Well I do, but I don’t want to make you jump through a load of “You only get the free thing if you give me your email” weird hoops, so if you want to join my mailing list, great - do that here.
💻 My PhD Survival Guides. Self study resources that are a bit like having me sat next to you whilst you work on your PhD, minus the awkwardness - because your supervisor has probably told you what needs to be done, but now how to do it. Click here to explore them.