The rather elusive concept of ‘doctorateness’: a reaction to Wellington

Abstract

This paper summarises and then critiques some of the key arguments and conclusions provided by Wellington who argues that it would be sensible to give up the search for the ‘inner essence’ of ‘doctorateness’ (a term referring to a common quality of doctoral candidates or of their written dissertations). It is argued here that progress towards description of doctorateness has in fact already been made, and it is proposed that this can be built on by promoting further discussion focusing on issues such as whether doctorateness should be seen as residing in doctoral theses, doctoral candidates, or both; and by recognising the polysemous nature of concepts like ‘originality’ and ‘new knowledge’ which often arise in university documentation relating to work at doctoral level.