Steve Tippins Ph.D.Helping doctoral students get their dissertation accepted, succeed in their careers, & change the world | Academic Career Advisor | Dissertation Chair & Founder, Beyond PhD Coaching | 35 + years of experience.

Don't Choose a Gap Alone

1 Mar 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:49

In this segment, the speaker outlines the third crucial step in identifying a dissertation research gap: seeking feedback from others. After reviewing the literature, doctoral candidates should present their proposed gap to their committee, chair, field scholars, and fellow doctoral students. This external input can reveal whether the idea has already been explored—citing historical examples—or confirm its novelty, thereby refining the gap. The speaker also promotes a free dissertation help community for additional support in gap discovery and fine‑tuning.

Chapters

So you've looked at literature, you think, yeah, there's something here. What's the third step? Ask other people, ask your committee, ask your chair, ask scholars in the field, fellow doctoral students, hey, here's my gap. What do you think of it? And they may be able to come back, especially seasoned research and say, oh, yeah, that was a line of thinking that we followed in the 1990s and such and such as research of 2002 showed something and they can stop you from following a path that's already been done, but they can also confirm, you know, that's a really interesting point. No one's that I know of has ever looked at it this way. So that validation can be very helpful in finding a gap. If you're struggling with finding a gap or just having difficulties in fine tuning it, join our free dissertation help community. I'll see you there.