Last updated on January 1, 2025
When to defend.
Now, there’s a thing with being a PhD student and a supervisor.
There’s some information asymmetry: the supervisor has more experience and knowledge.
So, should the student do everything the supervisor asks? No. Definitely not, because the supervisor is still a fallible human being. The goal is to somehow surpass the supervisor! (it has to be 🙂
But at the same time, should the student fight for all their ideas? Also not.
Clearly, there is some middle ground between accepting everything the supervisor suggests (which would produce a mindless, critiqueless “doctor”—-something we don’t want) and arguing back just for the sake of it.
The arguments have also one downside (by argument, I don’t mean fighting—I mean an intellectual argument), which is losing energy and time. If there was a superior solution, we’d like to get to it asap and not waste time arguing about it. So from my side, when I see such a superior solution, I try to get the student behind it as fast as I can.
The problem has also another dimension, which is that almost any idea can be defended with some arguments. Chose a 4-point Likert instead of 5-point or 7-point? Yeah, you can find some arguments for that. Or cherrypicked some evaluation criteria from here and there instead of really thinking about it deeply? Yes, produce references and now you have an “argument”.
From the student’s perspective, I don’t recommend they do such pseudo-arguing. Pseudo-arguing is this “everything can be argued for” mentality. I recommend you only argue when you REALLY want to stick with your choices. If you, in your heart, are not convinced about them, you haven’t thought about them enough. And if you haven’t, then don’t come up with post-hoc arguments for them. Rather let them go.
The distinction is this “knowing in your heart”. If you have deeply thought about a solution, you have a certain conviction about it (if you don’t, then it’s odd—you haven’t probably thought about it enough). In that case, even when your Professor presents critique or counter arguments, fight for your ideas.
I often apply an Occam’s Razor tactic like this: regardless of the student’s idea, I’ll attack it. If they aren’t able to defend it but immediately yield, I was right to attack: they lack conviction, they haven’t thought of it enough.
This strategy has a possible issue in that if the student has thought about the idea but they lack self-confidence, they might start second-guessing their own (actually great) idea. So, sometimes, if I were to detect something like this (I can’t with 100% accuracy but sometimes I get a hint of it), I start defending the original idea.
At the end of the day, the student needs to gain confidence. He or she needs to be able to stand on their own feet, and defend their ideas (when they HAVE conviction).
The process of getting there is not “beautiful”: it’s not linear, pleasant, or nice—-it’s messy, ugly, and full of emotions like self-doubt. But you can’t make an omelette without breaking the eggs. At the end of the day, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If you’re all the time on your comfort zone, you’re not progressing; you’re not leveling up at all.
Anyway, there was no definitive, objective answer to the question, When should you defend? Rather, my answer is to follow your gut feeling and know yourself—avoid over confidence but avoid under confidence as well. And remember that this process is not a “debate” that you want to win—-both your supervisor and you have the same goal, which is the strongest research design possible. So even when the communication appears conflicting, there’s a collaborative motive underneath it. Don’t get discouraged! Keep moving forward.