Approaches to the critical component in UK creative writing PhDs

This paper, by a creative writing academic and two research students, describes an exploratory review of UK creative writing theses made available via the British Library. It is particularly interested in the length and structure of their critical components, the role and position of methodology within them and the nature of the contribution to knowledge proposed. The paper comments more broadly on the disciplinary alignment of creative writing research projects, some of which are closely aligned with the conventions of English studies, whilst others are positioned alongside those disciplines engaged in practice as research. This paper, therefore, should be of interest to supervisors and doctoral students, and all those involved in, or interested by, creative practice methodology.