Hello all! I'm really frustrated at the moment. I started my PhD a few months ago, and am finding that what I thought were 'original' ideas have already been published widely. I'm finding this quite a deflating experience, and have come to a standstill because of feelings of uselessness. I'm sure this is a common phenomenon with PhD students, but I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this and how you got through it? Cheers!

Hey Eddie! You are spot on! I am right in the same situation and thinking to myself where on earth is the originality going to come from? I spoke to my supervisor about this and his advice was to keep on researching the area, eventually the area(s) that could be improved and/or have not been explored will come up. Also, what you intended to accomplish in your PhD on the onset might not be exactly what you achieve in the end, as you might discover other related things that would add your work.

I'm kinda in the same position and had my 'it's all been done before' moment just before christmas. But the more I looked the more I realised that yes broadly my PhD had been done before but there were other angles to be explored, and t come be done in more depth. It was a review that really panicked me, until i realised that a whole load of the papers were all from the same research group and included small numbers of participants. keep reading and don't panic, things will emerge.

cheers cryo and catalin! It's so tough, isn't it?! I'm trying to decipher what actually constitutes originality, as it could be a slight paradigm shift on a topic that's already been extensively covered. I'm not 'feeling it' yet--know what I mean? That feeling when things start to 'click'. Hey, I guess we might be expecting too much at this stage perhaps? Anyway, we're obviously not alone!

Are your supervisors asking you to start writing yet? I'd be fine with this standstill if I knew I could just push on and keep researching, but my supervisor is already asking me to start writing and it's terrifying! I handed a piece in before Crimbo and it came back covered in red--So destroying!

Pat Cryer has a great section in her book on originality in the context of PhD thesis - somehow the original website disappeared since I last looked it up, but you can still see the cached page:
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:ZPxAGSfxycEJ:www.postgrad_resources.btinternet.co.uk/student-resources08-originality.htm+pat+cryer+website+originality&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk

Eddie, my acdemic supervisor isn't asking me to write just yet but rather encouraging me to attend/present at conferences. The writing will probably come after year or so.

Hmmm, I find it odd, having to write already. Anything I write at this stage sounds so elementary--probably the most stressful moment, hitting the 'send' button when submitting the rubbish I've been producing!

Heh. I know what you mean there; every time I email my industrial supervisor, I get nervous about what his reply will be.

Oh yes, the originality question. Fear not eddi, this is common amongst PhDers. In fact, I'm having to completely re-route my PhD at the moment after finding material on my topic. I was speaking to a PhD student last week who has had to change direction after three years of research (can you imagine?!)! I attended a seminar on the pitfalls of research yesterday, and the speaker was saying that most PhD students he meets are constantly on edge, and the best way to avoid being in perpetual emotional turmoil is to realise that the PhD needs to be treated as a long journey of incremental steps. I found that comforting.

When I first applied I panicked, panicked and panicked some more about originality. I finally relaxed when I realised that, while other people might have published work on my general topic area before (and I've since found out a couple of people have), my thesis will still be original and (hopefully!) interesting because my methodology, perspective and conclusions can still be unique. Since I started looking at my work as 'in dialogue' with other research rather than 'in competition' with it, I've been a lot less on edge!

I think this is an issue many of us get worried about. It was really helpful reading the material in the link AnnieG posted. Now, i'm not worried at all

I, like all others, struggled with this as well. I think originality can be defined broadly. So you may not discover something original in your particular area, but I think other things, such as applying a new methodology, or a method from another discipline, to your area and assessing its utility (even if the answer is, it's no good, that is still worthwhile, 'original' information). Granted, such research will not get you a Nobel, but it remains a contribution.

Cheers everyone! Your feedback has been really helpful. I spoke with an academic yesterday who has been in the field for many years now. He goes around the UK giving talks to PhD students about the PhD experience, and he told me that it's actually really difficult to produce something unoriginal, as the way each student employs resources is always going to produce a different result. I was quite releaved to hear that, hope that helps some of you too!