I am in the process of trying to finalise my research question and am not sure I am going down the right path. I was doing fine until my manager passed a comment to me yesterday when I was giving him an update on my progress. I told him what I was thinking of doing for my research and was met with the proverbial sucking of teeth, followed by a comment that he didn't think that was a good idea due to my lack of knowledge in that particular area. When I pointed out that a percentage of the research needs to be "new" and not just a re-hash of previous work I got no response.
I am wrong to think that the idea of starting a PHd was to gain knowledge, If I knew all there was to know about the subject before I started there would surely be no point in continuing.
Have others encountered negative comments such as this?
I feel capable of doing the required study needed to gain the knowledge required to complete my chosen subject.
I suppose I am just after a bit of confirmation that it is a usual response from certain people to try and put you down with such comments (jealosy maybe ?)

:p

Hey Maxipat! That's not a very encouraging thing to do, but I suppose a bit depends on his reasons for not wanting you to go down that path. Perhaps you could ask him more specifically for the reasons he doesn't want you to do this? Maybe he thinks the suggestion is a step too far from existing research and wouldn't be justified yet (bear in mind you have to have a very clear argument for why you want to do this research and why you think it needs to be done in a certain way, what it will contribute etc when you apply for funding), or maybe he thinks it's too much work for a PhD project or something. Of course, he could just be an idiot or perhaps he didn't understand exactly what you were explaining. It might be an idea to arrange a meeting (or in supervision or whatever) and talk about what you want to do and why, and make it clear why you have arrived at this research question and why you think it will work (backed up, of course, by existing research etc), and then give him chance you explain his doubts over it if he still has any. Might be worth a shot! KB