Dissecting PhD sagas—I

The main mission of any PhD programme should be that students learn to become researchers during their studies.

Two weeks ago I got a phone call from a friend I first met in the early 1990s. He told me he was applying to a PhD program at one of the universities in Nepal. He further said the university required its PhD applicants to have published two research articles as part of its eligibility requirements. The friend had written an article to meet this requirement and asked me to quickly read it to see if it would make the “cut” in one of the journals I edit. After reading his article, I told him that it was not good enough for the journal since, at under 2500 words, it was too short in length and shallow in its analysis (meaning, it would be “desk rejected” if submitted formally).