The State broadcaster here, CBC, sometimes highlights the work of PhD students. It's depressing. The level of intellectual curiosity and academic competence displayed would be lucky to earn a C in the old Scottish Higher Exams. The same seems to be true of standards south of the 49th Parallel too. I recently read a successful PhD paper that declared the imaginary First World War Scottish regiment in The First Hundred Thousand was a "thinly-fictionalized Black Watch". The newly created Doctor might have found out in the briefest of Internet searches that the book's author, John Beith writing as Ian Hay, had served in the real First Hundred Thousand, Kitchener's volunteers, as an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander. The picture opposite the title page in the first few editions showed the Argylls on the march. And the name of the fictional regiment was The Bruce and Wallace Highlanders. I think there was only one British Highland regiment with "and" in its title. Three facts that suggest maybe perhaps the book was not about the Black Watch. What else did this guy get way wrong on his way to a PhD? What were the people who awarded the PhD thinking? The rot is perpetuated.