Usually about five minutes before I find something that makes me feel like I am back at square one!!!!!

In all seriousness, this is true--but I am not discouraged by it. I will be going along, thinking I am FINALLY well and truly on the topic, and then discover more material, another angle, something I failed to account for...and its back to the drawing board. What I have decided though is not that this means you do not know your topic, its just that you are going back for an enriched meaning. Its like a spiral, you keep covering the same ground, only looking at it differently.

I would have told you I knew my topic the day I started. I would say that today--but how I knew, how deeply and abstractly I knew it--the dimensions with which I can come at my topic and consider it--its relatedness to other areas...those are different.

Hey Mokey I am glad that works for you. Yes, its a monster--you could prop up the side of a falling down house with it. There is also a paperback out by Sage that is Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, which is similiar but not as comprehensive.

Would you believe I asked for ( and got) the large Sage book as a Christmas present??!

Some of the threads on here today are hair raising to say the least, about things that people are having to endure and go through. Some very serious and concerning situations.

This puts into perspective that a burnt out lightbulb ( having to now work in shadows), bleeding from trying to fix my stapler that seems to have packed it in, and being really hungry for TexMex food that I cannot get in the UK are not really anything to be concerned about.

This serious situations point out I suppose just how grim the PhD can be...and its too bad it has to be that way....

Can you approach it from a structural rather than time frame sort of aspect? I.e. you will turn in a draft chapter of xx words every xx weeks...and if you are meeting that goal, then who cares if you do it in 10 hours a week or 100....well you get the point...in other words if you are keeping up with the output then unless you are feeling like it is too many hours, the supervisor should not care.

I am living proof today of what too many intense hours do. I worked like a fiend non stop all weekend to get something done by last night, and today I am worthless.

I think I worked 9 hours yesterday without even a break...the hours just melted, but I am exhausted and unmotivated and tired today--brain does not work, even after an infusion of Triple Chocolate Slice...

Sorry to hear about the row. Doing the PhD is hard enough without that on top of everything else? At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is for you to complete the PhD. And what matters along the way is your progress. How you get the work done is really a secondary consideration as to whether it is getting done--and I think should only become a question if there is a concern about progress on the work.

You have to have breaks. That is just the bottom line. Think of a car. If you slam your foot on the gas pedal, and go at top speed, you will have an incredible journey--until the car blows up somewhere an hour or two down the road. The engine was not built to take that stress in the long haul. Neither is a human being. And if you do not get the chance to go along at a moderate pace, with well needed breaks, you are NOT likely to finish the PhD.

Can you approach this professor yourself--perhaps ask him if you can have coffee or lunch and talk further about it? Can you let him know you are not sure what the department politics are around adding someone, and that you want to make sure you stick with the expected protocols ( without going into the details about the concerns of the current second?)? Can you have two second supervisors-I have heard of this being done in some instances. This person might be aware of how to install him as a second supervisor without rocking the department boat.

I cannot imagine doing your work without some kind of back up such as a USB stick or CD rom or floppy disc, or as someone mentioned, at least emailing it to yourself. I think its very possible for people to decide to sabotage other's work in some twisted notion of advancing their own position. If I was in a shared environment ( esp. after reading this!!!) I would not leave my USB stick on the computer if I got up even to get a coffee...I would be afraid of what could happen if someone just waltzed by and swiped your USB stick.

I try to save onto my USB and on to my computer, and with some documents, I will also email them to myself---it would be too easy to lose a USB stick under innocent circumstances...and horrible to lose work.

think about it. Who backs up their work each and every time? I try to be careful about this, but there is no way that every single time I have done something that I back it up. Someone who deliberately destroys another person's work has really committed a very serious act. On the other hand, is it possible that Sabrina did not save her own work? This has happened to me too, where I was certain I had saved my latest draft ( and working from home, where no other person would have had access to the computer) but it was not there.

In other words--who knows for sure what happened?

Does the university not offer a user log in so that no one but you can get to the material you have saved on the computer? Does it have a secured personal drive? I would say if you are on a shared computer it would be critical to save your work in a folder or area that only you can access with a log in and password.

the sage book has a good set of info on research paradigms, which I found a helpful starting point on methods, as it helps you understand how your own point of view can influence what method you choose, and the goals, outcomes, of each kind of paradigm. I found it extremely useful to locate myself and method within a paradigm, and then to understand in a systematic way the other kinds of paradigms out there. They have some easily digestible tables that make this all very understandable.

do you want qual or quant methods? for qual--sage handbook of qualitative research, good book--if you want other good ones, try the Guide to Good Research, by Denscombe, and another good qual book is by Creswell, but the name of the title escapes me. I really liked creswell's clear explanations.

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs8113f_97_spring/cartoon.html

another really great classic, the Cartoon Laws of Physics

http://www.edelstein.org/Humor/Wile%20E_%20Coyote%20Lawsuit.htm

for anyone who needs a laugh, this is a great classic, the lawsuit of Wiley E Coyote ( Genius) v. Acme!

I second what Smilodon says--there is no substitute for your own self-discipline and work. You do not need to feel motivated to work, its very possible to get stuff done even if you are not in the mood for doing it--you do it because you must, whatever the must is. I think the best tip for procrastinating is to just do the work. Set yourself an achievable task--for an hour or two--and then do it. Voila, procrastination cured. At the same time be aware of your own needs while you work--do you need breaks, do you work better at night, in certain environments, etc? I need about half an hour in the morning to wake up, even once in the office, so I come on here, check e mails, read headlines, and start to coax myself into work during that time, and eventually am working and not doing other things.

So I should have gone home but I just downloaded some humungo big pdf... and was just sifting the papers around, and HELLO! they fell open to a graph that captures the problem I have been trying to solve conceptually all afternoon! JUST LIKE THAT! and it saves me reading about 200 pages.

At the risk of sounding a bit weird, this often happens to me. I have had books fall off shelves and open to the very page with something that I need...! strange. OK and just now some desperate student has come in to use my printer ( this seems to happen a lot where I keep unsociable hours at the university and students race around in tears looking for a printer when all the other technology has failed.)

Ok its time to go home.

I am so tired....... I have been working like a fiend to get another conference paper written up, and have just sent a draft to my supervisor to look at. I have some odds and ends to clean up in it, why do you see those as soon as you hit send? Nevertheless, it has gone, and I will leave it until tomorrow. All in all, its not bad, if I may so so. =) But I have pushed myself so hard I am now braindead and exhausted and think a nice glass of red wine and an early bedtime are in the offing! =))