I was just checking the e-mails in my university web account, which I rarely do, and just saw one about graduation for the third years. A small number of these were the very people that started at the same time as when I began my PhD, the very students I taught pharmacology to, statistics to as a GTA. And I've been reflecting on it. I'm sad if anything because I feel like I should be graduating alongside them - yet I'm quite a bit away from graduation. Has the journey really been that long? I'm not trying to create a sense of melodrama, but how quickly time flies. All the work and effort, the endless worry - and it's all yet to be decided in a viva. And it carries on, driven only by my will to let it carry on. I'm finding the writing up period to be very strange. You're not waiting to collect data, analyse it or anything. There's just this mass of writing you have to do, structure and make flow. You can see the finish line, but there's all these brambles, bits of barbed wire and hidden ditches in the way - as well as a few squares that say, 'God directly to gaol! Do not pass go! Do not collect $200 - hang on - £131.64!'
Anyway, I rambling because this has the potential to be a good thread. For those of us old timers (we can include first years too, where relevant!), how do you feel about writing up? Please someone say that it sometimes makes them feel dumb when they get corrections from their supervisors saying, 'this does not make sense'. Is it proving to be a steady process for you? Is it peaks and troughs, like me?
It's proving to a very stretching and strange experience for me...sleeping in a bed next to the chair that I will sit at and write the next day is not Horlicks to me. Neither is have to remove all the scraps of paper from my bed before sleep, or being prodded in the back by a pen I forgot to remove along with the papers when lieing down. What about you?

Okay, another chapter - one of the results chapters - has been drafted. I'll e-mail the copy off to my supervisors tomorrow. Just got to put in a conceptual map, neaten the tables and maybe chop and change some of the quotes. Loadsmore chapters to go yet God, I hate writing up!:-s:-(

Well, that was a weekend I never want to repeat. I've completed two new draft chapters - the methodology chapter and methods chapter - and sent them off. I think they're pretty horrible, but at least I've got something done. Now I have to start the results chapters - 3 of those to write. So, I'll make a start with results chapter 1 and hopefully have planned out how it's going to look by the end of today.

I'll just add, I've already written something - and it just sits well by itself. I can't see how I could just tack it on as a paragraph in my methodology chapter.

I've been looking at all the ethical matters concerned with my research and I think I'd like to write it as a chapter by itself because the matter is extremely wide-ranging as far as my research is concerned: vulnerable subjects, interviews, questionnaires - stuff like that. Do you think that could be a good idea, or is it not very conventional for a thesis?

I'd get Endnote to be honest - it makes managing your references pretty effortless.

Been a so-so week with me as well, so far. I'm writing though. I'm making myself write! I'm going to finish this 1st draft of a chapter before I go to bed, so it has to be done. I've been dumped again too for not giving mypartner enough time. I'm fine with it though - I wasn't emotionally attached and, to be quite frank, wasn't really in the mood for anything. I think it was the kindest thing because she's got a life she wants to be getting on with, especially being a good 5 years younger than me, and I've got 'this' to do. I think she expected me to fight, say or do something to try and reconcile things, but I just said okay. I'm not particularly good company anyway at the moment. I just think about work all the time, like a cross between a much dumber version of Isaac Newton and, erm, a very moody Mr Rochester from Jane Eyre. Except, I haven't got a mad wife locked away somewhere; it's a 50% completed PhD that nag, nag, nags for attention.

So, yep, I have started writing. (up)

Remember Goodboy, it was you who uttered the following utterly profound admonition concerning the state of comments on this forum a short while ago: ' I am here in this forum only to learn from positive experiences of others. It seems we are running out of wisdom or we are avoiding to share this with everyone else'. It would appear that by attacking other forum members we really are.

Clearly it's not been a good day for job applicants on this forum. I'm sorry to hear the disappointing news, Jepsonclough. I was informed of a job at my uni that I should go for and then the post mysteriously vanished, subsumed by another academic department. I entertained the notion of making the person who really encouranged me to apply for it mysteriously vanish.

Very well done, PhDbug.

Gah! Sorry to hear the bad news, Eska. It's a shame that internal politics were at play. Something similar has happened to a mate of mine.

What are you hoping to do with such a big sample size? A factor analysis? Anyway, I'd only expect about a 40% response rate, maybe less with businesses. Have you thought about improving your response rates by calling them before hand, so you can set up some kind of dialogue with them beforehand? Then they're expecting it and are more likely to return it. There's a Cochrane review on how to increase response rates - you'll find it in the Cochrane Collaboration Library online. Have you thought of posting the survey online, maybe using survey monkey, so that they can have more than one way of completing the same thing? Maybe even e-mailing them the survey to complete and return it to you in the form of an electronic document - Adobe LiveCycle is excellent for this.
At the very least, make sure that you use an invitation letter with your universitie's logo to make it look officious. Also, if your university will help you with the costs, see if you can get them to mail out your surveys, as that way it will have the university's frank on it. My university wouldn't help me with my costs, but I got an 80% response rate by ringing up my respondents and reminding them to send me my flippin' forms back.

Andy Field's Statistics For SPSS is a great introduction, both in terms of teaching you the fundamentals of statitics and how to apply it to a very popular statistics package.

Well done on finishing the draft chapter, Pink_Numbers. I wish I was at that stage. I've just been taking notes all day - and wondering why I had to make my research so big. I could have gotten away with just doing a descriptive phenomenological study. Never mind.

Word of the day: Career.

Thought of the day: What else, other than research, can I do as a career?

Hi Jeremy. I personally would never seek the help of a quantitative analyst for help with my research. As someone training to be an independent researcher, I see it as my work and my work alone, so I teach myself everything. I couldn't afford it anyway. However, I have helped other PhD students in the past with analysis if it has fallen within my area of expertise - though never charged for it. But I suppose there are other PhD students in the world that would be willing to pay for assistance...And if you got the skills, you can use it to pay the bills.
So, you've got a site? Check! Have you thought about perhaps posting cards advertising your services on message boards in universties? Word of mouth? What about getting yourself advertised on some of these 'Ask the Experts' sites? Or doing work for some 'student consultancy' companies? Or, perhaps a crazy idea, but what about starting your own stats consultancy group on Facebook? That's all I can think of off the top of my head.