Actually, Eska, I agree with you there. I do around 3 hours of lecturing a week and have done so for the past 2 years now. I work really hard to make the lectures as interesting, informative and interactive as possible - I pull out all the stops with power point putting animations in my slides to try and describe some difficult concepts. And what do I get? Comments along the lines of "do we have to know this? Is this going to be in the exam? Peasucker's [to hide my name] going off one one again!" This list goes on. Some of them even lean back in their chairs, loll their heads back and pretend to be asleep. I didn't realise how irritating this could be when I was a student. And it makes me really mad, it makes my blood boil - it's bloody rude. I've confronted the rude one's in the lecture and asked them straight out: how they would like me to deliver the lectures? Do they want even more interaction? A bit of role play? They just stare at the floor in return, not able to offer any constructive feedback. I've basically told them that they are doing a degree and, as such cannot be spoon fed, have to read around and think for themselves - as independent thinkers, independent learners. God knows what would happen if I asked my supervisors to write one of my chapters for me. I only hope they don't try and do a PhD.
I do think that we are increasingly getting to a point where some students think that they basically only have to pay for their degree. Could this be because, in the Government trying to increase the number of people going into HE, we are now getting an increasing number who just aren't suited and/or don't have the right attitude? Could it be because of the suggested dumbing down of A levels?
Of course, the vast majority are interested and do tell me how much they enjoy my lectures and recognise the hard work I put in, but the increasing minority...
Eska, don't forget to click my post as helpful please :-)

It only appears on your own threads, to the right of the PM user button.

I suppose domination by the Tories will have it's good side. Hopefully, Mandelson's plans will not come to fruition.

There you go, Alpacalover! Enjoy your 2 star status!

Well, I see that Operation Walmsinski 4 Stars has not been a success so far! How hard can it be to get 4 stars?

I have lectures to do on Monday with some ungrateful undergrads, so yep, I'm working this weekend. Gonna have a drink tonight though.Oh, and if anyone has any time free or wishes to take a break, watch Fatal Deviation on Youtube - it's the worst film I've ever seen and therefore the funniest for it. To the girls on this forum, it's got one of the singers from Boyzone in it - thought that would get your attention!:p

Actually, I've got a story about a hamster owned as an undergrad. It was bought on a Tuesday, so, in the name of originality, we called it Tuesday. Anyway, this hamster, which looked just like Hannibal the Hamster (http://www.ladybird-books.com/informationsource/ladybird/series497.php - scroll down a bit to see the book) was subjected to the student lifestyle and all its overindulges. Honestly, it could fit half a Cadbury's chocolate finger in its mouth - it did used to topple over on its side (because of the weight of the biscuit in its cheek pouches though) because of the weight of it! Unfortunately, living a student lifestyle meant that Tuesday also lived the student lifestyle: bits of kebab meat, chicken nuggets, Monster Munch, dried Batchelor's Supernoodles pushed though the bars of its cage. Anyway, it looked a bit of a wreck at the end of term (it stank of sweat too, but its cage was cleaned every 2 to 3 days), so a mate gave it to her mother to look after over the holidays. With the right care, frequent brushing and stroking and proper hamster food, Tuesday looked a million dollars for semester 2 - so celebrity detox does work. Unfortunately, reversion to the student lifestyle took its toll on Tuesday during semester 2 (mates getting drunk and feeding her junk) and she passed away, a happy but rock and roll little rodent. It lived fast and died young at the age of 2, passing away in its little hamster mansion. Tragically, with the right care, it could have lived till 2.5 or 3 years. We told my mate's mother that it had escaped its cage and was never seen again.

Actually, I don't think it's that patronising, Phdbug. Where do you pick that up from? I've read the last sentence over a few times, and it doesn't feel that way. Having said that, however, and I don't know if you've picked up on this bug, I do find the part about too many people letting themselves let their PhD become too much apart of themselves offensive. It's a bit hard not too, given the fact that it's 3 - 5 years of your life, typically! :-s

Have a look at the link below, keep calm - there's a section on referencing plays
http://www.exactica.co.za/dn/exactica-tools-referencing-cms.pdf:-)

Hi, Jojo, I absolutely agree with you on finding your own voice with your writing - it's one of the hardest things to do. Up until recently, I never actually placed myself in my own work - I was more external to it and just used to hind behind other authors and reference what they say, rather than proffer my own voice. But you're the expert, it's your work and so you have to be authoritative and write confidently. What kind of work are you doing? Qual or quant, or mixed methods? I can send you one of my chapters (or it will be a chapter) that demonstrates exactly how I found my voice as a researcher, the actual process involved, if you think it would be helpful? It's hard to describe otherwise; it's just something you learn to do (sort of like learning to ride a bike, at the risk of oversimplification).


Just remember to click that I've been a helpful user of this forum ;-)

Thanks very much for the advice guys! I've tried to follow some of the advice you've given so far, using table to summarise the questionnaires included - I've divided them up thematically, and the results section deals with the thematically organised groups of instruments/questionnaires in turn. The problem is, they involve psychometric theory, which has so many awkward and confusing definitions. JenNorth, I thought about doing a table featuring the definitions of these terms, but I think it would be too big for the review, because there are so many concepts.
One of the big problems is, the workers who have designed these questionnaires have made a lot of mistakes in the implementation of the techniques. I really want to discuss why they are wrong, but they are wrong in so many different ways, using so many different techniques that, but for a thesis chapter, it's ridiculously difficult to start talking about why, without turning it into a book. So, I've decided just to focus on what thy have done right as evidence for the quality of the questionnaires and ignore what they have done wrong, because that is not evidence.
I've found an example of a systematic review that has done something similar to me. The problem with the review I have found, I think, is that it just launches into to a descriptive blurb, almost assuming that the readership are psychometricians. My readership aren't; they're healthcare workers interested in research.
I don't know about anyone else, but of all the papers you can write, by far, the most complicated are systematic literature reviews - oh, and meta-analyses!
Thank you for the input.

I've been having problems all day and am quite stressed and worried now. I have to write a systematic review paper for publication, based on my literature review, and I'm getting nowhere with it. My lit review is incredibly detailed and complex and I don't know how to turn it into a paper for a systematic review for a general readership without making it too long and complicated. There are 11 questionnaires that I have reviewed, about half are based on one set of development procedures and the other half on another set of development procedures. In both cases, I have needed to critique them in completely different ways introducing and explaining complex concepts in the process so that readers can follow. The problem is I am going to need to do this in the systematic review and that's going to take up a lot of words. The results of the procedures used also are population dependent, and that means that I have to describe the samples used - but again that's going to add even more words and make it even more complicated.
The review is also supposed to lead the way for my research, so in turn, I also need to bring in even more new concepts and ideas at the end of the review - and that will add even more words and complexity. So, I don't know what to do and I'm really stuck. I've tried to find similar examples of systematic reviews in the literature, but the way they have done it is very different from how I have written the chapter for my thesis, which is about 100 pages. I don't know how I can cut it down without losing all the meaning or making it difficult to understand.:-(