Thank you Hugh; I got enough done to convince myself that I deserve a lazy weekend ;) Just finishing up some reading with a beer!

Speaking of reading, I was always advised that there is a time in your PhD when you must stop reading and just write- though, I feel like I constantly need to keep reading recently published work in my field and acknowledging it to avoid issues in the viva. Do you find yourself doing this?

From your post, it appears as though they are waiting for a response from the ESRC to see who the ESRC are willing to fund before they allocate department funding (is this correct?) If so, they need to wait for the ESRC's response first. Let me tell you, it can take ages. I was awarded ESRC funding. I recall being advised that my application was being nominated for the ESRC funding in February and I did not have the outcome until the end of April. The waiting is horrid and I completely empathise!

Is anyone taking the Bank Holiday weekend off? I am allowing myself a long weekend if I hit the quarter-way point of this findings chapter tonight!

Thank you- I believe in you too! :D My sup has encouraged me to send out prospective applications as soon as April :o not sure if I will get around to it though. Oh and don't get me started on publications haha I recently had my second lot of major corrections on an article that was based on my MA thesis that they want back by June...but everything is so busy constantly! I submitted something from my PhD months ago to but it is still under review. I have told myself further publications can be worked on when I have my full draft submitted. Anyway, wishing you good luck with the writing :)

I am avoiding looking at such guidelines until I have all of my chapters as I know that I will just overwhelm myself then lose motivation! Currently on my final findings chapter and 7 months until submission.

5.30 am though, erm, by 'office' I mean my spare bedroom that I do all my thesis writing in ;)

Like Chickpea, I will be taking Good Friday through until Easter Monday off as break- how about you Hugh? I am currently proof reading my second findings chapter before I send it to my sup (my deadline for this chapter is Friday!) then I like to take a few days away from writing chapters and busy myself with other PhD related things. So I will be doing this before moving on to the third and final findings chapter *Hurray*

It would be helpful to know who were your target participants? There may be something more specific in the literature related to this. For instance, I had issues getting participants from educational institutions and I found some papers related to challenges of recruiting from educational institutions specifically.

I took a leave of absence when I was just entering my final year due to illness (2 months). I really did not want to initially, fearing that I would fall behind despite my supervisor reassuring me that it was best to get better then come back to the thesis at full strength. I actually began by taking a few weeks off as 'annual leave' but realised that a leave of absence was the best thing to do. I had my funding stopped temporarily then this will be added on to the end to cover an extension.

I am really glad that I took that time. I did come back to my research with much more energy and focus after despite initially worrying that I may not be able to get back 'in the zone'.

It sounds as though a leave of absence could really benefit you. There is also nothing to prevent you working on your thesis during leave of absence (from home) if you have the occasional day where you feel up to it.

Catherine Riessman wrote a great book titled 'Narrative analysis' (I think the year of publication is 2008?) If you search for Riessman you will certainly find it. I am using Narrative Inquiry and this was a very useful book in understanding different approaches to analysing narrative. Regarding analysing an ethnography through narrative, there is an approach to analysis called 'Narrative ethnography' which may be fitting so I would recommend doing some searches with this term too :)

As Scrabbler has said, this is usually by making a 'contribution to knowledge'. Yes it is subjective and often politics are at play, but you do get a say in who your examiners are. I have recently been deciding on my examiners and I have been very careful to avoid the troublemakers. A 'contribution to knowledge' can be fairly small- as the saying goes, it's a PhD not a noble prize! The only student I know who was offered a choice between R&R and MPhil was done so because their thesis was very short and much key literature was left out. They opted for R&R and passed in the end.

I just have one supervisor. Many people in my department do as there aren't enough to go around really. Some do have second supervisors but rely mostly on their primary so it has never phased me.

I have never had any major issues having just one supervisor. The only time I wished I had a second was when my sup was extremely busy and took months to get feedback to me. However, now I am in the final year (writing up) they tend to get feedback to me fairly quickly and it is very detailed.

The question of whether it is 'too risky' depends entirely on your views about your supervisor. Do you feel they will provide timely and valuable feedback? Will they have enough time to meet with you when you are facing your final months?

I did want mine to be no more than 85k to ensure that the examiners did not get bored. My sup though reassured me that it was ok to hit the upper word limit. I think my approach will be just to keep writing until I have the full draft, then spend some time seriously chopping! There are chapters I wrote a couple of years ago that I feel I could easily trim down and I have started chopping sections out of my planned draft of the following chapters.

Thank you all for your contributions, I am sure I will get there in the end :)