Hi Delta

Congrats on being almost there! I take what you are saying that you have major doubts if your supv team has read your draft properly but it's not in their interests that you fail so surely although they may not have given it a close read, they must genuinely think it's submittable. Could you request a meeting and outright ask them 'do you think it will pass?' Ask them what they think you are likely to be grilled on in the viva. My supervisor has marked one bit (actually lots of bits, but one bit in particular) and said "they're going to come after you in the viva about that so be prepared...!). Are they happy with your theoretical framework, your methodology, your results, your contribution to knowledge - ask them.

Failing that, is there another person in your uni that you could ask to read it with a view to giving you constructive feedback?

[note to self: must follow own advice :$]


Good luck, submission can only be a short time away (up)

======= Date Modified 09 Oct 2011 10:08:30 =======
Hi Flack

Many congrats on securing your PhD place and hope your move to Edinburgh goes well.

I agree with the others but also remember, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family! I'm sure your parents would be very proud of you and if your sister doesn't get it, well that's her loss. She probably feels a bit intimidated by your academic prowess and the way she manifests that insecurity is by being dismissive.

My family are very supportive although extended family have made plenty of digs at me and my husband to the effect of, "oh, is she still at that lark?" etc. Neighbours have made similar jibes. To be fair I don't think they really mean anything by it but they don't understand what's involved and seem to think the fact that I "am still at it" equates to a type of failure on my part.

It's a pity about your sister and aunt and uncle but apart from wanting a bit of recognition from them, do they really impact on your life? It sounds like your friends are great, they must mean a lot to you.

Good luck starting out, and as Delta says, that's part of what the forum is all about - mutual support from people who do really 'get it'.

Ditto for me to everything you said Skig :-)

After I missed my self-imposed deadline at the end of September I was devastated; it's the first deadline I have missed since coming to college as a mature eight years ago. Since then, I have completed a BA, a two year research masters and a structured PhD which had lots of modules. I never defaulted or was late with anything, until 'til now! I re-evaluated recently and am determined to wrap up this PhD and submit at the end of October - after that I would also have to pay fees and that will NOT be happening!

I also decided to only work at it Mon-Fri as I had been literally doing the darn thing seven days a week for months and I had pretty much burnt out. That said I will tip away a bit at it this weekend as I won't be able to work Monday as I have an interview! Actually I have two in the coming weeks; like buses, you wait ages and then two come along together. Not brilliant timing just as I am in the final submission furlong but I'm probably better when I working at full steam.

Hope the fish are good - good luck with your work and whoever else is around as well.(gift)

Keep going Skig, you can do it - this last bit is def the toughest, emotionally, mentally, physically but you can do it. Sorry to hear about your fish, I hope they're better, if that's the correct term for fish, soon (up)

======= Date Modified 06 Oct 2011 15:43:32 =======
@Eska, you wrote something really good on chapter conclusions very recently - I wrote a note to myself to read it again but now can't find it:$. I'm pretty certain it came up in another thread but try as I might, I can't locate it. It's not the overall conclusion I'm mean, but rather individual chapter conclusions which I am offically rubbish at :-( any chance you remember what you said??

btw: does anybody else get 'stack overflow' message when they reply to a thread, or is that just me? What does it mean?

Hi Wombles

I would tend to agree with Skig and also say that really specific questions don't always get specific answers here on the forum. Is there nobody within your wider reserach area that you could contact, if only for pointers on how to access information? What about industry organisations or industry clusters in your area? Might there be a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group in your area that you could contact for help and tap into? Reach out for help where you're at; you might be surprised. At the very least does your supervisor know of your difficultities?

I hope you get sorted soon

======= Date Modified 06 Oct 2011 09:36:28 =======
Goal for today: not to go MAD!

Thus far (this week) my uni-issued laptop keeps freezing, "this programme is not responding...", spontaneously keeps changing the language setting to French or Albanian or Chinese / my internet connection keeps dropping off caused, apparently, by interference from the SkyBox and so have had to disconnect Sky, reset internet modem etc etc / the upstairs shower leaking and water coming through kitchen ceiling / five of the downstairs lights blew a fuse / our home pc not working properly, lots of icons on desktop suddenly disappeared / the washing line fell over in the garden / Sky itself acting up, freezing and some of our series links deleted (separate from internet issue)

Apart from that, everything is fine :-s

Not much beyond be really clear how much time you are giving them to 'discuss' among themselves. If it's ten minutes, remind them again at five minutes and make sure you have a good clear, LOUD microphone. Many of them probably won't listen but some of them should. Also when you are going to call them to order you could flip to a new slide. Nothing calls a lecture hall to order more than a new slide which they will all start transcribing furiously, in my experience!

Yes, I would agree with MackemB; you're not obliged to disclose anything in an application so I wouldn't. Having said that I would ensure your proposal is error free before you send it in. It's unlikely to come up even at interview but if it does, or you raise it yourself, I would frame it in such a way that you have gotten this far, thus have proved your abilities, capabilities etc etc and are more than up to the job.

Best of luck with it (up)

I can get that for you - will you pm me and tell me where to send the pdf :-)

don't know what happened below:$ but what I meant to say was

I've used that article and the one he recommends (Healing fictions...) and found them both extremely useful. I also subscribe to the [free] Qualitative Report online at: http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/WQR/wqr4_40.html - it comes weekly into my inbox :-). "Data as star", that's my argument - just hope my examiners see it that way:$

======= Date Modified 03 Oct 2011 19:12:17 =======

Think this is the first one
https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:76437&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS.PDF


No joy on the second one, I'm afraid

Hey Sneaks, Eska, Skig et al

Resisting the urge to lurk anonymously in the background and admit that I had to admit defeat last week and didn't submit my thesis. I officially have 'til end of Oct so decided to be sensible and wait until then. Main goal for today is to rustle up even a smigeon (sp??) of enthusiasm to dive back into my thesis and quell those feelings of 'it's total rubbish' and just work on what I've got!

Hi Naturalme

I can get it for you if you want to pm me and tell me where to send it