My take on it is that you're being asked/told to drop it. Not great for academic integrity but it actually might be you that pays as in will they ever let you teach again? My uni uses turnitin but I'm not sure what happens to anybody who has a very high matching %. Anecdotal evidence where I'm at is that lots of people don't even check the Turnitin version.

======= Date Modified 24 Feb 2011 13:04:25 =======
I remember, vaguely, that I took Christmas Day off :$

I just think 'Sept, Sept, Sept' and I'll be free :-). I left school (a 100 years ago), to go do a solid secretarial course (it was the 1980s!!) and then to work. Actually I left that course early to go full time working. I left work after 20 years on a Friday and started college on the Monday. I've now been studying in one form or another (BA to masters to PhD) for 8 years and quite frankly I feel I've had enough. When I finish, I'm out of here 8-).

Yikes, thanks Chuff, point taken!

Thanks Chuff, interesting.

Best of luck with your viva which I think is pretty soon - you sound like you'll do brill (up)

That's really interesting Dgold - I'll think I'll print it out and read it properly a few times over.

In fact I'll think I'll print out the whole thread so as to consult as my thesis comes together.

Thanks Everybody:-)

Thanks Pink, I hadn't seen that bit in the phrasebank although I have it saved in my favourites!

I think, unless your parents/partner have done a PhD, then trying to be fair, people don't really understand. In a way that's the point of this forum.

Also for the sake of a happy home in the future, how awkward would it be for your husband to read your acknowledgements (afterall the only bit that many people read!!) and not to see his name there?? You could restrict 90% of your acknowledgements to academia and just at the end thank your husband and family. I'm a pacifist at heart - 'life is too short' etc etc and your PhD is likely to be on your bookshelf, forever a constant reminder that you slighted your husband by omission.

======= Date Modified 24 Feb 2011 10:13:35 =======
Edited: deleted this 'coz it's a duplicate of what I wrote below - not sure how that happened?!?
:$

======= Date Modified 24 Feb 2011 09:59:05 =======
Thanks everybody, much appreciated :-)

I had also never considered putting the contribution bit in the abstract - D'oh! I will now though so thanks for that bit of advice, Bilbo (up)

Edit: just seeing your 2nd reply there Sneaks - all I can say is that one of the Profs in my uni told a friend the other day who is absolutely fantastic theoretically (scarily so!) but is having huge difficulties writing. Her thoughts are so abstract and her sentences so long, and multi-clausal that he says she won't pass unless she spells it out more. She is not to hide anything. Lay it out, spell it out for the reading examiner. He said that the examiner shouldn't have to look for anything. If he is reading your introduction and he still doesn't know what you're going to do that can give him (or her!!) a negative first impression which can be difficult to change.

um, being honest it sounds like they thought you had accepted it and now from their point of view, you haven't turned up this morning. In the airline industry that is known as a 'F.T.J.' as in 'fail to join'. It's when somebody rostered to work a flight or shift doesn't turn up without advice - it's taken pretty seriously. I think you need to sort it out. Maybe I'm wrong though...

Just wondering where anybody put/will put their research questions in their thesis? In the introduction, in the literature review??

Actually, another question as well, sorry - maybe I should have created two separate threads??

'Contribution to knowledge' - where does this go, in the introduction or at the end in the conclusion, after you have proved what you have done? Also, do you state it explicitly or is it inferred through phrases like "this advances the work of...? Finally, if stated explicitly, what sub-heading did you give it, or did you?

Thanks all - I'm jumping ahead of myself a bit here, especially with the second question but they've been on my mind. Any suggestions greatly received

======= Date Modified 24 Feb 2011 08:12:23 =======
Oh Pink I can hear your frustration but you're so close, don't let it go at this late stage. July isn't too far away and you'll have done it. I admit to feeling something similar at the moment, every word feels like it's being dragged out of me. I really feel like my thesis is being written word by slow w o r d :-(

What about doing something like writing your acknowledgements, or starting your table of contents? It might help a bit and yet you would be doing something. Or going back to doing it by 'tomoatoes'? At least then you could quantify each bit of progress.

I had a bit of a clear out over the weekend as I had amassed a ridiculous amount of articles. I'm on the second draft of my lit review and methodology so I have a pretty good idea of what I need so I culled my stash. They're on a shelf to the left of my writing desk and suddenly they reduced by nearly half. I had been getting a bit worried about the "have you read everything in your bib?" so at least now I think I have a fighting chance of knowing articles and books I have in there.

Can't think of anything else to say except you will do it Pink :-). This last bit is the toughest but you'll get there :-x.

Pay it forward - Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment and Helen Hunt

Random acts of kindness - www.randomactsofkindness.org. A bit touchy-feely but still...

A mere baby! Try returning after 20 years!!

======= Date Modified 23 Feb 2011 14:27:08 =======
I should add that I have been to five (3 national and 2 international) conferences - I'm hoping to submit in a 3 year timeframe, ie this summer. My conference attendance is by far the lowest of the group I started with - Most of the others have attended way more than me and their international ones were far more international than the two I attended!! Finishing for me is the number one priority.