Congratulations Dr. Algaequeen, you must be on top of the world and rightly so :-)

But you love it really!! Good luck submitting :-)

Good luck Star-Shaped, might you be finished all your post-doc applications today?

Dunni, you really sound like you're really on the homeward strait...nearly there(up)...300 words hopefully won't be too hard to chop.

Batfink, you sound like you're making really good progress despite the cold. However, none of us seem as productive as LeoDown who was obviously beavering away all night!!

Today's goal is photocopy my observation notes while the place is quiet. I seem to be the only one in my building which is weird. Also started the day by falling down the stairs which shook me up quite a bit so think some choc called for.

Thanks for that Dunni, not completely different from my approach but more efficient and scientific, and no doubt probably better. I'm behind, way behind in the analysis stakes and so feel I need to keep pressing on.

However, have to put all that aside for the moment as one of my twins has been busy dismantling an old armchair with a screwdriver since he got home from school. He is looking for a homework table to put in the armchair's place. Apparently I promised him if he took the chair apart and got it ready for recycling, we would go to Argos and buy a table. I have absolutely no recollection of saying this at all :-(

======= Date Modified 20 Jan 2011 16:53:49 =======
The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp22-24 refers to research as a paradigm and the charts Olivia mentions. A friend of mine recently successfully passed her viva with just one minor correction; to state her ontology and epistemology (in a single paragraph) explicitly rather than what the examiners felt was the implied manner of her thesis - it's well worth being clear of your stance and worldview.

Great to know that so many people are aiming to submit at similar times - all female though??

I have just received feedback on chapter I submitted well before Christmas. Supv knows my summer submission goal and has really picked up the pace of late with the result that I have corrections, revisions and changes to make to close to 28,000 words!! To keep moving in a forward direction, I think I will devote half my time to re-editing these 28,000 words and the other half to data analysis and further 'new' writing. Does this seem a plan??

I agree with Pixie re: Masters.
As far as I know it's pass or fail for PhDs. I did hear (in the recent past) of a proposal to award merits or grades for PhDs but this was vetoed by the powers that be. However I have seen emails to staff and Heads of Departments (can't remember from what body) asking them to nominate the best PhD of the last year etc.

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I allowed myself get side-tracked from my original goal (training to be secondary school teacher) by doing really well at undergraduate level and felt, as a result, that I was expected to keep going. Was awarded scholarship for PhD so I'm still here. I really struggle with the issue of 'relevance' hence I have done a lot of extra work for department and also the university to justify my existence (and the money as well, to be honest!!). I don't hate it but do wish I had stuck with my orig plan. Pride won't allow me not to finish but when this PhD is in the bag, that's it, I'm out!!

None of that sounds very honourable, does it?? Certainly not as noble as others who have posted in this thread :-(

Screaming: it's my hubby who can't wait for me to be a Dr. - he dreams of the time when we are in a restaurant, or aircraft, and somebody yells "is there a doctor here?" Then I'm really in trouble!!

======= Date Modified 20 Jan 2011 10:36:35 =======
Hate to be beaten by something like that!! One of those 1996 authors (Ram Cnaan) has publications on open-access
via Scholarly Commons: Repository, don't see the article you are looking for but it might have something related there??
Could be worth a look...via this giant link!!

http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/query.cgi?x_force_carryover=&connector_all=and&connector_1=and&field_1=lname&op_1=eq&value_1=Cnaan&advanced=1&connector_2=and&field_2=fname&op_2=eq&value_2=Ram&advanced=1&connector_3=and&field_3=institution&op_3=eq&value_3=University+of+Pennsylvania&advanced=1&advanced=1&format=cover_page&query=Processing...&email_notification=7

Just sent you the 2009 article. I did try the earlier one but couldn't access it - sorry about that. Maybe somebody else might be able to get it??

A

Hi Xinixia

I get into that from 2008 onwards - before 2008 seems restricted - but I would need a few article details, year, vol etc. Let me know if you want anything and maybe pm me your email id and I can send you pdfs.

A

Whether it's normal or not is hard to say. The forum here alone demonstrates that everybody appears to have a different experience.

Having said that, your PhD experience sounds eerily similar to my research masters experience where I had no supervisory meetings at all until I started to produce chapter drafts well into the second year. I wrote it up in just over three months and vowed NEVER again. Apart from checking the inside page to see that it was my thesis when I got it back from the printers, I never opened it again such are the rotten emotions I associate with it. I got an okay mark but am not proud of it and still shudder when I think about that two year period of my life.

If you are in your PhD 3rd year it seems a pity to drop out when you are well over half way. Your data collection is complete - do you feel ready/able to start writing it up? Maybe if you start handing your supvs draft chapters, it will spur them into action? It is possible to write up quite fast, possibly not by September, but I would think by the end of the year is achievable.

However, if you really can't stomach it anymore well maybe a graceful retreat would be better? True, a Google search would show that you were a PhD student at one time but you could stress the research experience, analytical skills etc you drew from that time of your life. Is writing it up as an MPhil an option?

Many old-style lecturers still hold onto the master-apprentice type model for PhDs. In effect, you are learning at their feet. Perhaps this is how your supvs see it? I know a few lecturers who completely poo-poo the idea of Graduate Education Modules and to quote one who said the following to a friend, "there's a big building over there called the library!" I think a mix of both is the key. I am part of a grad edu programme which got me writing from the start true enough but often on modules on which I had little interest and for me delayed the true writing up time.

I think you need to re-assess but again I think the fact that you have all your data collected is a real plus and means that a concentrated write up is doable. You could join the newly created thread here for people who are writing up at the moment? At the moment it seems like an all-female thread so we would welcome you with open arms, albeit virutal arms!! A few of us are on funding which is due to run out about the same time as yours. There is nothing that concentrates the mind like a lack of money to kick start a body into action.


Good luck (up)

A

Are those knitted pink ear muffs you're wearing Pink_Numbers?!? Enjoy your trip to yarn-world.

You're the closest of all of us Dunni, so you'll be smug-town when the rest of us are still pulling our hair out!! Keep going(up)

C8-)8-)L

My funding runs out by the end of September 2011 so that is my absolute deadline. My personal deadline is July. Mine is a social science PhD so my word count obligation is 80,000-100,000. I am aiming for somewhere in the region of 78,000-85,000; I don't want it anymore. I know that the head of my institute (not my supv) frowns on over-long theses and I agree with him!!

At the moment I have about 38,000 words written which equates to full first drafts of three chapters. I anticipate having six chapters in total, seven at a stretch. I format as I go and 'think' all my references are up-to-date and done correctly. I have however a lot of data yet to analyse which is giving me sleepless nights. I did approx 60 interviews, not all of which I have transcribed. I think I am going to have to 'wing' it bit in that department.

Keep the faith summer 2011 submitters(up)

That's a good idea - I'm fairly new to the forum but am in my FINAL year!! I longed to be writing up but now that I'm am, am finding the going pretty darn stressful. I have 1st drafts of three chapters done out of a total of, I think just six. I have about 38,000 words of 80,000 down so word-count wise (and that's all my hubby factors in!!) less than half.