Piglet,

that sounds very impressive. Well done. You must be proud regarding achieved that.

I have not published anything(yet) and as such really think highly of the people who have!

Hey, Pea - good to find a fellow cultural-technologist type... 'culture' is a real !!!! to deal with, isn't it. And, vis the writing - yeah, it's real easy to get bogged down in the mechanics of the thing (and it'll happen again and again as you work you way through things - don't worry, though - provided you get through the 'not knowing' - you emerge with a better understanding eventually). On my structure, it's a bit unusual as it has two lit review chapters - most folk wouldn't separate out theory/practice - I had to because I'm trying to show the contribution of one theoretical framework to another and using an empirical study to show how. Also, most people make only a brief ref to pilot study at end of methodology but again because mine was so exploratory - it needed a chapter on its own in the end.

As for my intro chapter... here's how it works (roughly) - begins with rationale for the research (how it fills a gap)... situating it in general context of 'this kind of work'. Follows on with some background as context - how I became interested in this area. Then the research aims - what I want to get from the research - specifically, closely followed by an outline of the research questions. Lastly, the structure of the chapters of the thesis is set out (difficult to do this part until you've done some work and know where you're headed)... with a general intro, then specific sections, briefly outlined (about 50-100 words per chapter) - kind of summarising content of thesis and showing thread of research. It changes, as your thesis develops but it also works as a good organising device which helps you to 'keep the general framework of your research' in your head.

Well having just completed my transfer report for my first year here at cardiff (first year viva tomorrow arghhhhh) i could give my opinion. My first year report went - Contents (inc list of tables and figures), abstract, Intro (lit review in this covering anything you will mention later and any essential info), Aims, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion and conclusions (inc future work and how it relates to whats been done), Acknowledgements then finally references. As a guide our reports are meant to be between 30-50 pages size 12 double spaced excluding references but suppose lenght depends on project and subject. (mine was 65 pages i think) Oh by the way i do biochemistry/biophysics. Hope that helps