am happy with today's pace. just the last quarter left now. hopefully i can finish that today and do the lit review in the weekend. next week i really must sort all the footnotes which are not fully referenced in this thesis. will do that and proofread at the same time. sigh...

my plan for doing bibliography during free time has not been working very well. i wonder if its time to review it as i tend to want to do nothing when i get home..

time for lunch now then two more hours and that's it for today!

not forgetting the 7 corrections left! lol. that will be sorted after 16th. Footnotes and Biblio are worrying me the most. and formatting. sigh..

God help us all..

Formatting and biblio were fine and very quick for me, even though I did the latter manually.

But if you have to finish lots of footnotes you're going to need to allow a lot of time for that. Fortunately all of my 500+ footnotes were sorted by the time of the last draft I sent my sups.

thanks Bilbo. I think I should focus on just getting it done in a day or two.

i haven't finished Ch.2 - 10 pages of proofreading and rephrasing to go. I will do those tomorrow as I need to come back to it when am fresh incase i mess it all up. Tonight I will push on with Bibliography and hopefully be done with the first draft of it by the end of the weekend. Then tidy up (remove page numbers) later. sigh..

happy Friday everyone and those working through the weekend like me - all the best!

Myth: That you will work full time (8-12 hours) a day during the revision phase (6 Wks before submission.)
Fact: You will work at the same pace you did before giving notice.

Therefore be very careful not to give notice of submission too early. I was lucky I didn't have much to correct but even then it feels like so much work!

I find reading Joan Bolker very reassuring - true, i should not be afraid of deleting words, because I have more where those came from!

checked in on time.. 2 hours ago. spend time catching up with emails and modifying acknowledgement. procrastinating really. 30 min lunch break! looks like i'll be here til 7 or 8 tonight because i still have to put in the daily 5 hours!

didn't have much luck with the bibliography yesterday. its starting to haunt me now.

i NEED to be really serious!

any tips? internet clearly has to be minimised. thinking of using it as a reward.

Has anyone cited their own publication in their thesis?

======= Date Modified 14 Aug 2010 17:36:15 =======
well..

good news. i finally finished rephrasing ch.2 which is my literature review chapter. i feel relieved.

however, i still have to do more work on but that' s fine because now it makes sense.

here's what i plan to do in the next 2 weeks:

* Proofread and do bibliography as I go along.

Sun 15 – FREE - Format thesis and Bibliography if am to do any work.
Mon 16 – Read through Ch. 3 -7 to get picture of whole thesis
Tue 17 – Do and incorporate lit review on X
Wed 18 – Do and inc lit review on Y cf. chapters 3,4,5
Thur 19 – Do and inc lit review on Z cf. chapters 3,4,5
Fri 20 – Do and inc review on W cf. chapters 3,4,5
Sat 21 – Polish final draft of ch.2 incorporate previous ch.2 and finish references.
Sun 22 – Address remaining supervisors corrections
Mon 23 –Address remaining supervisors corrections
Tue 24- Address remaining supervisors corrections (including V.)
Wed 25 – Finish methodology referencing.
Thur 26- Proofread & tighten definitions in Ch.1 & 2
Fri 27- Proofread & finish referencing in Ch.3 &4
Sat 28 - Proofread & finish referencing in Ch.5&6
Sun 29- Proofread ch. 7 alongside ch.1 & read through preliminary pages & format.
Mon 30- Finish Bibliography
Sep 1 – give it up. :-(

Off to enjoy my weekend now and recharge my batteries!

So i froze today just thinking of the amount of work left to do. I promised not to watch TV but did. FB is another addiction.

I have managed to finish my bibliography (first draft) and formatting, therefore am reasonably happy with that. but i haven't read thro the thesis or done the literature reviews...

i just feel so afraid of it all. i should just get over it and get moving again doing serious content stuff. whenever i write a timetable i always rebel against it! but at least i have the last two days off the list.

hope you guys are doing better!

off to my desk now.

i have managed a first draft of my literature review!

its actually not as bad as I was expecting! I wil refine it now.

but first.. a cup of tea... 8-)

not much was done after that cup of tea.

todays aim is to finish literature review on X. if am lucky i will also proofread entire thesis.

in the library. fingers crossed.

check in.. i'd be quite happy if i got in 2 more hours of work.

whats left on the list:
Sun 15 -DONE.
Mon 16 – Read through Ch. 3 -7 to get picture of whole thesis
Tue 17- DONE.
Wed 18 – Do and inc lit review on Y cf. chapters 3,4,5
Thur 19 – Do and inc lit review on Z cf. chapters 3,4,5
Fri 20 – Do and inc review on W cf. chapters 3,4,5
Sat 21 – Polish final draft of ch.2 incorporate previous ch.2 and finish references.
Sun 22 – Address remaining supervisors corrections
Mon 23 –Address remaining supervisors corrections
Tue 24- Address remaining supervisors corrections (including V.)
Wed 25 – Finish methodology referencing.
Thur 26- Proofread & tighten definitions in Ch.1 & 2
Fri 27- Proofread & finish referencing in Ch.3 &4
Sat 28 - Proofread & finish referencing in Ch.5&6
Sun 29- Proofread ch. 7 alongside ch.1 & read through preliminary pages & format.
Mon 30- DONE.

I will carry on with Y as planned.

Lesson: working from home does not work for me unless am at a crisis point. i will do everything but work. seeing other people working in the library helps me to focus more. however when i need to make a final copy of anything, i need absolute silence so home works best.

OMG it is so nice to read this as I'm going through the exact same thing. My expected completion date is Sept 1. But I'm terrified! I still feel like I have so much work to do and not nearly enough time... and to boot my sup is out of the country until then... email conversations are VERY tough right now.

Good luck... and it's nice to know someone else is handing in the same time!

wow MJM. so nice to know am not alone! my supervisor is also out of the country and so email is not even an option! i just have to sort everything myself.

i totally understand how you feel. i was so overwhelmed yesterday after having a false start in a noisy library, getting upset and not being able to work all day. i have decided to work from home for the next 10 days (luckily my housemate is away so no distractions whatsoever!) to avoid all distractions and just focus on doing the work rather than thinking of the outcome. am also banned from FB til 8pm in the evenings til next month and am only allowed this site and google scholar and motivational pages on youtube in the day. TV is also banned. and friends too. and non-emergency calls. desperate times require desperate measures.

today i managed to start and finish my literature review on Y. it only took me an hour of self belief and use of already acquired skills to finish it. you can do it. believe it or not!

i intend to work on Z and W in the next two hours and incorporate it in my work in the afternoon.

i have never been so panicked about this process, but

i cannot even allow myself to acknowledge that because it will just cripple me and i won't be able to write anything.

one step at a time. hopefully if i can finish these lit reviews i will be on track timetable-wise. yes its much and there is so much that could be better, but, it has to end at a point and i can improve it in a book. so far it looks good and that's enough.

that's where am at.


i will report back later. all the best in your work MJM. going for short walk to refresh.

J.

Literature review for Z is complete. Not very happy with it, because its too wordy, but I can cut down the words later. Taking an hour's break to have lunch then i'll come back to it and review W.

happy so far. tho am feeling the effect of excess adrenaline and stress - my neck is starting to pain a little.

hopefully a break and a bit of stretching will help. sigh..

Extremely knackered! am happy to report that i've been able to do finish lit rev on W and therefore all the literature reviews Y, Z and W and incorporated them in my work. that should put me back in the game - timewise.

am so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! an early finish today, so fb, TV, phone and friends allowed!