Thanks for that IntoTheSpiral. 'Abandoning' chapters is a good way to think about it. Good luck to you - you are so close!!

Hi all, I thought I'd pop back. Posted a while ago, but found myself comparing myself unfavourably to you all. Why does everyone else seem sorted? Why can't I internalise my own successes? I'm still planning on handing in on the 7th Oct, and thought I might be able to touch base in these last weeks. Hope everyone's work going well. I'm waiting on comments on my draft, and the limbo has brought all the old demons to the surface. Ahh, well, last push!

Hi myoldmonkey, I will be handing my thesis in to my supervisor next month to see if it is ok to submit and I have many fears about this e.g. that they will come back to me with lots of amendments, or worse, tell me that it is not up to standard as a whole! They haven't seen some of my earlier chapters for 2 years and these have been re-written a number of times now- I am here thinking 'what happens if I have to write them all again?' So, I think the return of old demons is completely normal. That being said, I am excited to get it handed in to them just so I don't need to look at it for a little while.

When are your comments due back?

How is everyone doing? What are your plans this week?

I am still on with careful editing and applying feedback...I have now completed 8 of 10 chapters :o I then have a lot of appendices to edit- over 200 pages of them. This seems like a lot of pages for appendices...do you guys feel that this is acceptable? It is a qualitative longitudinal study which is why there is just so much material!

Mine is 100 pages. I probably could've got 200 pages but I reduced it dramatically, and only included the very essential things.

My appendices are going to be quite hefty as well, although I am hoping that the whole thing will still be able to be bound in one book - must check the upper page limit for that. Are you both including things like sample transcripts? I was thinking of just putting in a page or two of a transcript with workings to show my analysis - one of my supervisors thought I'd be putting in all my interview transcripts, but I don't see the point in putting in all that raw data and besides, my thesis would then be ridiculously enormous!

I am not placing in any sample of transcripts. I haven't seen any thesis with transcripts.

I didn't see any point in including them either. I was just going to put in a page or two to show the stages of my analysis, rather than including that directly in the chapter.

I have not included sample transcripts. The reason they are so long is I justified as part of my methodology that each participant had an individual focus in the analysis- there are good reasons for this but it took me a few pages of my thesis to explain...the appendices basically prove I did this as they include summaries of participants' stories over an 18 month period.

Chickpea- Mine won't fit in to one because of my appendices. The full body of my thesis and reference list will, but the appendices for me are having to go into a separate volume. At my uni, the max amount of pages that can be bound into one volume is about 330. However, I am sure a friend who completed last year told me hers was 500 roughly and that fit so I will just have to find out I suppose!

Hi guys, just checking in again. Anticipate a full draft of all chapters by next Wednesday, then off to supervisors while I edit, re-draft, start on the conclusion and abstract and work on my bibliography, etc. 41 days til hand in. October will be a stressful month.

Sounds like you're almost there! It is great to hear everyone checking in about how close they are to the finish line, even though I still feel swamped :-)

What are everyone's remaining goals this week? How long until final submission for everyone else?

Printing in 7 days, submitting in 8. Currently working on the Discussion and Conclusions. Hoping to finish the first draft of that this evening. Then, tomorrow and Saturday I plan to work on the Discussion and write up of the last two experiments, because they're a bit weak. Sunday is for improving the lit review, which is again, a bit full of holes. Then, Monday - Thursday i'll be editing madly and sorting out the appendices and references. I ought to write the Abstract at some point too.

Thank f*** I've already formatted the thing. Or, I might be tempted to PANIC.

Okay, I am panicking slightly and I've eaten a whole bag of Percy Pigs today. Whoops.

Percy Pigs! Mmmm.

That is one busy schedule but I am sure you will do it :) I am editing my final findings chapter at the moment, hope to have this done by Tuesdayish then use the rest of next week to edit the conclusion chapter. I then need to spend a solid week sorting the appendices e.g. proof reading them, editing them (there are a lot!) I then told myself I would print the thing and read it all through one last time before it goes to my sup but I am very quickly running out of focus and motivation to do that!

I know it is not helpful when people say 'don't panic' but try to just take it one day at a time to avoid becoming overwhelmed if you can! We sabotage our own motivation and focus when we start to think about EVERYTHING at once.

Good luck, both of you! I sometimes think that final push can be the most productive bit of all - certainly I need that feeling of a deadline approaching before I can seem to work to my full capacity :-)

I'm hoping to finally submit before Christmas, but the earlier the better really. Today my goal is to work out how I'm going to present the stats section of my quants chapter - it has been so long since I did any quants that it's a bit like another language!