I am right there with you Hugh! I set myself the goal of getting a discussion section finished in my final findings chapter today...but it is now past midnight and I keep thinking of extra discussion points to add in. I then enter a process of 'should I? Shouldn't I?' in terms of 'should I open this can of worms?' knowing that it will probably drive my word count incredibly high, but then finding good reasons why I do need to include it etc.

In terms of 'linking everything back' Chickpea, I have found that despite doing an incredibly thorough literature review, I have to include additional literature throughout my findings chapters and it would not be possible to include everything I have mentioned in my literature review. The literature review is going to undergo a thorough rewriting in a couple of months though (dreading that!)

I spoke to an old undergrad tutor of mine recently at a conference and she said it wasn't really an expectation that everything in the findings/discussion should link to everything in the literature review which calmed me considerably! You are right Chickpea- if one attempted this the literature review would me enormous! I have found myself sometimes (embarrassingly) scratching my head over some points in the discussion then realising that these particular points are in the literature review and that I need to refer back to them. I have found myself forgetting what I have written since I wrote it a couple of years ago!

I know - I am glad I got a literature review of some sort down while the papers were still fresh in my head - it would be impossible to write anything substantial about some of them now! It's good that your old tutor said not everything needs to be linked up - one of my worries has been that something will strike the examiner as an interesting/important point and then I'll never refer to it again!

I'm struggling with having lots of results but not able to include all of those in the discussion ... or else it'll be a lengthy discussion, difficult to read and digest ... I wonder if its ok to leave some things in results without bringing them in the discussion?

Btw how long have you all allocated for your supervisor's feedback on the first full draft thesis?

One month?

I was thinking maybe a month, Hugh. It seems to me like it would be an awful lot of work to read and comment on an entire thesis, but my supervisors have moved at the speed of light with my chapters so far.

The closer I get to the end of my funded period, the more I think I am going to be combining working and doing the final tweaks to my thesis anyway! I know everyone's different, but I've discovered it actually makes me feel better about it to think that I don't have this huge set-in-stone date ahead of me, so I think I'm going to concentrate on getting all the chapters written and then see what happens with the timing for doing final edits etc.