Sorry PinkNumbers, I'm rubbish with stats so hopefully someone who can help will come along soon....

I achieved my first goal of getting up at 8. Yay.

I was going to bang out 10000 words in 10 days and then spend 2 weeks editing. But I don't think that is going to work because I need time to think. So my first goal is to edit one section that I wrote earlier in the week.

Sorry pink numbers I am useless at stats!

Today I am looking after my friends baby from about 1pm (good deed for the week!) so going to try and be productive for at least the morning! Aim is to read 2 journal articles and include in methodology and to make corrections to abstract.

Thank you you two :) don't worry, I *think* I've sorted it after hours of reading and I'm glad I did, because now I know for myself how to pick, rather than having to bug you lovely people everytime I have to do a stats test :)

so today:
redo my stats I did yesterday with the right tests
run stats on two more variables
write the discussion, limitation and contribution of this study

drop in the second study from a published paper
adapt the second study to fit in better with the chapter

phew! lots to do today, better get on with it. Hope everyone else is having a good day!

Glad you sorted that out, I'm not confident enough with stats to be able to advise anyone else about them yet!

First goal for today was to go swimming, which I've done - feel nicely invigorated now. And like I've maybe pulled a muscle in my shoulder. Ho hum.

Other goals for today:
Email second study hosts about arranging initial interviews
Plan out new version of journal article structure
Start writing journal article background/lit review section

Pink_numbers- your list of goals makes me feel exhausted just reading it. Good luck!

Batfink- I feel your pain re the pulled muscle. I hope it sorts itself out. I've had to put my new deadlift and squat heavy training program on hold because I've had pain in my back the last couple of days (seems to be subsiding though).

I have now achieved my first goal. Next I am going to have a quick shower and think and then edit a second section.

I also have an overall goal of getting the document I'm working on from 3350 to 4000 words.

wooo Batfink, please do take care of your shoulders.

Has anyone thought of hiring a statistician to double check the stats? I was thinking of getting a statistician to just go through what I've done, and just tell me yes I did it correctly. Would this be viewed as unethical?

Anyway, have now redone the stats for the ones I did wrong yesterday. Going to get on with the new stats....

Weights, gym, swimming, I'm exhausted! Watch the shoulder Batfink, it can really drag you down.

Pink, I would be very careful. The whole issue of pro-editing came up in my uni recently with a directive that the practice was to stop immediately. We were all intrigued as to who had gotten their stuff pro-edited - somebody obviously had. I was naive enough to be astonished that some people obviously were getting their stuff professionally edited. A couple of us went online and were amazed at the services that are out there. To us it seemed to emanate mainly from the U.S. Some advertised that you could send them your raw data and they would 'sort' it out statistically for you. Then come your viva you could get them to talk you through why you selected the stat tests you did!!!

I think once you pay for a service your ethics are compromised to a degree. Think how horrible it would be if it came up in your viva. I would be wary and to be honest wouldn't go down that road myself. Def check what the guidelines are where you study.

Hi All,
as I need to regain some motivation I've decided to join you daily on this thread, hopefully it will help :-)
Today I need to deliver some changes on an article that has come back from a journal with the request of corrections/amendments.
It's the second time it comes back from the same reviewer, so hopefully this will be the last and it'll get published. It's a bit of a challenging task to make amendments to a paper which you thought was complete. I have to get it right though as I spent a long time already working on this paper.
Have a good day!

Thank you so much Ady, I sort of agree with you and that's why I wanted to see how other people felt. Someone I know did the whole sending raw data to a service and they told him what to say thing (it was their supervisor's idea!!!), and I thought this was wrong. I can see how what I was thinking is only one step away from this.

But I've also heard of departments who have specialist statisticians that everyone else goes to to have their stats checked... how does that go ethically?

oh no, I wasn't thinking of getting someone else to do the stats for me! :) I just wanted someone to say "yes you chose the right test". I think I will hunt around my department to see who is a stats guru :)

thank you for giving me advice on this, it's such a murky area isn't it?

gosh, sorry Pink I def wasn't implying you would get somebody to do them for you. I remember floundering around during my masters, even crying, no actually bawling my eyes out that I didn't have a clue what I was doing. How I found myself in a quantitative masters I do not know!! I asked my then supv for help as he was a whizz at all things numerical and I remember him looking at me as if I had three heads. I could run the correlation and regressions, print them out but then had no clue what they were saying. Even still I shudder when I think of r squared values. :-(

You're right, it's a murky area.

I have now edited the second section (and cut out 500 words because I don't think it was working. Gah.). I am starting to get a bit bored of this now but will plod on and edit the third and final section.

I'm definitely planning to get a statistician to check my work! But at my university they have a Statistics Support Service where you can book appointments and they'll go through your stats with you to help you choose the right tests and to check you haven't made silly mistakes. I haven't been to any of the appointments yet but I assume it's them explaining/showing what to do and you then going away and doing the rest of the work yourself (and coming back again if you get stuck) - very different to sending off your raw data and getting stats and a cheat sheet back! That sounds outrageous - I can't imagine having the front to present something like that as my own work for a PhD!

Anyway, I'm gritting my teeth because the person sitting next to me has brought a friend over to discuss whatever's on his computer screen, and they've been talking about it for the last hour. But they're not speaking English, so I can't tell what they're saying, and somehow that's even more distracting than being able to understand them and block them out!

Gah. Back to working on my journal paper.