"What does happen anyway?"
Hopefully, before you submitted the thesis, you and your supervisors would have discussed and agreed on a potential team of examiners. These recommendations would have been submitted to your Uni research degrees committee who would have mulled over your suggestions and then approved the team (or asked for alternatives). Sometimes, this procedure doesn't happen until after you've submitted, in which case there can be a long delay.

Wickid, you are so right about mulled wine. We've already planned the lab 'mulled wine and mince pie' evening, yum!

As someone wise once said, there is only one way to do your PhD, and that's your own way.

http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/staffpages/richardb/PhDtalk.html

By definition, PhDs are novel pieces of research and as such, you are (or you hope you are!), the only person doing that specific project. Hence, it's not really valid to compare your progress to other students. Just do your best and hope for the best

Christmas!!!!

3 extra hours asleep? Lovely, what a kind, considerate clock!

You're welcome, good luck with your analysis!

Re: the 50 studies

With a meta-analysis, it's not (usually) a question of pre-determining a set number of studies to analyse. If it is the type of meta-analysis also known as a 'systematic review' then you will need to look at ALL the studies that have been performed that investigate the topic that you are interested in. Ask your supervisor to clarify this for you.

It is generally advised to have more than one person checking the studies that are found to see if they meet the required criteria - this is very important for studies that may be borderline.

I don't think it's realistic for someone to expect you to do this on your own with no guidance, if you have never done one before or had any training.

You need a friendly statistician to help you out! Most Unis will have some kind of facility for getting staff/postgrads statistical advice, ask the postgrad office or maybe your supervisor?

Meta-analyses are complex, especially the literature search. If you want it to be publishable, then you will need to ensure that your search is as thorough as possible and that you have dealt with (or attempted to deal with!) such things as file-drawer bias/publication bias i.e. negative results tend not to be published and hence, if your search only reveals published studies (which tend to be positive) this can bias your results. Ways to check for unpublished studies are to search the Index of Theses and to contact researchers in the field to ask if they have unpublished work.

As far as I know (not got masses of experience but have undertaken a meta-analysis course), the actual analysis is relatively quick. The lengthy part is identifying and capturing all the relevant literature and wading through it to ensure that studies meets the criteria you require. However, it sounds as though somebody has already done that part for you?

This doesn't count as an old thread, it is a legendary thread!!

Hello 404, nice to have you back!

Pea, that is exactly what I thought - although if Jojo is planning to write 6000 words...?

Jojo - in science (my field), it is definitely a good thing to have work published (as conference abstracts and full journal papers) as you undertake your PhD. It shows that your work has undergone peer review and found to be acceptable.

Clearly not an abstract as you say yours was accepted. I'm sure it was no mistake, it's very normal to feel nervous but I'm sure you'll come through with something great, good luck with it

Excuse my ignorance (after 9 years of postgrad research!) but what exactly is meant by a 'conference paper'? Do you mean you need to write your presentation i.e. produce slides and something to say about them, or do you mean produce a poster or an abstract? NB this is a genuine question, I often see posts on here talking about a 'conference paper' but it's not a term I've ever see anywhere else (could it be a social science thing?).