Hi,

I'm starting late as well, but it happens every time I move from the office to home. I would probably be more productive at the office, but I hate being there on Sundays; it is a bit too depressive I think. Anyway being here gives me the chance to do all those little things that keep us alive and also have to be done; like cleaning the flat, doing the shopping and having proper meals ;-)

So, I'll go back to work on that chapter 3. If at least half of it is finished (discussion on strategic change) today, and I can start organising the material for the other half (discussion on technological change) tonight, I will be not completely disappointed.

Well done, girls, for coming back to work on a Sunday. Just keep it up; whatever we finish today might not be ready, but it will be definitely finished so we can move on to other things that also need to be done.

Back soon,

To outline your thesis structure try to write to these prompts:

Background/Context/Review of literature/Introduction
.The subject of the research is important because...
.Those who have worked on this subject include...
.What has not yet been done is...
.The research project aimed to...

Theory/Methods/Approach/Materials/Subjects
.This study was based on the approach of...
.This approach was chosen because...
.It was likely to achieve the project aims by...
.Others have used this method to...

Results/Analysis
.The steps in the research involved...
.Analyses were conducted by...
.Data/information/observations were gathered as...
.These were organised into...

Discussion/Interpretation
.Analysis suggested that...
.This interpretation was based on...
.Taken together the analyses show...
.Research aims were achieved to the extent that...

Recommendations/Implications/Conclusions
.Future research is needed in order to...
.More information is needed on...
.Practice could be improved by...
.Proposed changes would be feasible if...

Pick each set of prompts and try to answer them in a different document. Some of it you can not know, since you have not finished your analysis, but by know you should have an idea,so try to write as much as possible without having to go to the literature, just try to squeeze out everything that is in your mind, and then it will be a lot easier to spot gaps that need to be filled.

Hi Mira,

I'm glad you started this discussion because only with this kind of chats we can organise our thoughts and bring them down to the final writing up of the thesis. I have to warn you though, there is no easy way to go about it and the more you try to rush it the more frustrating the whole process becomes. So I recommend that you have some patience, especially at the start of your analysis and writing.

Your project must be very similar to mine, since I'm studying strategic change in organisations due to the use of ICT. It is a case study, so it is qualitative and based on in-depth interviews, among other sources of data. I have 7 chapters: 1 introduction, 2 literature review on organisational change, 3 more focused review on strategy and technology and theoretical framework, 4 methodology, 5 case study narrative, 6 analysis, 7 conclusions.

So, I suppose the best way to go about your question is to break down the task. Now, because of your deadline, the first thing you need to do is to structure your thesis. There is a book that I found quite helpful:

Rowena Murray, 2002; How to Write a Thesis; 2nd Edition.

I'll give you some advice from the book in another post. In my experience, if you do not know where to start structuring the thesis, it is very difficult to come up with something like a table of content, or even titles for the chapters. So what you should do is to start writing down your ideas after the appropriate prompts (I'll give you some in the other post), and then the structure will emerge.

That is fantastic progress. Jaysus! 5000 words, I wish I could write that much. Tomorrow I'll try again... what else can I do :p But now, I also am very tired so I'm going to bed as well.

Have a good night Rubyw.

Lara, great effort. I hope you finish your reading soon so you can go to bed.

Back in the morrow.

I think you need Java for this forum. Do you have the latest version? I also use firefox on a PC and does take a while to let me write when I open the box to post; but it's only some seconds.

Thanks Lara, will do :-)

And I pay your :-s:-s just to see your game (pile of papers, that is) lol

======= Date Modified 30 Aug 2008 20:43:57 =======
So, I'm ironing the chapter and it feels like I'm making progress since I go through it a lot quicker -as I said there is a lot of material already written in this section- the downturn is that as I edit and trim it down from redundant information, the word count goes down. :-(

I just hope that it does not get too far below the 9000 mark before I can start filling in some more gaps with more new writting, which will make it very slow again, and worst, I'll have to re-read more papers. :-s Will it ever end??

Anyway, right now I'm pretty tired and I'm heading home to have some dinner; later I might come back to it.

How are you girls doing?

Hi Lara and Rubyw,

I've written some additional 500 words to that section and I'm probably half way through it. This was new writing and what comes next is to edit all that other bits and pieces that I dragged from other papers, so hopefully I'll see much better progress from now on.

I need a bit of a break and to sit down on a confy chair away from the computer, so I'll go have a snack; but I think I'll have to go through another paper while I'm at it.

From your posts I'd say that we are actually getting quite a few things out of the way, so I'd say we are making good progress, aren't we?

Hi Girls,

Just checking in. I'm glad to have you at the other end of this forum keeping me company. Today I read another paper while having breakfast and no I'm ready (as ready as I can be, I suppose) to finish that section. So I'll get to it and come back later to report on progress.

Talk soon,

Since I took a longer break than I should have while having my dinner (I also saw a film on the telly), I thought I'd make it up by going through a couple of papers before going to bed. Well, I did that, and now I have a slightly better idea of what I have to write on that section. I couldn't do any more tonight, so I'm going to bed.

Talk to you girls in the morrow.

So, I've partially organised the next section and started filling in gaps. I've got some thousand words already in it, but must of it is just copy-pasted from previous writing, so it doesn't make much sense. I need to do quite a bit of editing and some new writing, but at least the new bits are not that many and it is information I'm well acquainted with, so should be able to get through that soon enough.

Right now though, I'm wrecked and starving so I'm going home to get something to eat before doing anything else.

8-)

======= Date Modified 02 Sep 2008 10:08:20 =======
Mira,

...How I've got over that (and this is where the advice comes in) is rationalising the fact that I'm doing this to learn how to do research and if nobody is going to tell me how to do it, then it's going to take a bit longer than expected, but I'll do it any way. An added difficulty, is that writing is part of the skills that we need to learn, but again, nobody tells you that, or how to develop those skills; and worst, supervisors won't give you feedback but on written work, so you are bound to be wrong one way or another, at least until you learn how to write (in academic terms, that is). So what I recommend you do is to write and submit on time. If its not finished, it doesn't matter, at least that will give you something to discuss and you can get advice on how to finish up your writing. In time, you'll get better at finishing pieces of writing even though you know they are not ready; but that is the whole point of the feedback to discuss how best to improve what you already have.

Now, I can also give you some advice if you want on how to structure your thesis, but that's going to have to wait. Right now I have to go back to the thesis if I want to go home before midnight. Perhaps you could start a thread on that and some more people could comment on their personal ways to go about writing.

Back soon,

Good job lads!

So, I just managed to add 500 words and a table to chapter 3 which make for a finished subsection (final draft like). It's the kind of discussion that says: "I know all about this, but it is not the right theory for my study because of... bla, bla, bla." So some analysis went into it and I dealt with the issue in such a way so I do not have to come back to it any more. Jays! this thinking business is so hard ;-)

Good work Rubyw, you must have some more words on top of those 300 already. Good for you, keep it up.

How is the paper reading going Lara? When I'm reading like that I tend to go a bit uneasy because every time I hit something in the paper that gives me an idea for the writing, it immediately knocks me out of concentration and then I can not finish reading and if I go back to writing, since I didn't read the whole thing, the idea is usually gone, so no gain. Now what I try to do is to read everything fully and force my self to have some patience until I've read it all (either the full paper, chapter, or just the section that I'm reviewing), make some notes, and only when it makes perfect sense in my head, I try my luck writing up whatever came out of it. Otherwise I keep jumping back and forward without going any further.

Now I think I should take a bit of a break and eat something.

Back soon. Come on girls, keep going (up)

Same here, I can barely understand politics in my own country, let alone what politicians say or do in others, sorry :-(