Great thread! Nice to have something uplifting for a change.

I love my PhD because...

1) I'm nearly ready to upgrade
2) That paper I've been struggling with for 2 weeks is now writing itself well
3) I love my research topic and the endless puzzles it weaves for me
4) It's the ultimate (intellectual) challenge

Sounds to me like you're not in a great position at present. I'd hate it if my supervisor took off at this stage of the PhD... it's when you feel most vulnerable, unsure of what's coming, etc. Do you have other options? In my Insitute, we have safeguards against being left completely in the lurch like this - supervisory panels, head of school, etc. Is there someone you can speak to (maybe even the internal examiner, if you have one)... just to look at your options in terms of having a mock viva set up, talking through what happens post-submission, etc. If all else fails, there's a good book out there called "The Doctoral Examination Process" by Penny Tinkler and Carolyn Jackson which is quite helpful in spelling out what to expect. Hope you manage to sort things out and good luck with your submission.

If you're stuck for things to say... try keeping a notepad as you work, write down any questions or ideas that come to you and ask your supervisor what he thinks. Also, chatting doesn't always have to be about work... it's good to pass the time of day too... If you have a meeting scheduled, plan for it... think of two or three things you could talk about then ask yourself why you want to talk about them and how your supervisor could help you with them or move your forward. I find plans help when I get tongue-tied. Or, you could take a diagram or some printouts of your work and talk through those. Try to think of your supervisor as a help rather than a hindrance.

Hi yick

Not sure if this will help but your problem sounds like one I had with my supervisor initially. He's a real nice guy and we now get on very well (18 months in). The issue for me was never really with him but with my perception of him in the guise of supervisor. I was intimidated by his sense of authority over me... the notion that he would be judging me all along the way (and I'm part-time and not under his nose at all... so that was kind of strange). Anyway, he saw this nervousness in me whenever we got together to talk and we figured things out. Some of us simply need more space/distance and when our actions are being measured, that space can feel invaded. Maybe that's what you're feeling?

(Continued) - That way, you should be able to get through the needed refs quickly. The searching might take longer, of course. Good luck!

What's your subject area? On the references thing - you don't need to read all the texts in their entirety... just do the search, skim read them. If you've done some work before, you should already have some key words to use. You can use the same key words to search the actual text to find useful quotes/refs... (just use Find in Word). Tip - be organised about it. Keep all new papers in a folder and date them... e.g. 070214 Keyword-Title - that way, it's easy to group things together.

Hi Rosy,

Just a note of encouragement and to say I know how you feel. Not upgrading quite yet but I elected to give a seminar this Friday before faculty... and, yup, like you - have been procrastinating for the best part of a month. So, here I am, late at night, reading, analysing, thinking, etc.

Continuing next post...

Ah, but you gave a bugger when you began, no? Don't worry, we all get to this point... sometimes we even act upon it (sounds like fun - commune in the Himalayas). Yeah, doing a PhD is strange and few people 'get it' unless they're involved in one... that said, there are highs amongst the lows and it feeds the brain.

If you have something interesting to say, you'll have an audience... if you don't have anything specific to say, think about the things you've done so far for PhD - see if you can pinpoint something particularly interesting - if it interests you, it might interest others in the field - there's your starting point.

Read journals, speak to people, get to know how others got published. Make contacts, seek advice. I just had my first peer reviewed article accepted this week. It was a long hard slog but I'm happy now.

Incidentally, I'm halfway through second year of my PhD.

Getting published is a good thing... but don't just jump at it because it sounds nice. It's hard work!

A good way to get started is to do a book review. Check out the publications in your field and write to the editor and ask if you could write a review. Be aware that it can take up to a year for an article to go from initial query to publication and inbetween that time, there are many stages to go through... submission, peer review, provisional acceptance (usually), revisions and rewriting... and so on.

Another thought, the Brain allows you to attach all kinds of documents as well as hyperlinks to web pages, etc. The one disadvantage is that as it grows, the deeper links/nodes are harder to track. Anyway, not sure if these are what you were looking for.

You could try Freemind or The Brain (mindmapping software). Freemind is open source and free but more limited. The brain is pretty cool and relatively inexpensive for a personal edition (although a networked web edition is very expensive).

http://www.thebrain.com/
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Some discussion on Visual Mapping here:

http://elgg.net/mcwacky/weblog

Yeah, past tense (and that takes getting your mind around!). Just finished my first draft and it was a T^Y%£^%^ to get going with it -
I just couldn't figure it out at all. Then I realised that I needed to situate my research in the methodological literature (qualitative, quantitative, positivist, etc.) and it was okay pretty much after that. Agree that a good place to start is a very brief intro para linking back to earlier chapters and what's been discussed there, followed by a brief outline of what the methodology chapter includes and why. Best of luck.

Hi BigDave

Welcome to the forum. I live about 40 miles from my uni too and go in once or twice a month on a weekend to use the library. I work full-time and study part-time. In my first year I was also in on evenings for core course research modules, so it wasn't too lonely and I got to build up a group of PhD buddies. I'm researching technology in education and semiotics. I try to get in sometimes to interesting seminars as they pop up as well, usually end up meeting like-minded friends. I've also begun to build up a network of email PhD buddies - gets kind of necessary, staves off the loneliness. Good for advice, as well.

I have my first 'biggish' presentation a week tomorrow at an international conference... also feel a tad scared but just keep making myself bite the bullet... only way to learn, I think.