My deadline (registration deadline, so absolute, barring extensions) is March 2010, so I'm in a similar boat. My thesis is virtually finished but I'm currently sorting out the chapters, making it all work as an overall argument, rewriting intros and conclusions to chapters etc.

My supervisor gave me a lot of help with coming up with a central argument. It was pretty important because my PhD throughout has been a pretty open-ended exploration, so tieing it down to a final 'argument' wasn't easy. And some of my chapters are still too much interesting journeys, rather than an argument. I've been advised to address this by rewriting the intros and the conclusions, and always thinking about each sub-section of a chapter in terms of 'so what'.

As for stopping reading: just do it! Your thesis has to be about your contribution. If you fill gaps full of references to other people's work it's going to look as though you don't have enough to say about what you've done, and why it's important. Focus on that for now and ignore the rest. Surely you have enough secondary material after all this time?

Good luck!

What's wrong with A-ha and Human League? :p Child of the 80s me you see.

I'm going to answer well, because I've nearly finished and expect to submit before my final registration deadline. I've nearly finished the thesis and am just doing final polishing/edits over the next few months, very slowly. But if you'd asked me anytime in the previous 2.5 years (I'm a part-time student) the answer would have been much worse.

It's a horribly up and down process. More down mostly than up. But at the moment I'm positive.

Hi Alpacalover. Glad to hear that your lecturing week went well. Good luck with the new job on Monday. Definitely chill out before then. And well done your partner on his Masters score. I studied my Masters part-time, so can understand what he's going through with that.

I'm still working away on thesis edits, but generally around 8-9pm in the evening, or a bit later. Though I managed to do 3 hours last night which was really good, filling in a substantial gap which needed to be filled. Find that a time of day I can manage, and it leaves me nearer to normal sleeping times.

So I'll still be nocturnally working for some time yet, but not as extremely nocturnal as before.

Sorry for scaring you Teek! I'm a very part-time student, so have very little good time each week to work on the PhD. So a March deadline seems incredibly close, hence my panic.

But if you're full-time then June isn't so bad. You do need to discuss when you're going to focus on writing though, because it will be very time-consuming. Also I agree with Alpacalover that the timetable needs to be realistic to take into account a supervisor reading drafts of chapters etc. I found that much slower than my writing, but if you're up against a deadline your supervisor should turn things around more quickly.

Do you have writing deadlines? When I started writing properly I agreed dates by which I'd send drafts of each chapter to my supervisor. Then had to try to stick to them. That focused the mind a lot.

Then again if you're still in the research phase that's not so crucial, but do you have other deadlines to keep things moving on?

It's the terror that motivates me :) My official university deadline is next March. Looming very soon!

Hi Teek. I'm pottering about - doing more easy thesis edits. Nearly finished them, then the hard edits start!

When I was writing my thesis chapters I worked on 2 chapters at a time: 1&2, 3&6, 4&5. Then 7, the conclusions. I found it important to focus on each chapter to get it done, but wanted 2 of them at a time so I could get a little variation and not get completely bored.

Now I'm doing the final rewriting/edits stage and am working through the whole thing in a series of phases. Starting with the easy edits, then moving on to the hard ones, and so on. Very slowly. Will get there eventually!

Good luck with the working tonight.

======= Date Modified 13 Oct 2009 22:32:38 =======

Good luck with the chapter editing Sue. Chapter 6 eh! Sounds good. How many are you aiming for altogether? I just have 7, but I seem to recall you might have a fair number more?

Editing's going ok but I can only do it for so long, so plan to keep going for another half hour or so, and then have a break. Have something else I need to be doing as well, but have made a deal with myself that I'll tackle it after these easy edits are done. Only a few more dozen pages of detailed scribbles to work through.

======= Date Modified 13 Oct 2009 20:51:09 =======
Fair enough. Next step then I suppose would be to see whether changing funding to another institution is at all feasible. It varies depending on the funding source. You're going to have to make detailed enquries about this, and you should do so very quickly before getting too far into your current institution.

Good luck!

Ooh lots more posts since I was last here. I'm currently trying to put in 1-2 hours every night or so around about 8/9pm, finishing off the easy thesis edits. I could do this in the middle of the night, but this way I still get things done, then get very tired neurologically, and go to sleep at the right time. Still sleep far too much (up to 17 hours, day after day after day), but at least the thesis is moving on. So I am still a nocturnal worker, but not quite so much in the middle of the night. Though I expect to revert to the other pattern sooner or later!

I drew up a to-do list of what I've left to do for the thesis. It's quite broad-ranging, but made me feel that it's tackleable. Hoping to have things finished up by around Christmas, but expect to need the last few months I'm allowed to wrap things up neatly.

I looked into changing university a few years ago, after my supervisor moved 500 ways ago. My funding council (AHRC) has provision for this, but the impression I got was that it would only be supported in extreme circumstances. There were also big questions over whether the other university would have accepted me as an incoming student.

As for picking up funding again it can be done. I'm on my second funded PhD, originally being funded by EPSRC 15 years ago, but having to leave a full-time PhD after falling seriously ill long-term. But when I applied for funding the second time I was asked to declare past funding I had received. You can fib about this, but I wouldn't recommend it. I explained why I'd had to leave the other PhD (extremely good reasons), and why the second would be more successful (boiling down to being part-time this time). Plus of course EPSRC->AHRC is one heck of a switch.

I would have thought your better option would be to try to improve the support you're getting at your existing university. Best to talk to your supervisor about this. At the very least you should talk to them about your concerns, and if you're considering switching.

Go ahead with the meeting and explain the problems you've had. Best to talk about these things up-front, and your supervisor should be able to give you advice on where to go next. If it was me I'd email my supervisor a short note to say the problems I've had, but say I want to have the meeting anyway to discuss how best to move forward.

It's not an unusual situation to be in during the PhD. The important thing is to face up to the problem and move forward effectively, with your supervisor's help.

Good luck!

Please feel free to stay in this thread Alpacalover, especially since three of us have very similar deadlines. Good luck settling into the new job.

I'm settling down for more thesis edits at the moment, while watching the Antiques Roadshow. It's perfect wallpaper telly which doesn't require much attention, while I can still do the thesis stuff.

Ok so much for my not working at weekends :) Been sitting up doing some more thesis edits, and also mulling over how to rework one of my more troublesome chapters. Managed to put in a couple of hours which is really good going by my standards. But going to sleep now. Happy with progress.

My supervisor was 500 miles away from me by the time this happened, so long meetings were out. Basically what he did was write a couple of pages feedback on the chapters I'd sent him, and he summed up what were the fundamental problems with my writing style in a couple of sentences. It shouldn't take your supervisor that long to give you similar feedback, and it's their job to help you through this, so make sure they do!