I am writing in a bit of a scattershot way at the moment, having documents on the go for each of my chapters and writing bits as they occur to me. I've also gone back to using my handwritten research journal, which I'd neglected for over a year! I'm finding that on 'poor attention' days (i.e. most of them!) it helps me to hop about and add little bits to various things.

My field is absolutely full of review papers (it seems like every second thing I find in a literature search is a review paper!) so I have just dealt with those in a section of my own review, discussing their main findings. As you say, they tend to be written with their own angle, so I've used them in much the same way that I would use other papers, i.e. as a summary of the work that's already been done and a way of pointing to the gap that I'm researching. I also found lots and lots of papers that weren't included in reviews (as the reviews tend to apply their own filters) so it hasn't really felt like I was duplicating work.

Thanks for the info about submission dates, Pjlu - I'm due an annual review in a couple of months, so I guess the finish date will be discussed then. I think, like Hugh said, there's also an assumption in my department that most people go over their funded period - I will need to go part-time in that case, and work as well. I had three years funding Hugh, which runs out in the autumn.

Congratulations, redridinghood! Hope the future is full of positive things for you!

When I first started my PhD, my supervisor said he had some work for me on one of his studies and I agreed to do it, as I thought it was a good way to start working with him and learn the field a little. In the end, he paid me for this work (which I hadn't expected) and has included me on the paper he wrote (which again I didn't expect), so it was a very positive experience. I think it all depends on the individual supervisor - some will have your best interests at heart and will help you get started, while others may only be thinking of increasing their own publication list. In my case, the extra work was not a lot of work - I think if you were being asked to play a major role in someone else's work, this would be concerning as you need to dedicate most of your time to your PhD. As others have said, if you have a bad feeling about this and it sounds like you would be doing all the work in this other project,, it may be best to look for a different supervisor. If, however, it's a limited amount of work that may be useful to you, then it's not such a bad thing.

I'm in the final year of my PhD too and definitely up for a support/goals/accountability thread! I'm still collecting data which has gone on for way longer than it should have - the joys of needing to recruit from a very specific group of people and finding that it takes forever! I've drafted about three chapters so far (I say 'about' because I have a habit of saving all sorts of documents and bits of writing and then changing my mind about where in the thesis I want to use them!).

Pjlu, have you had a fixed submission date from the start? Is this something you negotiate with your supervisor? All I know is my funding will run out in the autumn, but I have noticed others have a firm idea of when they should submit and I don't!

Fingers crossed you get positive news soon - I am familiar with your story from your posts and really hoping for good news for you!

Is it possible to put it into more objective-sounding terms? For example, instead of saying, 'to my knowledge, no-one has written about X', you could say something like, 'a literature search using the terms 'abc' and 'def' did not reveal any articles on subject X'.

A lot depends on the particular group of people you're looking for. In my case, for example, I contacted lots of agencies who were likely to come into contact with the group of people I was interested in, looked for relevant events I could go to and so on. Are you just looking for general members of the public, or can you focus your attentions on certain groups or places?

Congratulations, glowworm - must be a great feeling to hand in those copies!

Congratulations and thank you for sharing your viva experiences and tips (both of you!) - very helpful for those of us still on the wrong side of viva day!

How is your relationship with your supervisor - are they likely to be sympathetic and supportive if you tell them about your anxiety? I agree with TreeofLife about checking out what you actually need to do; in my experience of talking to my supervisors, very few things are actually mandatory (even when the emails say they are!).

Hi there,

I did a distance learning MSc, and had a break of 2-3 years between the modules and the dissertation, not through choice but because various life events got in the way and I had to keep postponing. The down side of this was that some of the research methods were not fresh in my mind and I had to pedal a bit harder to get back up to speed and do the research, but what I did find was that I had been mulling over my proposal ideas in the time away from it, and felt as if my proposal was a little better developed as a result. I think if you feel this is your only chance to have a proper break and travel, you'll still be able to do the dissertation when you get back - just be aware that you'll need to do some revision!