Welcome Patience :-)

Yep, poor Nichola really sounds like she has been through the horrors. I do know somebody though who had to completely resubmit and sit a 2nd viva but she did it in the end and was awarded her PhD so maybe all is not lost for her??

For me it's the level of abstraction required to be drawn from the data that gives me the shivers...not sure I can do it...I can write all right, but I'm not best buddies with theory as I tend to look at things in a very applied way, which often is not what they want in my field.

Yes, its this 'level of abstraction' that worries me. My thesis has qualitative and quantitative elements - the quantitative element is straightforward and just has to be worked through, but finding the right interpretative approach will be key for all of us I suppose. Over the next few months we will have to start firming up our ideas so that when the summer comes we won't be panicking.

I have a September deadline (for a first draft though), too....
As a matter of fact my sups' want me to submit a first draft by then, but I wangt to delay it until Christmas, but because I can't say no (bad thing, I know) I guess I will do it.....
I have already a first draft of my two theoretical chapeters, of my methodology and of my first analysis chapter. I also have the outlines of two more analysis chapters. I am in humanities, so I aim for 80-100,000 words, and I have almost 20,000 in first draft format.
The big BUT is here! BUT I am working FT, and I don't want to get so tired, so I will try to persuade my sups for a later date........

Morning peeps :)

I took a day and a half off, and I am back in working mode. I had all sorts of issues with my laptop and yesterday it all came to a head. So I caved and bought a new one. Sooooo glad I have, it's just sooooo much faster than my previous one :)

Anyway, back on topic, I think the main thing I struggle with is not knowing what I do each day is going to be enough in the end or not... does that make sense? Did I write enough words today to make it to completion on time? Did I do enough analysis for a PhD? Did I cover enough literature? etc. All those unknowns!

I got feedback on my chapter that I wrote most recently, and my sup is happy with it. She said it'll turn into a nice little journal paper :) Gave me loads of additions to make, but I'm not quite sure how I am going to go about doing them. One thing I realised when I saw it on paper, that none of my diagrams make any real sense to anyone but me! ooops. So that'll be 22 figures to redraw...

Hope everyone's weekend is going well.

You sound so upbeat Pink_Numbers that you have kick started me out of my worry-abyss - I can do this, I can, I can, I can ...

Agree about the worry over doing enough each day but I guess the fact that we ARE doing something means we are moving forward.

Hi all,

I agree with the worrying about progress, but I guess at the end of the day, you just have to be happy with the days work and hope that it will be ok.

I'm going to start setting goals for myself to try and keep me on track. So by the end of this week I want to have a draft of the next paper to send to sups. I have been writing this paper for ever (collected the data about 15 months ago) and have really struggled with how it should all come together. I am trying to write my papers differently from each other so that my thesis reads a little more interesting and I also have the opportunity to practise different styles of writing, so with this paper I am combining the results and discussion, and it is killing me! It is so hard, but yesterday I had a mini breakthrough where I pulled all of the paragraphs apart and did a new essay plan, and finally it is starting to make sense.

But throwing a spanner in the works is that I start full time work tomorrow. I havent really worked ft before and it is starting to freak me out a bit. And, making it worse it is a job that I really wanted and will be great for my career. At least wednesday is a public holiday here, so it will be a nice week to ease my self into work
8-)

======= Date Modified 23 Jan 2011 09:46:06 =======
Congrats Fm on the job, sounds fab .

P/t will be tough but you're ahead of the game, with a great job when lots of us are still trawling through the job sections in the newspapers and online. I'm keeping an eye out and if I managed to get offered a job I would take it and write up the remainder of this PhD p/t. I'm actually applying for a job this week - probably out of my league (due to no PhD yet!!) but they are so few and far between that you can't afford to let one slip by you without even trying. I devote a couple of hours once a week job hunting.

Your PhD as a series of papers sounds really interesting as it can be hard to make the traditional format interesting. Anytime I have tried it, my supv inevitably inserts the comment "too chatty"!! A colleague of mine is doing something similar to you and intends toping 'n tailing his 'article' PhD chapters with an introduciton and conclusion. There is an integrated lit review and methodology with each chapter - is yours something similar?

Good luck being the new girl tomorrow(up)

Well I was not quite as productive this weekend with too many distractions, arghh!  Anyway I have further edited ch 5 and am pretty much at the max limit now, woohoo! However, clarification of my arguments always seems to add another 'what if' to the postulation.  I guess this is a good analytical thinking practice, but it means looking back at the refs etc to check on my new thoughts. I suppose in another way it is frustrating to think that I had concrete conclusions to my findings but on reflection perhaps this is not the case......arghh! 

So the word count has been satisfactorily reduced but any additions means some further reductions lol. Ch 6 to slim-line, ch 7 discussion to review  and refs to add in following the latest thoughts. Still have graphs to footnote and fit in somehow.  So no real progress made really then!

Dunni, you DO sound like you made progress over the week-end, you're sooooo close to the end :-)

Re: wordcount - You could try doing a 'which-hunt' as many 'whichs' and 'thats' can be dropped altogether from a lot of texts.

I have supv meeting this morning which I get the feeling is going to be like a mini-viva - am literally trembling :-(

morning troops :)

Another week, another chapter to write. I wish I was as far ahead as you guys! I'm going to try and write my second lit review chapter. I've written this chapter twice already, and it feels ok for a while, but then I see big gaping holes, irrelevant material, etc, and I just have to write it all over again. Am I the only one that has problems like this with the literature review?

I also have an issue with how many literature review chapters to have. My supervisor's thesis was three lit review chapter and a research method chapter. Counting the intro chapter as well, that's five chapters before the reader gets into the meat of the thesis. I would prefer to have two lit review chapters with the research methods woven into it, but I'm not sure if that is ok... what does everyone else think?

Have a good day :)

hey guys, gr8 idea. I am submitting on 15th May (!!) and have a first full draft which I need to a second draft on by March. I am a verrry irregular worker so not much point in me joining this, but i will pop by from time to time. Love and good luck to all!!

hey guys, gr8 idea. I am submitting on 15th May (!!) and have a first full draft which I need to a second draft on by March. I am a verrry irregular worker so not much point in me joining this, but i will pop by from time to time. Love and good luck to all!!

Hi Pink Numbers. My thesis is science-based but I have
ch 1 Introduction with review of relevant lit and final para on aims and objectives of the thesis
ch 2 Data handling and stats overview
ch 3 Circuit design and set-up which has circuit set-up in detail and a whole host of validation methods, results discussion and conclusions
ch 4, 5 and 6 Experimental work with circuit inc aim, method, results, discussion for each chapter
ch 7 overall discussion with limitations and further work at the end

All of my lit review is in ch 1 but is broken into subsections. I guess different disciplines will require different formats.

Thanks Ady, never feels like it is going to finish, yet would love to take some pressure off me and the family if it were submitted!

Thank you Dunni for sharing your chapter layout, it really helps to see how other people do it. I'm guessing you're in the hard science/engineering field from what you have said. I'm across between computer science and social science. I've seen thesis with the 3-lit-then-research-method layout, but I've also seen one-lit then get on with the work, but then have another lit review in the middle of the thesis (?) too.

I'd rather avoid having a seperate research methods if I can, because my (so far) two lit chapters are about how the data is collected, and then analysed in this particular field... I feel somewhat silly to add another chapter of "how we do research"... so my thesis at the moment is:

ch1 - intro, discribing the problem
ch2 - how data is collected in my sort of study
ch3 - how data is analysed
ch4 & 5 - adapting how data is collected for a special group of participants
ch 6 - new way to analyse the data
ch 7 - automating the analysis
ch 8 - what I found from doing all that (actual data analaysis rather than how-to-do-analysis)
ch 9 - conclusion