That night when you are working on your references, only to find that half of your citations seem to have been completely made up!!!

Is nobody here using endote (or similar?) It has made editing and reviewing my sources and citations a breeze! On my final 1000 words now - then just the conclusion. Only three weeks to go now...

I used Mendeley - I would have hated having to have done everything manually. Mendeley is so useful.

My university provided Endnote, which was good at the start but the program brought in difficulties with my document, so like Chickpea, I ditched it and reformatted everything the old fashioned way. It was great at the beginning and helped to get it all started but the glitches in my word document from the program did my head in. I've just forced myself to be systematic with citation now. There is still the odd reference though that needs checking or correction and has a big yellow highlight on it. Second supervisor is meticulous about this so gets really antsy any time she reads anything and sees an extra space, an incorrect comma or something that is not APA 6.

I've just finished working through supervisors recommendations for Chapter 4 and am moving onto Ch 5 today. CH 6 and 7 need a reasonable amount of revision, so my timeline is to have completed all suggested revisions prior to Easter and then spend Easter break doing appendices, complete glossary, acknowledgements and abstract. Table of contents being formatted as the headings in each chapter are formalised. Aim to have complete edited draft to both supervisors by April 21st. Provides them with a month to check and then hopefully they will sign me off on a notice of intention to submit on May 20th. Then it would be 8 weeks to submission. Timeline this long as it is all done after hours and part time.

Hi all,

Trying to find some support and advice here because I'm tired of annoying my parents an boyfriend with my endless complaints.
I'm currently in the last year of my PhD, and my supervisor and me agreed on a submission deadline at the end of june.
Still have an awfull lot to write, but I'm totally blocked by fear and panic since some weeks.
I just have the feeling there is way too much information I still have to process, and I have no idea how to start or organise these final chapters. Going to talk to my supervisor today, but I'm very afraid he will say I'm just lazy and mentally not able to do this (which is actually indeed the case). I was in the exact same situation when I was finishing my master thesis and I just can't believe that I put myself into this situation again. I'm just so afraid to crash. I have quite some things to look forward to: my first real time of and holiday after years in July, getting maried in March 2018, and possible funding for a postdoc from January 2018 on. But instead of finding motivation in those things, it feels like I'm drifting further and further away from my future life.. On the other hand, I can't concentrate on my PhD at all and I'm wasting very precious time...

Sorry for all these complaints, just really don't know what to do anymore.

Don't fret Fraps, I was in exactly your position just a few short months ago - I had done a lot of research, but writing it all up seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. I am now 15 days from submission (12 days from printing final version) and am looking at just the conclusion and final 'polishing'. Just tackle it bit by bit - each little section will make a chapter eventually and you will soon get into the flow. Better to get something down and come back to it later.

Having said that, I am now getting 'writing fatigue' - any tips on how to combat that?

Hi everybody,

I am at the end of my fifth year and send in the second draft to my supervisor, but as I was expecting his comments, I found myself in an unexpectedly low mood. I am pursuing a music composition Ph.D., and it had two components. First was the composition and its performance, I completed the composition at the beginning of June and editing the score at the beginning of December, and the performance was on February 3rd. It was awesome and successful. The second is the paper, explaining the research and creation processes and the technical details of the composition, which is the main body of the dissertation and I am writing this document for almost 8-9 months now. I am very close, but after the performance, I feel like I am done the main thing. It is much harder to sit and edit and refine the final paper now, and I must be done with the defense and corrections by April 15. As I was waiting for my supervisors latest comments, I am more anxious than ever before, and I realised that I stopped doing many things I have done before such as taking a walk or taking care of myself and my family.

I feel like every time it takes longer to focus and get into the hard working mood. I am done with this project, but I am not done with it. You know what I mean, right?

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? How can I pull everything together for the final stages? Any boosters? Should I take more vitamin B? Begin to go to the gym again?

Cheers!

Kikima I think you have to actually force yourself to take care of yourself sometimes. And grit your teeth through the bad moments but don't let these moments and the grim thoughts that haunt you during the editing phase prevent you from exercise, decent food, and a movie or something else you enjoy.

You have to actually plan it sometimes. I actually make myself write items on a list. Eg: At 4 pm I will stop and go for a walk/run/swim (whatever) then I will make sure I eat something with some form of nutritional value not just chocolate, nuts or cereal. You don't feel miraculously better but you will feel better over time slowly and you will finish! I tick all items off the list both writing tasks and things like vacuuming or shopping or calling family-it is probably insane behaviour really- but it does seem to work for me. Other people might have other ideas.

I agree with Pjlu - I think you may have to make a conscious effort to do things that will benefit you. I am also guilty of narrowing my focus to either doing the PhD or doing unproductive/unhealthy things like eating rubbish and idling online. It takes an effort to remember to do the stuff that will actually help. This period will be over soon, though, and after a period of readjustment, I'm sure we will all get back into better routines :-)

Urrgh! Work, health and family issues impacted on my beautiful timeline for editing in the last three weeks, and now I am home with a cold, trying to finish edits for Chapter 5, editing the last ten painstaking pages, which seem to be dragging on forever. The edits themselves are not huge but when I put this chapter together, I de-identified my students, but given the size of the sample did not give each one a pseudonym. As the qualitative material I used in this data set wasn't like the huge transcripts and quotes from my third data set of far fewer participants who do have pseudonyms, I thought I could just provide some samples to liven up the trends emerging in my results and to provide samples of categories and types of responses.

Currently going back through masses of data to ensure every last tiny illustrative quote embedded in the chapter sections between frequency tables and text discussion is attributed to the specific student from the entire sample of 178. Somewhat stupidly, I have done everything the old fashioned way-coloured texts, post its, crafted tables and simple excel frequency tables and data (chief supervisor is happy with this process) but I really wish now that I hadn't. I'm posting I think as a warning...or just because...needless to say my timeline for chapter edits is a week or two overdue. Sometimes you can push through and sometimes I think you just have to go with the flow.

Thank you Pjlu, and chickpea for your comments. I appreciate your input. It makes me feel good to know someone else in some other part of the world going through similar things, and yes I will listen to your advice.

I used to run, but since December I am sitting and trying just to finish this thing but finally this week I began to walk again for long distances to gain back my fitness. I think walking is going to make me feel better. I now have the first three chapters with my supervisor's comment's on it, and a few days to finish it. I began to dig into editing again. It feels like he put the same immense amount of comments, but for a reason this time I can do more of it less time, which makes me feel good. Only interesting thing I am making spelling mistakes in both my native language and in English since last week, which I never did to this extent before. I think it is tiredness. But well grammar checkers are for this, right? Well, I better go back to work because my final ever deadline (if I want to graduate this June) is Wednesday, and my supervisor is going to give the rest of it tomorrow, I better be done with the part I have today. Will let you know how that goes. I hope it will go well for you too.