Hello again people! it is comforting to see i'm not the only one freaking out a bit at this point in time. hope everyone is clinging onto their sanity!

i'm getting so bored of cutting and pasting bits of writing and changing chapter structures. you get to the point where you wonder if the changes you're making actually improve anything or whether its just a waste of time! just put two Lit Review chapters together after my supervisor advised me to, but now i have one huge Lit Review chapter and another teeny Lit Review chapter. don't know whether to just bung the teeny chapter in with the huge one and just have one really huge Lit Review chapter cos it feels weird having one massive one and one teeny one...

*sob* this really is the hardest bit isnt it? going slowly mental (sprout).... ;-)

Right after starting last chapter on June 14th I think that's my final draft of it written on the 17th July. It is 20,000 words so I will maybe have to cut off a couple of thousand but I think it's generally good quality. Sending it now to my sup and will get feedback when we meet Tues next week.

I'm looking at redrafting and formatting to strict MLA style the other 4 chapters now. I have chapter 1 finished and chapter 2 looks like it'll need a good bit of attention. Still I'm happy enough that I'm on track. Meeting the deadline of 15th Sept will all depend now on sup's comments on final chapter. Yikes.

I love that quote - it pretty much sums up my life right now! I too am so fed up with cutting, pasting, shifting, putting it back, taking it out, putting it back in, shifting pp xx-xx to the end of the chapter then moving it to the middle. Arggghhhhhh My sup has asked to see the whole lot again for a last minute wizz through it - he is brilliant like that, I just can't wait now to do the final formatting and submit the darned thing. A friend who graduated a couple of years back advised against over polishing - as she said, after the examiners have torn it apart and moved pp xx-xx back to the back AGAIN it all needs going over and doing yet again - can't help myself though!
I've nearly finished my acknowledgements now, my toner has arrived for the printer I'm borrowing from a friend, its all slowly coming together but STILL seems so far off. 9 days max now....(sprout)

Ha ha! That's brilliant, we are basically all Oscar Wilde! That's actually a really good coping mechanism, if we convince ourselves we're Oscar and flounce about being all witty and decadent it may help the mental torture...

...i shall watch my Oscar DVD (amazing film with Stephen Fry in it) when I get home tonight.

Remember my darlings, "we are all sitting in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" (might have got that quote a bit wrong, bit you get my drift!)

:-)

Carrying on with the Oscar Wilde theme, I think I have reverse Dorian Gray syndrome. ie there is a picture of me somewhere looking all freshfaced but since the PhD I have become an unrecognisable deformed fatter uglier greyer haired wrinkled version of myself!

What a dull and horrible day it is today - still, they are promising a heatwave next week which is spurring me on to sort out the remaining bits, get it printed (no mean feat in itself) and try and submit prior to the 27th so that I can enjoy the first week of the summer holidays with the kids, and go out into the daylight and get some Vit D (I'm sure I'm deficient :-))

So.... today I am completing my acknowledgements, proof reading and correcting the final two chapters and hopefully driving to campus to collect the laser printer my friend (who submitted last month) has so very kindly offered to lend to me to save me from my very slow, very unreliable, and very expensive to 'feed' inkjet - I am, of course, indebted to her for life now :-) It occured to me last night that, providing my sup doesn't find anything catastrophic that has evaded us so far in my finalised chapters, this will be the last weekend that I work on this (don't mention corrections - that doesn't count :p) I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself!

So far today I've been through and checked all my figures and tables and made sure that the numbering and referencing within the text is correct. I did a lot of cutting and rewriting and moving entire sections in the final write up after I got my full draft back, and became aware that some of the numbering had gone haywire. I thought that Word dealt with that - but obviously not... Now off to reorder the list of tables and figures

Can anybody put me straight on order of the thesis - I keep reading conflicting things - obviously its title page first, but then I have abstract, acknowledgements and contents page and I'm not sure on the order. I'm presuming contents first, but then do you put the abstract, or the acknowledgements?

Hey Stressed, it sounds like you are on track. Your uni should have a format of how to present your thesis and what order things need to go in.
This is a reduced version of what my uni asks for: 4.1. The following items (a-h) must be included as preliminary pages of the thesis in
the order given:
a. APPROVED ELECTRONICALLY GENERATED COVER-PAGE
b. TITLE PAGE
A title page giving:
c. LIST OF CONTENTS
A list of contents, giving all relevant sub-divisions of the thesis and a page number
for each item.
d. OTHER LISTS
Lists of tables, figures, diagrams, photographs, abbreviations etc.
e. ABSTRACT
f. LAY ABSTRACT (not compulsory)
A lay abstract may be provided in addition to the standard abstract described in
section 4.1e.
g. DECLARATION
h. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

OK, 11 days to go. I've finished my last chapter and am pleased with it, my supervisor is having a look and will get back to me on Monday. I hope she is OK with it. I haven't stuck to my plan so am worried about fitting everything in now. Today I am re-jigging another chapter and hope that can all be done today. If I do enough work I am treating myself to a couple of drinks at the pub and an Indian take away.
I then have to re-jig another chapter, re-write the introduction and do my conclusion - two days for each and I still have 4 days to put all the appendices etc together and get it printed. If I stick to this things should be fine........

Sounds like good progress Pam! As I look at my countdown clock I have 7 day, 7 hours, 29 mins and 01 sec to get this thing done! Was up til 4am putting references in short form, didn't feel tired so felt I might as well keep going. All that is left to do now is finish writing the conclusion, which I have to say keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the pile cause I don't really know where to go with it, and tie up loose ends. Sending the completed thing to my supervisor Saturday so it needs to be done by then. Anyone got any tips on writing a good conclusion?! I'm struggling big time- defo the hardest bit. Thanks

A week to go! I am behind on my list of things to do - so I made another list. I have spent the weekend doing some fairly straightforward stuff which I should have done ages ago but kept putting it off thinking it wouldn't take me long. Today I am up bright and early so am working on rejigging a chapter - mainly just re-doing the intro and conclusion. I have to get this done today - no slacking.
How is everyone else doing?

Good luck Pam and other fellow pushers! I've less than 3 weeks to go. Re-writing lit review which needs to be done today and sent to supervisors but I'm not feeling too confident about it. Oh well. Rest of week to re-jig a few bits, write intro and then the dreaded discussion/conclusion chapter which will no doubt take longer than I think as I'll have to go through the thesis to refresh what I've done and what I've found. Finding it hard to figure out my 'contribution' as I'm at the 'can't see the woods for the trees' stage. Had a total floopy last week about my appendices. How on earth do I put page numbers on pdf's and jpegs and how do I manage to put these into the 'final' doc???? Anyway, a bit clueless with stuff like that and additionally have little patience to 'figure it out'. Must find computer savvy admin person asap to assist I think. As I can see that taking way way longer than I have time for. Let's not even talk about the printing..... Also, laptop overuse has resulted in my left hand mouse button malfunctioning. It is now broken and this is proving rather annoying but no time to fix it so......SIGH!!! The joys. Roll on 11th August when the only thing I'll be worried about is that I drank one too many cocktails after submitting ;-) Good luck everybody....(up)