Heh, that's great. I wonder what other first lines could be useful? 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness' seems to fit the bill, at least if it was one of those PhDs with a huge reflexive content!

Finished my questionnaire! Yay. Well, there's one section that I need to come back to when I get some info from an academic at another university, and it's still far too long, but those can be adjusted in the final version, so the pilot version is now complete! All I have to do is launch it on the website and send the link to the volunteers who have agreed to complete the pilot. But my eyes are so tired now that I think I'm going to leave that til the morning and do one last read-through for typos that I might have missed.

Phew, what a relief! I'm under orders from my supervisors to take the whole of next week off (they're so lovely), and my partner has organised to meet a big crowd of people in the beer garden of a nice pub on Friday afternoon, so I was desperate to get this all done. And finishing today means I can spend tomorrow getting other little bits and pieces sorted out before my week off. Happy happy happy!

Well done Batfink, enjoy your time off!

I am feeling quite drained today and like I could do with time off myself. But I am trying to push through and make progress with my literature chapters. My first goal today is to read a chapter, read over my notes and start writing on a particular topic. At least 500-600 words before finishing for the day (motivation and energy are low...).

Thanks star-shaped. And can you arrange to get some time off? It's hard to keep going at the best of times and everyone needs a break occasionally just to recharge batteries, but I think the next few days in particular are going to be difficult to motivate through. But good luck with the work anyway, hopefully you'll make great progress!

Been for a swim this morning so feeling a bit more alert than I did first thing. Today's goals are pretty straightforward:
1.) Do final proofread of pilot questionnaire and launch on website
2.) Email the weblink to the pilot respondents
3.) Email academic at other university about information he's sending me
4.) Update Word version of questionnaire to match web version
5.) Draw up detailed to-do list for after Easter
6.) If there's any time left, work on poster for university competition (otherwise, just go home!)

Well I'll still be chipping away at it over the next few days but taking it relatively easy. I'll be relaxing/drinking a lot over the May bank holiday though but want to make progress before then. I *might* have everything apart from my discussion done by the end of May so I figure I can relax properly then if I get on with it now.

I have now done my reading. My next goal is to write 500ish words.

That's not so bad then, if you do have at least one bank holiday to look forward to.

I have finished my pilot questionnaire, launched the web version and emailed the pilot respondents. Woo! That's a major step forward, and it's still only lunch time! I may well be able to achieve all my goals today.

I have written just over 500 words. And best of all, I realised that I had already written a chunk of about 1000 words which will go in this particular section. :-)

I am now going to go and do my food shopping, have lunch and then see how I am feeling about working this afternoon. The sunshine in the garden is quite tempting so I might just get back into it tomorrow morning.

Afternoon all, I have had a few weeks break and I seriously need a kick up the a**e to get moving again! I have viva prep to get on with, so todays goal is to complete reviewing chapter 1 and 2. Reading, reviewing, corrections listing, noting of key papers and adding some helpful post-its. Now I have written this to you all, I might just start doing something about it!

Morning all. I'm going to get a chunk of work done this morning before relaxing this afternoon.

My first goal is to redraft the stuff I was working on yesterday.

Half of the work has now been redrafted. My next goal is to read a couple of papers to incorporate into it so that I can redraft the rest.

hi all, I'm finally back!

Today, I want to design the basic structure for the conclusion chapter and write the main points I want to cover for each section.

Happy easter!

whats the word count for a sociology phd ? i have 60000 max sound right?

The word count really depends on what your department and / or university recommend. You should be able to access some guidelines from your department, I would think.

Right, first thing I need to do today is read up on how to write the intro chapter. my intro chapter has lost its way totally, so I need to figure out how to fix it first.

Hope everyone's day is going well :)

Great to have you back Pink Numbers!

My first goal today is to edit my analysis sections in my data chapter.

First goal is done. My second goal is my main task today which is to tidy up and pad out one literature section.