My supervision meeting is now over. My goal for the next few hours is to draft out the contributions section of my discussion.

Spent the morning faffing about with food shopping and handing the final version of hubs' thesis in - all the paperwork is now signed, so we only have to pay his fees :-( and he's a doctor :-)

My goal today is to re-work the method and analysis section of my first study.

That sounds like a very satisfying errand, Sneaks!

My questionnaire wordings are all updated, I just have to change the online versions to match and then write a cover email for one of the organisations. Then it's just down to my contacts in the organisations getting final clearance from their senior management to send out my emails, and my first major bit of data collection will be launched! Of course, the final clearances may take a few days, and I'll be hopping around nervously imagining all sorts of crises until it's finally all gone through....

Batfink - have you checked how your data comes off the survey? I've had several students end up with datasets of every cell being filled with '1' because they set it up wrong and we've had to do a lot of faffing to get their data out of it and useable.

It's all handled by the software - test versions seemed to come out okay, so hopefully it's all fine! But I will double check that, thanks for the prompt!

Was it actually read???

Am trawling through my supv's comments on my draft, many of which I agree with, some of which - hmmmmmmm. One of his main gripes is that I don't devote attention to the circumstances of the 'birth' of the policy at the kernel of my research. A new chapter is required, slotted (awkwardly I feel) after my methods, before my findings. I am to include parliamentary debates etc. I DO DO this in my introduction so have now cut these from my intro and inserted after my methods. There was me this morning writing all this stuff up feeling a distinct sense of deja vu. It's now mid-thesis but I preferred it where it was :-(

Am very p**ed off at the moment :-s. Also have decided that rather than comment on parliamentary debates I am going to include direct quotes from transcripts so they can't be missed!

Pass the pavlova :-(

Ady what's your supervisor's stance on how closely you have to follow their advice? OK so they generally know best but my sup stresses to me that all he is giving me is *advice*. If you feel strongly about it could you keep it how you prefer?


I have now finished drafting out my contributions and am starting to feel happy with the way my discussion chapter is going. I have a careers appoitment at 3.45 so I will read through my sups comments on a chapter until then. And then try to get back to work after the appointment instead of heading off to the gym at 4.15...

Was just about to apologise for ranting in this thread about individual issues of mine, so belated apologies :$

Star-shaped: my supv is similar and says that it's only his take on things etc. However he has said this a few times about the debates [how has he missed them in my introduction, I wonder??]. I have a 'prelude to analysis' chapter now which means that surely they can't be missed there. I do feel they were better placed in the introduction but with the additional info I have added to this area it would make my intro too long so I'll leave them where they are.

Thanks for input Star-shaped, appreciated :-)

Ady - don't be afraid to repeat stuff throughout. I've been doing a lot of that in the last week. And yes, you start going a little crazy thinking 'where did I read that before, was it in my method, my intro or in my study?' but my sup has told me to keep it all in for now and when its read as a whole we'll go through and take anything out that seems like its repeated *too* much, but in general she said there's no danger in hammering things home. If that means you have stuff in your intro, which you then expand on later, then I don't see the issue of having it in 2 places.

Liklihood is that your sup will read it and think you've done too much of it and then say something like "how about having this in the intro" - cue :-s

======= Date Modified 15 Jun 2011 15:40:05 =======
double post - too much pavlova!

ok, I'm now angry too :-s just had an email saying my lit review is too much 'what people have done' rather than 'why I'm doing it'. - even though I thought I had tons of stuff in there. Problem is my sup flicks through stuff once, skims it all and misses key things so I have no idea whether she really means this. ALso, she's refusing to read it properly until I've written the other 3 chapters. NOw, that's fine, but they are obviously leading on from the lit review, so if I go off on a tangent in the lit review, unknowingly, then the chapters will also be rubbish - hence wasting another month. :-s :-s

Really annoying for you Sneaks :-s. Supervisors, pah, who'd have em??

I feel really de-motivated now, and I was just getting into my chapter. Now I feel like going over the lit review and shouting "see - look here it is!!! here's my WHY" to an empty room. :-s :$

Heh - doing that to an empty room might be therapeutic, and probably better than doing it to your supervisor's face!

Sympathy with you all for suffering these frustrating supervisors and their frustrating advice!

My frustration is that the site that hosts my online survey has just crashed. So I could just clear off home instead of waiting for it to start working again. I'm actually feeling on top of things, so maybe I will do that!

ok a dog walk in the sunshine has eased my anger somewhat. Now, I've faffed and faffed all day long, I need to get my goal done.

Goal that must be done: re-work method and analysis section!