Thanks, Skig, for the clarifying and kind concerns:-) I understood Ady is not sleeping due to the stress. I wanted to cut down sleeping hours because I sleep 8 hours, sometimes more which I think can be cut down a bit:$.I did sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and thought of my thesis and got a bit nervous but generally my sleeping quality is good. So I wanted to see if I can focus as good with 7 or less hours sleep.

As for the viva,according our regulation viva will take place at least 8 weeks after submission. So I will be really pushing it if I submit in the end of Oct and wish viva to happen before Xmas. But you were right, it doesn't mean it's entirely impossible.

The problem with the length of my lit review, is I can't really shorten it. Basically my sup has attached the info that was originally in my first study to the end of my lit review. Which I find VERY bizarre.

So it did go...

Lit review = Theory 1, Theory 2, Introduce Studies (about 13,000 words).
Chapter 3 on methods
Chapter 4 = first study with its on literature to introduce it

Now it goes

Lit review = Theory 1, Theory 2, Introduce studies, literature for first study, hypotheses for first study
Chapter 3 on methods
Chapter 4 = no lit, just straight into results

I HATE the new structure. But I've tried and tried to change her mind and I can see its her way or nothing :-s

======= Date Modified 12 Sep 2011 18:11:49 =======
Sneak,some info to share about the length of chapters: We don’t have a rule to follow in our department but I’ve read that for a thesis with an overall text of around 80,000 words with 7-8 chapter, the chapter lengths is suggested to not go lower than 8000 words or higher than 12,000. But I am sure this is just a guideline, you know your project best, so I would agree with Skig to trust yourself. If you are not comfortable with the new structure, how are you going to defend it if it gets questioned in viva.

Now this reminds me of a couple of quotes, my supervisor “suggested” me to add in, which I can’t see any sense in adding them but I haven’t figured out what to do about this.

Sneaks, is your methods for your first study or methodology of the research? Does it go: first study lit review, hypotheses, methods, results and then you talk about your 2nd study?

Squaredot, you know yourself best but I really don't recommend sleeping less. I know I can't as I definitely see a difference in my concentration so I'd rather sleep what I need and be able to study all day than 'gain' an hour of waking time as this wouldn't be as productive for me, but I know I'm different from most people and I really NEED my sleep;-)

to clarify :$ not sleeping well due to stress but then I'm a very light sleeper, blame it on four children who never slept the night. Now that three of them are teenagers (and one is nearly 21 :$) it's a different story. Now it's hard to get them out of bed :-s. But no, I wouldn't recommend deliberately cutting back on sleep to squeeze more hours in the day. For me, it's early early morning - the further on in the day it gets the less productive I become. So whatever works

Thanks Skig and Ady ;-), I will keep your advices in mind and use tomatoes as a reference to compare my concentration level, would be interesting to run a regression for their correlations, he-he!

Goal for today:I've been working the scary chapter 6 at snail pace, so keep revising this chapter is my only goal for today.

Morning everyone.

Today, I am going to make some good progress on my data for my conference presentation. Goals:
1.) Clean the data
2.) Finish plan for analysis
3.) Make a start on the analysis

I'm also going to go for a good walk at some point, my life is getting far too sedentary!

@skig - my methods is really a chapter on epistemology and the context my research is in - it relates to the whole thesis, so its kind of odd that it jumps from hypotheses at the end of the lit review, into a chapter that talks about something else and then back to results lol. Its going to be awful. BUt I've spent a year trying to get around sup on this and she just won't let me. For ease of handing in, I'm just doing it her way. I know why she's done it, so I can defend it, but I just don't like it!

Morning everyone!!

@Sneaks - I'm with you on this one, the order is a bit weird and it's a shame you can't do it your way, after all it's your research. But all things considered, as long as you can defend it, let's get this submitted ;-)

Goals for today:
1) Spend 2 tomatoes on final editing of a chapter, refs and formatting, etc
2) continue my analysis and results

hello everyone,

Sneaks sorry about the thesis structure Dilemma, but really all you need to do is submit it and defend it the best way you can !! and Im sure you will do great....

Squaredot Im still on with my scary chapter as well .. made some good progress yesterday and then I hit a wall:$ but today its onwards and upwards!!WE SHALL OVER COME

Batfink, Ady,Skig .. all the very best with todays goals .. atleast the sun is shinning there is a lot to be said for that ;-)

My goal for today.

Complete the scary section and review scary chapter.

Naturalme, it is hard when hitting a wall,so well done on finding a way to make it through(up). I've re-structured the whole chapter, hope it will get slightly easier from here. Let's press on, we will get over this hurdle :-)

My internet has been down all morning which has been irritating, but I've got a few pages of re-structuring done that didn't require further literature.

I've found I get more work done if the internet's down (unless I need it, of course!)

Data cleaning is taking longer than I anticipated. Oh well, I have nothing else to do today!

Me too, internet can be such a distraction and I like to think I worked better when I didn't have broadband (I moved so had to live off a dongle for a bit) but it was so frustrating when looking for papers etc! You just can't win ;-)

It looks like we're all having a productive day today (up)

How is everyone's long list going? I crossed something off my list yesterday and it felt so weird, slightly unsettling, but not sure why.

Morning everyone! Hope you're all refreshed and get lots done today.

Today I am ploughing on with dealing with data. And I'm not going to get distracted by other things either, it will be a productive day, dammit!